History of Singaporean Indians
Ancient India exerted a profound influence over Southeast Asia through trade, religious missions, wars, and other forms of contact.
[2] Meanwhile, the royal and sacred associations of Fort Canning Hill, the seat of ancient rulers, are related to the Hindu Mount Meru concept.
[6] Indian contact was rekindled from 1819 to World War II, when both India and Singapore were under British colonial rule.
[7] Initially, Indian immigrants were predominantly adult men who came from India to find work, serve military duties or prison sentences for several years before returning home.
The chart below compiles data from various sources to show the evolution in the relative size of Singapore's Indian community.
[12][13][14][15] Scholars have characterised the Indian community in colonial times as being diverse and highly stratified along class lines.
These movements sought to promote what they saw as a more authentic form of Hinduism while addressing the abuses, such as the Hindu caste system.
It conducted missionary and philanthropic work, including operating a home for boys from troubled families in Singapore.
The group was popular among some North Indian Hindus in Singapore, but failed to gather much support from the rest of the Hindu community.
Founded in 1928 by Indian nationalists Subhas Chandra Bose and Jawaharlal Nehru, the organisation was active in Singapore and Malaya following Japan's successful Malayan Campaign in the Second World War.
One reason was the withdrawal of British military forces in the early 1970s, which led to the repatriation of many Indian base workers.
Young men underwent two years of compulsory national service in ethnically mixed military or police camps.
Traditional family businesses were superseded by government agencies or foreign multi-national corporations, which hired multi-ethnic workforces on the basis of meritocratic ability rather than kinship or ethnicity.
Although the Singapore government championed public policies and a political discourse of racial integration and national identity, it came to recognise that important differences in the socio-economic profiles of the three main races continued to endure in the post-colonial period.
Apart from ethnic self-help groups like SINDA (which remain controversial in Singapore), the government has in the main pursued policies emphasising racial integration and national identity.
A second phase began in the early 1990s, when immigration policies were liberalised to attract foreign professionals to boost the size and skills of the local workforce.
In addition to these professionals, unskilled foreign workers were recruited as low cost manual labour for construction sites and the cleaning sector, albeit without the prospect of permanent settlement.
This was mainly due to rapid growth in the number of Indian nationals who acquired Singapore permanent residency.
The chart below compiles data from various sources to show the evolution in the relative size of Singapore's Indian community.
