November 3, 2017

“Haggling” by Kelman Chiang from SRN’s SG Photobank.Naraina Pillai (also known as Narayana Pillay) was the first Tamil on record to have arrived in Singapore. He came with Sir Stamford Raffles during Raffles’ second visit here in May 1819. Pillai settled in Singapore and established many businesses, also building Singapore’s first Hindu temple, the Sri Mariamman Temple. Like Pillai, many other ethnic Indians elected to immigrate to Singapore. At present they comprise about 9% of Singapore’s population, making them the third largest ethnic group in the cosmopolitan country.

India’s caste system is an ancient one, and still has ramifications today. However, despite the sizable minority of Indians in modern Singapore, many of whom were of the lowest ‘untouchable’ caste, both the system and its accompanying prejudices appear to have vanished. In A Subaltern History of the Indian Diaspora in Singapore (Routledge, 2016), Assistant Professor John Solomon (NUS History) traces this disappearance through the colonial period to Singapore’s independence in 1965, showing how the dramatic societal upheaval therein contributed to the evolution and dissolution of untouchable identity.

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