Inter-area/Border Crossing

Organized Panel Session

(3) - Containing Pandora’s Box: Linguistic Representation of Multilingual Indians in Singapore

Singapore’s language policy has been instrumental in managing and consolidating the ethnic identities of its multiracial population comprised of three main ethnic communities: Chinese, Malay, and Indians. While the historic demands of nation building required a singular representative language per community, the choice of Tamil for the Indians was more contentious than that of Mandarin for the Chinese or Malay for the Malays. Over time, the challenges faced by non-Tamil students and sustained community lobbying finally led to the relaxation of education policy to permit five additional Indian languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu) as alternatives to Tamil in 1990.

Analysing language school enrolment data, this presentation highlights that contrary to expectation, increasing number of Indian students prefer Hindi over alternatives (often even their own mother tongue). Interview data indicate that language in education decisions among the transnational Indians stem not from sentimental attachments but from pragmatic evaluations of the status of languages in both Singapore and in India. The popularity of Hindi and the concomitant emergence of an alternate linguistic identity has heightened Tamil sensitivity, not unlike that in India. Caught in a Pandoric dilemma, the government can neither reverse policy changes nor stem the popularity of Hindi.

Suggesting that the Singapore case carries lessons for language policy as well as for management of pluralist populations, this presentation critiques the linguistic representation of collective identities. It contends that identity based policies face increasing challenges among immigrant populations and concludes with an exploration of possible alternatives.

Speaker(s)

• RJ

  Ritu Jain

  Nanyang Technological University, Singapore