Chengara Veetil Devan Nair (5 August 1923 – 6 December 2005), also known as C. V. Devan Nair, better known as Devan Nair, was a Singaporean politician and union leader who served as the third president of Singapore from 1981 until his resignation in 1985.
Politically active in both Malaysia and Singapore, Nair was a communist as a young adult, having been affiliated with the Malayan Communist Party (MCP). He harboured anti-colonial sentiments and aspired self-determination of Singapore, which was then a British colony, causing him to be detained by the British in 1951. In 1954, he joined the People's Action Party (PAP). He was detained again by the British in 1956, and remained so until the PAP won the 1959 general election and helped secure his release.
During his parliamentary career, Nair was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Malaysian constituency of Bangsar between 1964 and 1969 and for the Singapore constituency of Anson between 1979 and 1981. Prior to his presidency, Nair was Secretary-General of the People's Action Party of Malaya prior to Singapore's expulsion from Malaysia, and continued to serve after the expulsion under its new name Democratic Action Party (DAP) which he founded until 1967.
Nair would soon return to Singapore and echoed his leftist beliefs by becoming involved in the labour movement, including serving as Secretary-General of the National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) between 1970 and 1979, before taking up the presidency in 1981. After his presidency in 1985, Nair retired from politics and briefly moved to the United States before moving again to live out his final years in Hamilton, Canada, when he died there at the age of 82 of dementia in 2005.
Born on 5 August 1923 in Malacca, Nair was the son of a rubber plantation clerk, Illathu Veettil Karunakaran Nair, who was originally from Thalassery, Kerala, India.
Nair and his family emigrated to Singapore when he was ten years old and he received his primary education at Rangoon Road Primary School before enrolling into Victoria School for his secondary education where he passed his Senior Cambridge examination in 1940.
