50 Years of Indian Community in Singapore

The following sections are included:

• Foreward
• Contents

In 1992, the Indian Community hosted a farewell dinner for Singapore’s founding Prime Minister on his retirement as PM. The Organising Committee decided to present him with a book that captured his relationship with the Indian community during his days as head of government. The title of the book was ‘A Place in the Sun’. The message we were trying to convey was that in spite of the fact Indians were less than 10% of the population, he ensured we had a meaningful role in independent Singapore. He did not do this by having a token presence of Indians in visible positions. He ensured that those he inducted into the cabinet as well as senior positions in the civil service were men of substance with strong value systems. Singaporeans accepted them not because they belonged to a minority group, but because they were competent ministers and offi cials who carried out their jobs fairly and efficiently…

The following sections is included:

• Introduction
• Forging the Diaspora
• The Second World War and the Indian National Army
• New Exigencies
• Independent Singapore

The following sections is included:

• Background
• IHC Building Design Concept
• IHC’s Gallery Content
• Community Contribution to the IHC
• Acknowledgements
• Conclusion

In the 50 years since the establishment of the Republic of Singapore, ‘Indian’ has been a word spread and repeated — and thus shared as a common-sense word. It is one of the four motifs — ‘Chinese/Malay/Indian/Other’ (CMIO) — that are used to talk about (the self as one of ) the people of Singapore. This paradigm involved a process of institutionalisation, and was used more stringently up until the early 1990s…

The following sections is included:

• Visual Arts
• Performing Arts

At the time of Singapore’s separation from Malaysia in 1965, owing to the colonial past, a cultural gulf existed between English-educated Tamils and predominantly Tamil-using Tamils. Tamil literature was left to the latter to be fostered as part of their Tamil language efforts. Becoming and being a literati has been the ideal among them. This ideal was rooted in the late colonial period and fully developed in the post-colonial years in Tamil Nadu, Malaya and Singapore. Most writers were lowincome earners associated with working-class Tamils. Most of them were unschooled and worked as daily rated labourers, hair-dressers, road laying coolies, port workers, Tamil school teachers and some were even unemployed. Their asset was their high aspiration to be recognised as a writer. This passion drove them to self-educate themselves in the art of writing grammatically structured poetry, short stories and novels and become eloquent public speakers. Amongst the Tamil writers of that era, those who worked at the radio stations and newspapers or at the Indian Movie News magazine were considered as being privileged as they were paid to write. Often, they remained a class apart from the rest of the writers…

Hindi has always had a tentative position in Singapore’s multicultural setting. In the public sphere, initially Malay, and now English, serves as the lingua franca for inter-ethnic communication. Even in the Indian community in Singapore, Hindi speakers comprise a ‘minority within a minority’ — a corollary of large-scale immigration from southern India historically, which ensured that Tamil speakers constituted the largest component of the Indian population here. Consequently, for much of Singapore‘s history, interaction in Hindi tended to be confined to “the domains of the home, for interaction with relatives … [co-ethnic] friends, and for community related uses.” That said, over the last 25 years, Hindi has emerged as the fastest-growing Indian language in Singapore, and its visibility in the public sphere now extends well beyond just the Hindi-speaking community. This chapter historicises the changing position of the Hindi language in Singapore, with a focus on developments after independence in 1965. In so doing, the chapter examines the historical development of the language in Singapore to provide context; it explains how specifi c policies adopted by the state after 1965 resulted in the near attrition of the language in the city by the late 1980s; and goes on to analyse why the language has, metaphorically, ‘risen from the ashes’ to its current position of strength.

The majority of the resident Indian community in Singapore is of South Indian origin, particularly of Tamil ancestry. Early settlers, many of whom were indentured labourers, brought with them to Singapore their traditions, languages and a strong sense of culture. In Singapore, Indian writers, using both English and in the vernacular, have developed the genres of poetry, drama and the short story to particular relevance, and these literary forms still remain more popular than the genre of the novel. Yet, the pool of Indian writing in English as compared to the body of writing in the vernacular is small. A portion of Tamil writing is translated into English, but few Tamil writers write directly in the English language, and translations are not considered in this short assessment…

Indian political participation in Singapore goes far back into the city’s colonial history. However, it was cast in sharp relief following Japan’s defeat in World War II. Although the Indian National Army (INA) had failed to liberate India with Japan’s help, the struggle for India’s independence unleashed a burst of insurgent energy among Indians in Singapore and Malaya. That radicalism proved to be resilient when it planted its roots in local soil. Singapore Indians turned their attention away from their role in India’s independence to the anti-colonial struggle against the British returning to their own region…

At around 9% of the population, a share that has not changed hugely over the last 100 years, the Indian community has contributed a reasonable share of the labour force, professional class and business community of Singapore for a long time. This article traces the evolution of Indians as an economic infl uence in Singapore over the years.

