Little India gives headache to Singaporean society
Little India gives headache to Singaporean society
By Nesa Subrahmaniyan
SINGAPORE (Reuters): For visitors to Singapore, a country that prides itself on clean streets and orderly behavior, Sundays at Serangoon may come as a shock.
Every week thousands of foreign workers, mostly from India and Bangladesh, converge on the city-state's Little India area to shop, chat, eat and catch up with news from home.
By mid-afternoon the main Serangoon Road is, by Singaporean standards, quite chaotic. As the noise level rises, knots of chattering workers pack the pavement and spill out into nearby roads, turning them into a human obstacle course for drivers.
It is a colorful scene, testament to Singapore's diverse ethnic make-up.
But for some, the weekly hubbub is no laughing matter. They say the throng is a menace to traffic, disturbs the peace and has become a public nuisance.
There are signs the authorities are also growing concerned.
The Serangoon gatherings have recently been debated in the letters columns of The Straits Times newspaper, and police are grappling with ways to control the crowds.
Police now patrol the pavements and erect metal barriers on Sundays to prevent the human avalanche from spilling into the busy streets. But that has not helped much.
The area's town council said in a faxed statement to Reuters the gatherings had resulted in overcrowding, and made it difficult for residents to get to their flats.
"They walk as if this is India," said shopper M. Prakash, complaining about the carefree attitude of the workers.
But the workers and their sympathizers give a simple argument in their defense -- Singapore needs them and there is nowhere else to meet.
"These people have nowhere else to go and Little India is central to those coming from the extreme ends of Singapore," said private security officer Siva Rankan.
Most of the workers who come to Serangoon on Sunday are building laborers at the bottom end of Singapore's wage ladder and simply can't afford to hang out in the city's trendier areas.
The average pay for an unskilled Indian or Bangladeshi laborer is around (Singapore) $15 a day (US$8.50), not quite enough to buy a Singapore Sling cocktail at the famous Raffles Hotel.
"We come here (to Little India) for the same reasons as locals do, to shop and meet," said a Bangladeshi worker who would give his name only as Ali.
The workers are a vital part of Singapore's construction industry, where their low wages keep costs down. In white-collar Singapore, they do the jobs that locals no longer want.
The wages may seem meagre but it works out to around 30 times what they would get in India, said laborer K. Muthusamy from the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
He has big plans when he returns home next year.
"I want to buy a piece of land and pay for my children's education," he said.
Many workers gather at the foot of nearby government-built apartment blocks, upsetting residents.
While some prefer a siesta, the noisy chatter of those awake disrupts a peaceful Sunday and one resident said irate neighbors had thrown water on the workers in an effort to shut them up.
Taxi drivers are also disgruntled. "I used to go there before, but now I never go into the area," said one cabby, who wanted to remain anonymous.
Another driver said the subcontinental tradition of haggling over prices, something not done in metered Singapore taxis, was too much.
"Once the fare was S$12.60 but they paid me S$10 and said they do this in India."
As well as dismaying local taxi drivers, the male-dominated crowds have scared some women. One lady shopper said women stayed away from the place on Sundays as they were afraid of being molested.
"Once I felt someone touching my back and looked back but could not identify anyone in the crowd," she said.
Bring together thousands of young, single men, most of whom are confined to building sites for six days a week, and such problems are perhaps inevitable. Little India has a busy red- light district catering to the needs of lonely laborers.
But while a nuisance to some, the weekly influx is welcomed by Little India's myriad small shops and restaurants.
"Monday to Thursday, my shop's quiet, but from Friday to Sunday, my sales boom because of them," said one shop owner.
The workers defend their Sunday presence in Little India. "Sundays are our the only days when we can meet our friends and relatives," said P. Sinnappan, a Tamil.