G. Sarangapani, Editor of Tamil Murasu’ and Veteran Tamil activist received Periyar during his visit to Singapore in 1955.
The 146th Birthday of Thanthai Periyar was celebrated at the National Library Board, Singapore on 17th September 2024. As the major part of the celebration the book ‘Sojourners to Settlers – Tamils in South East Asia and Singapore’ compiled by Arun Mahizhnan and Nalina Gopal was reviewed. The book was published in Tamil with the title ‘ஊர் திரும்பியவர்களும் வேர் ஊன்றியவர்களும்’ and in English under the title “Sojourners to Settlers”. Both the volumes were compilation of articles contributed by various academicians and research scholars on the migrated population of Tamils in Singapore in the 19th and 20th century. The book has authenticated the impact created among the diaspora Tamils by the visits by Periyar E.V.Ramasamy (1879-1973) in 1929 and 1955 to the then Malaya, comprising the present sovereignties of Malaysia and Singapore. Out of the 13 + 14 articles, the excerpts from an article viz.
Related articles
Dravidian – Tamil – Indian: Morphing of Multiple Identities by Pravin Prakash has been reproduced as under:
Dravidian – Tamil – Indian: Morphing of Multiple Identities:
In the beginning itself it is stated, “the unbroken history of the Tamil Community in Singapore is well established since the acquisition of the island by Stamford Raffles in 1819. Following the establishment of a British settlement, there was a steady influx of Indian labour, largely Tamil, into Singapore.
‘A vast majority of Indian Labour’ came from the coastal regions of South Eastern India or the hinterland around Thanjavur from a variety of backgrounds, including but not limited to lower caste and ‘untouchable’ (Dalit) communities. Further it is said, ‘The British perceived Tamils as being primarily of the “Coolie Class” and ‘a servile and dependent group; the lowest class in society. The Tamil, and his language and culture by extension, were hence seen as inferior and that of a lower civilisational quality by the British, the other races and North Indian. The most devastating reality, however was that segments of the Tamil Community itself – the Tamil elite class, including the educated, the merchants and the bureaucrats – were keen to distance themselves from labourer, in order to maintain their social standing. From the above narrated level of Tamil community the unity among the Tamils was broughtout by the strenuous efforts of many Tamil Stalwarts.
‘The roots of a collective Tamil identity, societal reform and progress in Singapore and Malaya could be traced to Dravidian Movement in Tamil Nadu, India.
As early as in 1891, Pandit C. Iyothee Thoss formed the Dravida Mahajana Sabha to “take up the issue of civic disabilities suffered by untouchables. He published a weekly magazine, Oru Paisa Tamilan (One Cent Tamilan), in 1907 which aimed to ‘To teach justice’, right path and truthfulness to people.
Maraimalai Adigal who founded the Thani Thamizh Iyakkam (Tamil Purist Movement – independent functioning from the influence of Sanskrit) in 1916, “advocated against the infringement of Sanskrit accreditors in the Tamil language. The Movement had a decidedly anti-Brahmin focus and saw itself as the defender of the purity of Tamil culture and tradition.
It was with the advent of the Suya Mariyadhai Iyakkam (Self-Respect Movement – SRM) in 1925, under the leadership of E.V.Ramasamy (popularly known as Periyar), that the elite strains of Dravidian sentiment found popular expression and manifested themselves in a movement. The SRM was focused on social reform and hence “powerfully oriented towards oppressed groups in the caste hierarchy, including untouchables”.
Periyar also attacked Hinduism, which he saw as an insidious creation of Brahmins and Aryans to justify their superiority as having divine legitimacy. The SRM strongly discouraged the propagation of religion, especially the observation of Hindu rituals that required Brahmin priests and the use of Sanskrit as the language of prayer. Periyar also claimed that the caste system was a product of the Aryan desire to control and supress Davidians and urged all Dravidians, including the lower castes or the untouchables, to rally together and overthrow such hegemonic structures.
