- Joined
- Jul 24, 2008
- Messages
- 33,627
- Points
- 0
<TABLE class=msgtable cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="96%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msg vAlign=top><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgbfr1 width="1%"> </TD><TD><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0><TBODY><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgF width="1%" noWrap align=right>From: </TD><TD class=msgFname width="68%" noWrap>kojakbt22 <NOBR>
</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate width="30%" noWrap align=right>12:41 am </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT height=20 width="1%" noWrap align=right>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname width="68%" noWrap>ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>21640.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD>Integrating expat Indians into Singapore
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>They are articulate in English, work in professional fields, and more of them are choosing to make Singapore their home. Insight asks members of the Indian expatriate community about the issues they face where integration is concerned. What can be done to promote it, what pitfalls are there, and how important is integration to them?
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Cai Haoxiang </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
SINGAPORE-BORN Ms Sakina Dhilawala, 45, feels expatriate Indians and local Indians can socialise more.
The two groups, for all their common ethnicity, are as different as chalk and cheese because their histories and interests are sharply different.
For example, Indian expatriates are very often interested in cricket, while Indian Singaporeans would probably be more interested in soccer.
The expatriates also want to know more about Indian and global politics, not local politics.
'There are many such small differences that add up in creating a cultural divide between the two,' notes Ms Dhilawala.
She works for an online magazine and is a co-founder of the Monsoon Theatre company, which aims to produce plays with broad Indian appeal.
According to the Indian High Commission, more than 5,000 Indians renounced their Indian citizenship in favour of Singapore citizenship in the last three years - 1,914 in 2007, 1,859 last year, and 1,508 from this January to last month.
It did not have figures for those who became permanent residents (PRs), as they are not required to inform the High Commission. The number is estimated to be several times that of citizens.
In spite of the huge number taking up residence in Singapore, however, their integration into Singapore society remains fraught.
Speaking in Parliament two years ago, MP Indranee Rajah raised the issue, saying: 'Singaporean Indians are concerned about the Indians from elsewhere who either work here or are new citizens and PRs here. There is a concern that they don't mix with the local Indians...they stay apart and, in some cases, consider themselves superior to the local Indians.'
MP Inderjit Singh added: 'The new Indians are better educated and wealthier and are keeping among themselves. Indians who are Singaporeans by birth feel threatened.'
Both MPs, however, stressed that discomfort with recent immigrants was not confined to the Indian community.
Capping a number of other government pronouncements on the issue, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week responded to Singaporeans' discontent with the surging number of foreigners in recent years.
Speaking during a forum at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), he gave the assurance that Singapore's rapid intake of foreign workers will slow down. However, he pointed out that Singapore needs immigrants if it is to continue growing.
A day later, the National Integration Council (NIC), a government-led panel, released a slew of recommendations to promote integration between immigrants and citizens, along with a $10million fund for non-profit organisations to utilise for integration projects.
Language is a major issue when the topic of interaction between locals and foreigners comes up.
'If they don't speak the same language, it is difficult to achieve communication,' says Mr Avinash Lotke, 35.
He is president of Maharashtra Mandal Singapore, a society which promotes the culture and music of Maharashtra state.
India itself is a diverse country with more than 150 languages - 29 spoken by over a million people each, and 122 by more than 10,000. Hindi is the official language used in its Parliament and official documents, as well as the state language for some states.
The majority of Indian Singaporeans, however, speak the Tamil language because of their origins from the southern Tamil Nadu state.
Few recent Indian arrivals speak Tamil.
To bridge the divide, says Mr Lotke, 'one way is to have activities that do not depend on language, such as sports and music'.
Mr Lotke is also pre-sales manager of an IT company. He sends his two daughters, aged 10 and six, to local schools, where they study Chinese as a second language.
Outside school, they take classes in Hindi as well as their mother tongue, Marathi.
Integration activities need to be pursued carefully, note Indian expatriates.
Almost all who were interviewed by Insight made the same point: that integration takes time, and cannot be forced from the top.
Mr Nikhilesh Gupta, 51, president of the Bengali Association and chief executive officer of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation here, says that expatriates might take some time to appreciate local Indian food such as roti prata, or local humour.
Integration might take decades, or even centuries, he says, citing the Chinese community in the West Bengal city of Calcutta, now known as Kolkata, as an example.
'Calcutta is a culturally rich place and the Chinese there are very integrated, but that took decades and centuries to happen,' he says.
The Chinese community in Kolkata dates back to at least the early 19th century, when migrants from China settled in large numbers to become carpenters and tannery workers.
A Chinese friend of Mr Gupta's, who comes from Kolkata, surprised an Indian coffee-shop owner here when he spoke fluent Hindi to him.
Mr Gupta also cites Mr Chang Mei-yang, a 26-year-old dentist-turned-actor and resident of Dhanbad in north-east India who reached the semi-finals of Indian Idol two years ago. He became a national celebrity.
'This is what integration is all about: it doesn't matter what your colour, race or religion is. You mix freely and exchange healthy ideas,' says Mr Gupta.
While government-initiated integration programmes will not work as well as bottom-up measures, they can - and do - help in other ways, says Mr Supriyo Sircar, president of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Alumni Association in Singapore.
He spoke of the alumni association's Family Day event at the Singapore Discovery Centre last month, co-organised with the Bukit Timah Community Club (CC) and with the support of the NIC.
It was the first partnership between an international alumni association, a local grassroots organisation and the NIC to help socially integrate people who live and work in Singapore.
It attracted 150 participants from the IIT alumni association, Bukit Timah CC, the Hua Yuan Association, which caters to Chinese immigrants, and alumni of NTU and the Singapore Management University.
The Government is helpful in events like this, by broadening existing events and making them more inclusive, says Mr Sircar.
