Good Food and enjoyment for Prata man

ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT S R NATHAN AT THE PBD SINGAPORE GALA DINNERON 10 OCTOBER 2008, 8.15 PM, AT THE RITZ CARLTON HOTEL

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to Singapore. We are honoured to host the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas for the first time in Singapore.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru once wrote, “I have become a queer mixture of the East and West. Out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.” That statement probably reflects the sentiment of many among the Indian diaspora.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is an idea that has different meanings for different people. For some it is something of a homecoming, a gathering of friends and families separated by distance but joined in a common spirit. For others, it is a cultural odyssey, an opportunity to go in search of their ancestral roots.

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Many of these migrants thought that their stay in Singapore was only going to be a temporary sojourn. It was no different for early Indian migrants who came to Singapore, many of whom remained deeply attached to their motherland. Indeed, one of the things that was unique about the Indian community in Singapore for many was its transient nature. As Nehru described it: “India clings to me, as she does to all her children, in innumerable ways.” So it was for these migrants. They were a diverse lot, originating from Tamil Nadu to Bengal to Kerala, and comprising Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Jains and Parsees. They came as traders, as soldiers and as the labourers who worked the plantations and built the growing city. But they kept their cultures and their links with India, never losing sight of it, and eventually some of them returned home after staying for a few years.

But there were many that stayed, and gradually a permanent Indian community took root, a development helped along by the creation of independent Singapore in 1965 and our nation-building efforts. Today, that community forms slightly less than 9 percent of Singapore’s population, but this belies the disproportionate influence that it has had on the development of independent Singapore and earlier over the past two centuries. The lives of well-known Indians echo loudly from our history books. Narayana Pillai, supposedly the first Indian civilian to set foot in Singapore, was a prominent builder and founded Singapore’s first Hindu temple, which still stands today. Dr N Veerasamy was a leading doctor and community leader in the early 1900s. S Rajaratnam was a founder of the People’s Action Party and one of Singapore’s most outstanding statesmen and author of the pledge that Singaporeans, young and old, rededicate themselves to.

The Indians here are doing WELL!