Ramesh Vyas obituary

Our father, Ramesh Vyas, who has died aged 82, was a gentle, modest man who had an unerring sense of justice; someone who took pleasure in quietly challenging whatever prevailing prejudices and unfairness he encountered.

He was the second of four children born to Harakhji, a shop owner, and Nirmala, a housewife, in Hansot, Gujarat, India. When he was a young boy the family moved to Akyab (now Sittwe) Island in former Burma, but they fled back to Gujarat when Burma was invaded by the Japanese during the second world war in 1942. Witnessing poverty and suffering in both countries profoundly influenced him, and led him to abandon his traditional Hindu upbringing in favour of atheism, and to become a lifelong socialist.