State, conservation and ethnicization of Little India in Singapore

Abstract

Using the Little India district as an example, this paper explores the relationship between state and ethnicity in Singapore. The Singapore state, since its formation, has established a clear multiracial framework for its population based on the so-called CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others) model. This multiracial model has become the guiding principle for the formulation of most of its social and development policies. This paper argues that the operation of the CMIO model is very much in place when the state implements its land planning and conservation policies of Little India. It examines how the state and the Indians themselves see the issue of conservation. The Singapore state sees conservation in an instrumental way: to preserve a little of its history and to commoditize it as a cultural form for the tourist industry. The Indians, on the other hand, see the conservation process as an important avenue to transform and ethnicize the place into their own ethnic space. By engaging in the economic, and especially cultural and socioreligious, activities in a visible way, the Indians have transformed the social landscape and established for themselves a distinct Indian ethno-cultural identity, one which differs greatly from the CMIO-based Indian identity that the state confers upon them. This contest of power between the state and the Indians resulted in two distinct types of Indian ethnicity. First, it is state articulated, based on the CMIO of model Indian identity. Second, it is the culturally based Indian ethnicity that the Indians themselves identify with.