Sepoys, convicts and the 'bazaar' contingent: The emergence and exclusion of 'Hindustani' pioneers at the Singapore frontier

Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

Volumn 35, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 1-19

  Rai, Rajesh ^a  

^a NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNIC GROUP; HISTORICAL RECORD; MIGRANT WORKER; MIGRATION; NINETEENTH CENTURY;

ASIA; EURASIA; INDIA; SINGAPORE [SOUTHEAST ASIA]; SOUTH ASIA; SOUTHEAST ASIA; UTTAR PRADESH;

EID: 23744507829     PISSN: 00224634     EISSN: 14740680     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022463404000013     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. Glenda Michelle Singh, Sociolinguistic influences on the maintenance of Hindi in Singapore' (M.A. thesis, Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore, 1994), p. 1.
2. See Gyanesh Kudaisya, 'Constructing the "heartland": Uttar Pradesh in India's body-politic', South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 25, 2 (2002): 157-8.
3. Steven Vertovec, The Hindu diaspora, comparative patterns (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 153-5.
4. The question of whether the 'N' in 'north Indian' should be capitalised is a difficult one. It tends to be capitalised in articles in Singapore and Malaysia because of the salience of the boundary between north and south Indians in this region (particularly amongst descendants of the diaspora born out of the colonial period). As Nirmala Purushottam notes, '"Indian" is seen to relate to the South Asian region that is neatly divided into two parts, a "North India" and a "South India", in a manner suggestive of a nice neat line dividing the "Indian" subcontinent. The two camps are treated as if there are irreconcilable differences between them. From this neat division arise many painfully amusing notions pertinent to "Indian". To take just one example, one informant vividly described the North as comprising more educated, fairer persons. The Southerner on the other hand is perceived as dark, generally less educated and Tamil-speaking'; Nirmala Srirekam Purushottam, Negotiating language, constructing race: Disciplining difference in Singapore (Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1998), p. 82. In this article I have chosen not to capitalise the 'N' in 'north' precisely because I did not want to add to the existing binary division. Moreover, this division has come to be increasingly irrelevant due to the demographic changes that have taken place in the Indian population over the last decade or so. Amongst the 'new' Indian professional migrants in Singapore this division does not seem as significant, however.
5. AbdulIah, Munshi. The Hikayat Abdullah, tr. A. H. Hill (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1970);
6. Dirk H. A. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and sepoy: The ethnohistory of the military labour market in Hindustan, 1450-1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
7. and Seema Alavi, The sepoys and the Company: Tradition and transition in Northern India, 1770-1830 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995).
8. See, for example, Ravindra K. Jain, South Indians on the plantation frontier in Malaya (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970).
9. Isabella Bird, The Golden Chersonese and the way thither (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1883), pp. 115-20.
10. A. M. Pountney, The census of the Federated Malay States, 1911: Review of the census operations and results including tables exhibiting the population by sex, age, race, birthplace, religion, and occupation (London: Darling, 1911);
11. cited in J. E. Nathan, The census of British Malaya, 1921 (London: Dunstable and Watford, 1922), p. 86.
12. Interview with Ram Awadh Tiwary, retired Education Officer, Singapore, 17 Nov. 2002.
13. J. F. A. McNair, Miscellaneous numerical returns [and] Straits Settlements population 1871 (Singapore:[s.n.], 1871), p. 8.
14. C. A. Vlieland, British Malaya (the colony of the Straits Settlements and the Malay states under British protection, namely the federated states of Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang and the states of Johore, Kedah, Kelantan, Trengganu, Perils and Brunei: A report on the 1931 census and on certain problems of vital statistics) (London: Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1932), p. 83; the 'Bengali proper' comment is on p. 84.
15. The new categories appear in Nathan, Census of British Malaya, 1921, p. 87
16. and Vlieland, British Malaya, p. 83.
17. Kudaisya,'Constructing the "heartland"', p. 155.
18. Vlieland, British Malaya, p. 84.
19. Both quotations from Vlieland, British Malaya, ibid., p. 84.
20. Vlieland, British Malaya, Ibid., p. 84.
21. Vlieland, British Malaya, Ibid., p. 84.
22. Interview with Mr Ram Janam Mishra, retired army officer, Singapore, 18 July 2002.
23. M. V. del Tufo, Malaya, comprising the Federation of Malaya and the colony of Singapore: A report on the 1947 census of population (London: Crown Agents for the Colonies, 1949), p. 77.
24. M. V. del Tufo, Malaya, comprising the Federation of Malaya and the colony of Singapore: A report on the 1947 census of population Ibid., p. 78; the comment on 'more obvious errors' is on p. 77.
25. G. A. Grierson, Linguistic survey of India, vol. 5, part 2 (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent Government Printing, 1927), p. 5.
26. Kernial S. Sandhu, Indians in Malaya: Some aspects of their immigration and settlement (1786-1957) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 130.