'Many Indian associations in Singapore are genuinely interested in contributing to society,' he says.
Adds Mr Lotke: 'We are here to make a living, we want to live in peace and harmony, we want to make friends.'
[email protected]
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgVFM colSpan=2 align=middle>View Full Message</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD>They are articulate in English, work in professional fields, and more of them are choosing to make Singapore their home. Insight asks members of the Indian expatriate community about the issues they face where integration is concerned. What can be done to promote it, what pitfalls are there, and how important is integration to them?
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Cai Haoxiang </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
SINGAPORE-BORN Ms Sakina Dhilawala, 45, feels expatriate Indians and local Indians can socialise more.
The two groups, for all their common ethnicity, are as different as chalk and cheese because their histories and interests are sharply different.
For example, Indian expatriates are very often interested in cricket, while Indian Singaporeans would probably be more interested in soccer.
The expatriates also want to know more about Indian and global politics, not local politics.
'There are many such small differences that add up in creating a cultural divide between the two,' notes Ms Dhilawala.
She works for an online magazine and is a co-founder of the Monsoon Theatre company, which aims to produce plays with broad Indian appeal.
According to the Indian High Commission, more than 5,000 Indians renounced their Indian citizenship in favour of Singapore citizenship in the last three years - 1,914 in 2007, 1,859 last year, and 1,508 from this January to last month.
It did not have figures for those who became permanent residents (PRs), as they are not required to inform the High Commission. The number is estimated to be several times that of citizens.
In spite of the huge number taking up residence in Singapore, however, their integration into Singapore society remains fraught.
Speaking in Parliament two years ago, MP Indranee Rajah raised the issue, saying: 'Singaporean Indians are concerned about the Indians from elsewhere who either work here or are new citizens and PRs here. There is a concern that they don't mix with the local Indians...they stay apart and, in some cases, consider themselves superior to the local Indians.'
MP Inderjit Singh added: 'The new Indians are better educated and wealthier and are keeping among themselves. Indians who are Singaporeans by birth feel threatened.'
Both MPs, however, stressed that discomfort with recent immigrants was not confined to the Indian community.
Capping a number of other government pronouncements on the issue, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week responded to Singaporeans' discontent with the surging number of foreigners in recent years.
Speaking during a forum at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), he gave the assurance that Singapore's rapid intake of foreign workers will slow down. However, he pointed out that Singapore needs immigrants if it is to continue growing.
A day later, the National Integration Council (NIC), a government-led panel, released a slew of recommendations to promote integration between immigrants and citizens, along with a $10million fund for non-profit organisations to utilise for integration projects.
Language is a major issue when the topic of interaction between locals and foreigners comes up.
'If they don't speak the same language, it is difficult to achieve communication,' says Mr Avinash Lotke, 35.
He is president of Maharashtra Mandal Singapore, a society which promotes the culture and music of Maharashtra state.
India itself is a diverse country with more than 150 languages - 29 spoken by over a million people each, and 122 by more than 10,000. Hindi is the official language used in its Parliament and official documents, as well as the state language for some states.
The majority of Indian Singaporeans, however, speak the Tamil language because of their origins from the southern Tamil Nadu state.
Few recent Indian arrivals speak Tamil.
To bridge the divide, says Mr Lotke, 'one way is to have activities that do not depend on language, such as sports and music'.
Mr Lotke is also pre-sales manager of an IT company. He sends his two daughters, aged 10 and six, to local schools, where they study Chinese as a second language.
Outside school, they take classes in Hindi as well as their mother tongue, Marathi.
Integration activities need to be pursued carefully, note Indian expatriates.
Almost all who were interviewed by Insight made the same point: that integration takes time, and cannot be forced from the top.
Mr Nikhilesh Gupta, 51, president of the Bengali Association and chief executive officer of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Foundation here, says that expatriates might take some time to appreciate local Indian food such as roti prata, or local humour.
Integration might take decades, or even centuries, he says, citing the Chinese community in the West Bengal city of Calcutta, now known as Kolkata, as an example.
'Calcutta is a culturally rich place and the Chinese there are very integrated, but that took decades and centuries to happen,' he says.
The Chinese community in Kolkata dates back to at least the early 19th century, when migrants from China settled in large numbers to become carpenters and tannery workers.
A Chinese friend of Mr Gupta's, who comes from Kolkata, surprised an Indian coffee-shop owner here when he spoke fluent Hindi to him.
Mr Gupta also cites Mr Chang Mei-yang, a 26-year-old dentist-turned-actor and resident of Dhanbad in north-east India who reached the semi-finals of Indian Idol two years ago. He became a national celebrity.
'This is what integration is all about: it doesn't matter what your colour, race or religion is. You mix freely and exchange healthy ideas,' says Mr Gupta.
While government-initiated integration programmes will not work as well as bottom-up measures, they can - and do - help in other ways, says Mr Supriyo Sircar, president of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Alumni Association in Singapore.
He spoke of the alumni association's Family Day event at the Singapore Discovery Centre last month, co-organised with the Bukit Timah Community Club (CC) and with the support of the NIC.
It was the first partnership between an international alumni association, a local grassroots organisation and the NIC to help socially integrate people who live and work in Singapore.
It attracted 150 participants from the IIT alumni association, Bukit Timah CC, the Hua Yuan Association, which caters to Chinese immigrants, and alumni of NTU and the Singapore Management University.
The Government is helpful in events like this, by broadening existing events and making them more inclusive, says Mr Sircar.
'Many Indian associations in Singapore are genuinely interested in contributing to society,' he says.
Adds Mr Lotke: 'We are here to make a living, we want to live in peace and harmony, we want to make friends.'
[email protected]
</TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgVFM colSpan=2 align=middle>View Full Message</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