The SRM, however, began to truly reach out to greater sections of society and Tamil political consciousness only through its active participation and advocacy of language agitations in 1937. The Congress government in Tamil Nadu, with the agenda of propagating a pan-Indian society, had declared that Hindi would be an essential subject in all schools in Tamil Nadu. The fear of Hindi dominance and the decline of Tamil “triggered off violent reactions from Tamil patriots and rubbed salt in an already wounded Tamil consciousness.
The language conflict thus crucially “shifted the politics of the Dravidian movement from an internal conflict between Tamils over caste hierarchies to a broader struggle over the politics of language and identity” between a perceived Dravidian Tamil nation and an identifiable nemesis, an Aryan Hindi state. In 1944, the SRM morphed into the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) (Dravidian Association), a social association and not a political party at that time.
It is essential to note that Periyar and the SRM / DK were instrumental in laying the foundations of a Dravidian mass movement and identity and the eventual rise of a distinct Dravidian Tamil identity. The SRM’s radicalised views had two profound effects. First, its extremist views and militant stand set the stage for an ideology of the ‘common Tamil man’, with a distinct focus on backward castes and the struggling working class. Secondly, it created the seeds for a mass movement by both defining the Dravidian and also by ‘othering’ the non-Dravidian, through encompassing the language issue as part of the Dravidian movement’s ideology.
The movement’s foundation on self-respect, reform and a distinct casteless Tamil Dravidian identity, and its focus on the Tamil language as a means of mobilisation, meant that it was an extremely attractive ideology to Tamils in Singapore and Malaya who desired reform. Plagued with divisions of class and caste and desperately in need for progress and a common cultural identity, the Tamil community in Singapore was highly susceptible to the ideology of the movement.
Dravidian Movement in Singapore:
Reform and Progress
The earliest associations amongst the Tamil population in Singapore were “Caste federations or regional associations which were continuation of the relationships of immigration groups from their places of origins”.
The first attempt at creating a communal identity came, unsurprisingly from the urban upper middle class, which by the 1920s had levelled to enough members to make such an idea feasible and palatable. And their currency of communication was English, not any Indian language. In Singapore, the Indian Association was formed in 1923. A new breed of leadership did, indeed, emerge from the impulses of the aforesaid Self-Respect Movement of Tamil Nadu and found its way into Singapore. Foremost among the new leadership was Govindasamy Sarangapany, who was one of the founding figures of the Tamil reform movement in Singapore. Arriving in 1924 as a book keeper, Sarangapany was highly influenced by the reformist ideal of Periyar and the cultural reformism that had swept Tamil Nadu. Sarangapany and a few other similarly ideologically – disposed individuals such as A.C.Suppiah began to propagate the ideas of the Self-Respect Movement.
By 1929, “Sarangapany had started two newspapers, Munnetram (Progress) and Seerthirutham (Reform), which expounded the values of the Dravidian movement and aimed at encouraging the uplift of the Tamil community.” He also facilitated the visit of Periyar in 1929, and followed him on his tour around Malaya and Singapore, propagating the ideology of the Dravidian movement and the need for reform. Periyar’s visit formed the impetus for the creation of a plethora of Dravidian-influenced reform movements in Malaya and Singapore.
In Singapore, the movement was spearheaded by the Tamils Reform Association (TRA), founded by Sarangapany. The TRA, utilising the ideology of the Self-Respect Movement and the Tamil language as a common platform, attacked the issues facing the Tamil labour community head on and with dogged determination. Linking up closely with Malayan Dravidianist organisations, it took up the issue of untouchability, advocating successfully against discrimination against untouchable and depressed castes with regard to temple entry and worship as well as burial grounds. It addressed also the deep-seated problem of alcoholism within the community. The TRA fostered education among the children of labourers and founded and managed schools. It ran adult classes and lectures for labourers, promoting basic literacy and social awareness.