27. Amiya Barat, The Bengal Native Infantry: Its organisation and discipline, 1796-1852 (Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1962), p. 120;
28. see also Alan Harfield, British and Indian armies in the East Indies 1685-1935 (Chippenham, Wilts.: Picton Publishing, 1984).
29. Sita Ram Pandey, From sepoy to subedar; Being the life and adventures of Subedar Sita Ram, a native officer of the Bengal Army written and related by himself, ed. James Lunt, tr. Lieutenant-Colonel Norgate (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1970 reprint).
30. The comment on 'military enterpreneurship" is from Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and sepoy, p. 190.
31. Kolff, Naukar, Rajput and sepoy, Ibid., p. 185.
32. 'Marquis Cornwallis to Henry Dundas on the best mode of modelling the army in India, 1788', London, Public Records Office (PRO), Cornwallis Papers, PRO/30/11/211;
33. quoted in Alavi, Sepoys and the Company, p. 49.
34. Alavi, Sepoys and the Company, p. 186; the 12,000 figure is on p. 181.
35. Add. 29234, Warren Hastings, 'Copies of essays etc.', Warren Hastings Papers, British Museum,
36. cited in Warren Hastings, Warren Hastings Papers, ibid., pp. 44-5.
37. A. H. Amin, 'The forgotten regiments', The Defence Journal, 4, 10 (2001); downloaded from http://www.defencejournal.com/2001/may/forgotten.htm
38. Marquis Cornwallis to Deputy Governor and Council at Fort Marlboro, 1789, Cornwallis Papers, PRO/30/11/184,
39. cited in Alavi, Sepoys and the Company, p. 46.
40. Alavi, Sepoys and the Company, p. 45.
41. Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah, p. 85; the Java expedition consisted of as many as 4,000 European infantrymen and 4,000 native Bengal infantrymen with 300 cavalry (p. 88).
42. Munshi Abdullah, Hikayat Abdullah, Ibid., p. 49;
43. on language, see also Barat, Bengal Native Infantry, p. 125.
44. Charles E. Wurtzburg, Raffles of the Eastern Isles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 484.
45. Malcolm H. Murfett et al., Between two oceans: A military history of Singapore from first settlement to final British withdrawal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 48.
46. Harfield, British and Indian armies, p. 136; the 25th Regiment is mentioned on p. 133.
47. Harfield, British and Indian armies, Ibid., pp. 137-9.
48. Sandhu, Indians in Malaya, p. 130, citing an interview with Mufti Nisar Ahmad Khan Sahib, former Indian supernumerary officer, Malayan police force.
49. Sandhu, Indians in Malaya, Ibid., pp. 130-1.
50. L. N. Hull, letter to G. Bonham, Esq. Lieutenant Jackson and Esq. F. Bernard, 28 Feb. 1823, quoted in Charles Burton Buckley, An anecdotal history of old times in Singapore: From the foundation of the Settlement under the honourable the East India Company on February 6th, 1819 to the transfer of the Colonial Office as part of the colonial possessions of the Crown on April 1st, 1867 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1969), p. 86;
51. see also J. F. A. McNair, Prisoners their own warders (Westminster: A. Constable, 1899), p. 38b.
52. Sharon Siddique and Nirmala Puru Shotam, Singapore's Little India: Past, present and future (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990), p. 9.
53. Sandhu, Indians in Malaya, pp. 134-5.
54. McNair, Prisoners their own warders, p. 73; Lt. Chester is mentioned on p. 9.
55. The quotation is from Kernial S. Sandhu, 'Tamil and other convicts in the Straits Settlements A.D. 1790-1873', in Proceedings of the First International Conference of Tamil Studies (Kuala Lumpur: International Association of Tamil Research, 1966), p. 200.
56. Murfett et al, Between two oceans, pp. 48 (Fort Canning Hill), 57 (Short St.).
57. John Cameron, Our tropical possessions in Malayan India (London: Smith, Elder, 1865), pp. 78-9.
58. Brij V. Lai, Girmitiyas: The origins of the Fiji Indians (Canberra: Journal of Pacific History, 1983), pp. 61-2 (quotation from p. 62).
59. Brij V. Lai, Girmitiyas: The origins of the Fiji Indians Ibid., p.62.
60. Bharatiya Bhawan and Arya Samaj Singapore (sponsors), Bhojpuri Music Festival souvenir magazine (Singapore, 1977).
61. Lal, Girmitiyas, p. 52.
62. A newspaper report in 1857 stated that 'there has lately been considerable sickness amongst cattle in Singapore. The convict and municipal departments, as well as private individuals, have lost a number of animals' (Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 23 Apr. 1857).
63. 'Colonial Service Prisons Medal', Majalah Penjara, 1, 1 (1958): 3.
64. Karpal Singh, 'An Indian dairy in Singapore' (Academic exercise, Dept. of Geography, University of Singapore, 1968), p. 5.
65. Cited in Buckley, Anecdotal history, p. 274.
66. Sri Krishnan Temple, A journey through Sri Krishnan Temple (souvenir) (Singapore, 2002), p. 6. Many elder Bhojpuri immigrants speak of the Krishnan Temple as having been their temple until it was 'taken over' by the Tamil community;
67. see also Siddique and Puru Shotam, Singapore's Little India, p. 27.
68. Singh, 'Indian dairy', p. 6.
69. Bhojpuri Music Festival, p. 5; interview with Brij Mohan Singh, great-grandson of Thankur Mangal Singh Gaur, 28 Jan. 2003.
70. Siddique and Puru Shotam, Singapore's Little India, p. 68.
71. Interview with Ram Janam Mishra.
72. Ibid.
73. Bhojpuri Music Festival, p. 5.
74. Singapore North Indian Hindu Association, Shree Geeta Jayanti and 70th Anniversary of Association (souvenir) (Singapore: Khalsa Printers, 1992), pp. 167-73.
75. KoIff, Naukar, Rajput and sepoy, p. 27.
76. Interview with Ram Janam Mishra.
77. Palany Sabapathy, 'A study of itinerant milk vendors' (Academic exercise, Dept. of Social Work and Social Administration, University of Singapore, 1968), p. 23.