New UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak With Roots From Kenya & Tanzania

Rishi Sunak is now the UK’s 57th prime minister after being invited to form a government by King Charles.

Since his announcement as the next UK prime minister on Monday, the media reports have been circulating “Man with Kenyan roots” headlines.

He is the third prime minister this year and will enter Downing Street as the youngest PM in two centuries.

Rishi’s paternal grandparents moved from Pakistan to Kenya, as Ramdas Sunak, his grandfather worked in Nairobi.

According to the PM’s biographer Michael Ashcroft, in 1935 Ramdas moved from Gujranwala (now in Pakistan) to work as a clerk in Nairobi.

The Punjabi Khatra moved due to the deteriorating relations between the Hindus and Muslims.

Rishi’s grandmother, Suhag Rani Sunak had moved from Delhi to Gujranwala with her mother-in-law, before their arrival in Kenya in 1937.

Ramdas worked as an accountant before becoming an administrative officer with the colonial government in the country.

In 1949, Yashveer Sunak, Rushi’s father was born in Nairobi. He was one of six siblings.

Yashveer moved to the University of Liverpool in 1966 to study medicine while his three sisters studied in India.

Family sources said he now lives in Southampton.

On the other hand, the PM’s maternal grandparents moved to Tanzania from Punjab.

His maternal grandfather, Raghubir Berry, grew up in Punjab and moved to Tanzania as a railway engineer and married Tanzania-born Sraksha Sunak.

According to sources, Sunak, who was married at 16 years, had grown to love Africa and even learnt Swahili.

The two later moved to the UK, a plan that was set by Usha’s fascination with the land of Shakespeare and Oxford.

Ashcroft said Sunak travelled there earlier in 1966 after selling her wedding jewellery for a one-way ticket.

She worked as a bookkeeper with an estate agent to be able to save enough money to have her family join her.

Berry followed soon after, and he worked for many years in the UK’s Inland Revenue department.

In 1988, he became a Member of the Order of the British Empire or MBE, an award for significant contribution to society.

They had three daughters, including Usha, Rishi’s mother, who was 15 when her mother left in search of a brighter future for her children.

Usha received a degree in Pharmacology from Aston University in 1972.

In 1977, She and Yashveer met through a mutual friend in the UK and married in Leicester.

They later relocated to Southampton, where Rishi was born on May 12, 1980.

Rishi has described himself as a proud Hindu.

He argued that his cultural heritage is Indian, like his wife, despite him being “thoroughly British”.

The PM on an occasion revealed his abstinence from beef on religious grounds and said he keeps a Ganesha idol on his desk.