A significant milestone in the Singapore–India bilateral relations was achieved when tourists from Singapore were allowed ‘visa-on-arrival’ by the Indian government in 2010 on a unilateral basis. This further enhanced the mobility of people between the two states, the momentum for which had already begun more than a decade ago. Interestingly, the visa requirements for mutual travel were only introduced in the 1980s, which meant that the colonial conjunctions that had been created in the 19th and 20th centuries fl owed into the post-independence era bearing strong footsteps of a legacy, and had not disappeared at any point of time. One of the less visible of these legacies was the existence of the Indian business communities in the changing landscape of Singapore in the post-1965 phase. This article will attempt to throw some light on the changing roles, sustenance and progress of these communities in the larger framework of Singapore’s success story…

On any given day at Raffles Place, Changi Business Park or any of Singapore’s many commercial hubs, a stream of Indian professionals can be seen sauntering in executive wear or unwinding after office hours at the city’s myriad watering holes. Many of these professionals are India’s top talent, who have graduated from the best universities in India and abroad, and they now populate many key industries in Singapore, such as finance, technology and business services. Additionally, many professional areas, such as accounting, legal, medical and academia, have also hired talent from India so as to compete better in the rapidly globalising Singapore. Consequently, Indian professionals and knowledge workers now form a significant part of Singapore’s growing global workforce. Like their counterparts in business centres in London or New York, over the last two decades, many of them have adopted Singapore as their home, and so they constitute an important thread in the fabric of Singapore’s society.

Nearly two centuries ago, Chettiars from South India were a prominent group of commercial migrants whose financial skills oiled the wheels of commerce in colonial Singapore. They successfully provided the skills needed at that time. Similarly, today's professionals from India come armed with the 21st century skills needed by a new and more global Singapore.

Indian women in Singapore have left their footprints firmly in Singapore’s sands of time and history with their dedicated contribution to various forms of human activity and industry. Some of them are not with us today, but their contributions continue to benefit us. Others who are still with us continue to make significant contributions nationally and internationally in their respective fields of interest. We have political leaders, social activists, civil servants, social workers, community leaders, administrators, artists, doctors, lawyers, business entrepreneurs, journalists, athletes and many others who have proved that, despite all the odds being stacked against them, they can equal anyone else in every way. They have made a difference, enjoyed the support of their families and many have raised daughters and sons who have and still are contributing to Singapore’s economy and society…

In 1947, when India was carved up in order to make Pakistan, millions who moved across the new dividing line are now called Indians. In 1971, when East Pakistan seceded to become Bangladesh, millions of former Pakistanis became Bangladeshis. The land of what is now Pakistan has lived through two bloody and bitter ‘partitions’ and we should honour those who belonged to those lands of pre-Partition India and contributed to independent Singapore, regardless of what they are labelled as now…

Singapore was a Crown Colony founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819 and was used as a criminal settlement for the Indian convicts. The first Parsi in Singapore unfortunately was a convict by the name of Muncherjee. When he fell seriously ill in 1829, an Armenian, Aristarcus Sarkies, persuaded the Parsis in China to buy a burial place for Zoroastrians/Parsis in Singapore. A plot of land was bought in what is today the most prestigious banking area of Shenton Way from funds raised by Hong Kong Parsi traders. In 1848, more land was bought adjacent to it in order to build a bungalow as a Parsi Lodge for Parsi traders from China to rest and hold Zoroastrian religious ceremonies. In fact, Mr. Cawasji Shapoorji was the first Parsi to reside in the region in Penang in Malaysia, much before the convict Muncherjee in Singapore. His name is on the records of Lodge Napier No. 441 in 1832. There was also a Parsi burial ground, but no records are available…

The story of Indian Singaporeans in the next 50 years begins on the high note struck 50 years ago. Singapore’s founding fathers envisaged an integral national role for them born of rights and not sufferance. The enshrinement of Tamil as one of the four official languages was a reminder to all Singaporeans that Indians had an acknowledged place in the national scheme of things. To Indians, the message was that they would need to think and behave as Singaporeans first and last. Certainly, the ancestral part of their national identity was an important component of their personal and social consciousness, but ethnicity was not destiny: nationalism was and would be. Fifty years from 1965, Indian Singaporean children enjoy a confidence that is no less than that felt by children from other races, although Indians are Singapore’s second minority. Indeed, one of Singapore’s greatest achievements is that minority status confers protection, but does not invoke insecurity. From the protection of Tamil to the attempt to ensure minority representation in Parliament through the Group Representation Constituencies scheme, being from a minority community has its advantages. This is no small matter given the ways in which minorities elsewhere are sometimes turned into scapegoats for all that goes wrong with the national direction set by a jealous majority. Singapore must preserve this multiracial status quo into the next half-century…

The following sections is included:

• Index