Dravidian ideology and the Tamil language as a mobilising cultural symbol equipped the socially-discriminated Tamil community with the tools to construct a social identity that would facilitate its upward social mobility. Tapping into notions of Tamil cultural superiority and historical greatness, it allowed Tamils to construct an imagined community that could be adorned with the trappings of primordial glory.
In the post-War era and by the 1950s, the Tamil community in Singapore possessed a distinctive identity and the Indian community was “becoming more diversified along linguistic affinities”. Sarangapany established the Tamil Representative Council (TRC) in 1952, which functioned as a “central council for fifty-six Tamil social organizations”, absorbing most of the Dravidian and reform associations, including the TRA. Throughout the 1950s, the TRC continued to promote reform within the Tamil community, such as compulsory monogamy, while pursuing the development of a stronger Malayan Tamil identity by organising the Tamil Festival (Thamizhar Thirunal) and championing the cause of an emerging Malayan Tamil literature.
Shifting Loyalties of Ethnic and National Identities:
The 1950s and early 1960s were also times in which Singapore was fast approaching independence and much of society’s focus revolved around concerns with impending independence. Sarangapany, the TRA and its allies played a critical role in rallying Tamils to embrace citizenship and the perspective of seeing Singapore as a permanent home, rather than a temporary residence to eke out a living. This effort was aided greatly by the second visit of Periyar in 1955 who exhorted Tamils to take up citizenship in Singapore and Malaya. The Tamil Representative Council (TRC) and Dravidian leaders maintained close links with the Peoples’ Action Party (PAP) which had come to power in 1959, lending support to the party during election campaign. Some Dravidian leaders were also PAP members and the “close proximity of these interest groups to the ruling party facilitated the formulation of policies that favoured the Tamil – speaking sections of the Indian community”; including the adoption of Tamil as one of the four official languages of independent Singapore.
Social and cultural variance within the population was thus “radically simplified to three main racial groups plus one residual: Chinese, Malaya, Indians and others with each main group receiving an official language. For the Indian category, Tamil was given such a privileged status in 1998, acceding to recommendations made by the Singapore Indian Development Association (SINDA), the Ministry of Education (MOE) set up the Tamil Language Review Committee (TLRC), “to help in identifying measures to enhance the teaching and learning of the Tamil language”. It also set up the Tamil Language Curriculum and Pedagogy Review Committee (TLCPRC) in 2004 to “arrest the declining use of Tamil in Singapore.”
In 2001, the Tamil Language Council (TLC) was set up to encourage Singapore Tamils to speak the language through its annual Tamil Language Festival. In 2006, the MoE set up the Tamil Language Learning and Promotion Committee (TLLPC) with the specific aim of getting students to be interested in learning Tamil and developing it than an abiding interest in the language, literature and culture.
Thus, extensive institutionalised support for the promotion and use of the Tamil language and the cultivation of Tamil culture in Singapore was, initiated and governed by the State.
Furthermore since 1977, the presence of the Indian Activity Executive Committees (IAECs) in most Community Centres under the People’s Association, a quasi-government organisation, and the umbrella grouping of communal activities of Narpani Pearavai have established a network of communal activities for Indians, with a focus on Tamil cultural events. These IAECs function as grass root organisations but are supervised by the government closely. They hold celebrations for cultural festivals such as the Tamil New Year and Pongal, much like Sarangapany and the TRC did in the post-war years. Even temple-based caste discrimination is a thing of the past as the government – appointed Hindu Endowments Board (HEB) exercised strong supervisory powers over Hindu temples and would not tolerate such practices.
Tamil is the only official Indian language that is taught widely in Singapore’s school system along with English, Mandarin and Malay. Within the National Library Board, provisions have been made to provide an extensive Tamil language service.
Earlier the legitimacy of Tamil language as a symbol of communal identity was found in its ability to function as means of facilitating reform and progress through a process of bottom-up mobilisation. At present state intervention and protection have imbued Tamil with official prestige. They have also weakened it by amputating the organic, bottom-up movements that had facilitated its growth and evolution.
