kingrant said:
He also said that he was against the new Indians coming in with their caste system and wanting to increase the number of Indian international schools. He wanted the new Indians to go on to local secondary schools to mix with locals otherwsie they would not get their PRs. Well, after he passes on, I dunno if the son thinks in the same way, or succumb to new Indian pressures. He was also mindful of comments that northern Indians intended to come in only to leech and then leave without their sons doing NS.
The issue of opening the door to North Indians is a tough call. The main reason for doing so is to allow Singapore to take advantage of the growth of India. If it were just for population, then no problem - bring in only South Indians. I was told once by a Singaporean Indian that a non-Indian would stand a better chance of doing business in India than a South Indian. That is the degree of discrimination they have in the caste system there.
If for the seek of future business with India, we have to bring in North Indians, then all the restrictions regarding schools, NS etc, I think the Old Man is right to insist on that.
One other fundamental thing we need to ask ourselves is - what kind of multiracial society do we want for Singapore? A fully integrated Singaporean society with a common language but different mother tongues and the continuation of some customary practices but everything else being common? Or a melting pot of different cultures each keeping its own identity like in some western cities?
With the pace that we had adopted to increase our population, I did not see much attempt to go for the first alternative. Maybe with the pace that we have grew our population, it is impossible to get full integration. If we don't make this attempt to integrate, we will have to live with all the attendant issues in society. I am not talking just of Indians, but Chinese, Malay, Filipinos and Caucasians as well.
