I am a third generation Singaporean. Apart from my paternal grandmother who was born in Malaya, the rest of my grandparents migrated to Singapore prior to World War 2 from various parts of Kerala in India. The people from Kerala are known as Malayalees and our language is Malayalam. According to the Singapore Malayalee Association website, there are about 30,000 of us in Singapore, which makes us an extremely small group.
Even within the small Malayalee community here, there are different religious groups all with ancient traditions. As Kerala is a coastal state on the South West Coast, it attracted a wide variety of people who came to trade and the religions practiced in Kerala include Hinduism, Catholicism, Christianity (including Anglicans, Mar Thoma and Syrian Orthodox), Judaism and Islam. There is also evidence that Jainism and Buddhism once flourished in Kerala, though these groups may have since been absorbed into the Hindu fold.
I had a somewhat divided Malayalee heritage. My father’s side of the family was Hindu and my mother’s side of the family was Christian. I understand that after they met and decided to get married, they both decided to put religion aside and bring up their children in secular fashion.
Although I was not religious myself, religious festivals were very much a part of many of our broader family events. I remember going to both temples and churches for the weddings and funerals of my relatives. Our family used to celebrate Christmas, Deepavali and Onam (a Malayalee festival) with our wider family. Sometimes with a party, other times, with simple family gatherings. I played the role of page boy at my aunt’s wedding in church and was one of the people assisting in the last rites of my Hindu grandparents.
To me, I was engaging in these traditions out of respect to my extended family – the traditions were important to my family, and my famiy was important to me, so I honoured the traditions. They were also wonderful opportunities for the broader family to get together.
Accepting differences was easy for me and as such, it was not difficult for me to accept, relate to and make friends with people of different races and religions because it was an inevitable part of my upbringing and my mixed family heritage.
However, this was not always the case in my family. At the time my parents were planning to get married, in the 1970s, I understand there was concern from both their parents that they were marrying out of their religious group.
My father’s Hindu roots trace back many hundreds of years in Kerala. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nair) Likewise, my mother’s side of the family was Christian and attended both the Anglican and Mar Thoma churches, the latter tracing its origins as a Church to Jesus disciple St. Thomas. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar_Thoma_Church)
I am guessing it was a difficult decision for both my parents to make at the time – in a sense, they both had to break from their past to build their future. However, after some years of courtship, and many ‘meet the parents’ sessions, my respective grandparents warmed to the idea and gave their support to the marriage.
Some compromises had to be made. I believe my parents had to wait for some of their younger siblings to get married first, in case their marriage outside their respective communities ruined the odds of their siblings getting married. To allay the concerns of both sides, they got married in a civil ceremony rather than a religious one.
By the time I was born, I saw none of these early tensions. I have memories of childhood in the 1980s, with both my grandfathers enjoying their drinks and nuts together. My grandmothers too got along very well together, and both were excellent cooks. They had obviously found common ground to relate on, notwithstanding their differences.
I remember receiving nothing but warmth and affection from both sides of the family while growing up. Subsequently, one of my uncles married a Chinese lady and now has two teenage children, and one of my cousins is also about to marry a Chinese lady. They have also been welcomed into and accepted by the family.
I wonder whether my own experience may be a microcosm of the larger Singapore story over the last three generations. During my grandparents’ generation, the first immigrants, people stayed very closely within their communities, as defined by both race and religion. There was general cordiality, but ideas such as marriage outside the narrowly defined community would have been unthinkable.
My parents, part of the post-war baby boom, were born in British ruled Malaya and grew up during the early years of independence with friends from diverse ethnic groups. Inter-racial and inter-religious marriages were more common, but still required some work given the values of the previous generation.
In my generation, and certainly with my background, I have grown up mixing freely with people who have very different racial and religious backgrounds, in completely ‘colour-blind’ fashion.
At least from the experience of my family, I realized this religious tolerance was something that had to be developed with conscious effort in the generation before mine. It seems to me that it was done when my parents and grandparents managed to find common ground despite their differences.
I certainly hope that this is a process that will not be reversed or lost in my generation.
Vikram Nair is a lawyer specializing in Dispute Resolution, particularly International Arbitration. He has a keen interest in law, politics, philosophy, economics, business and finance and enjoys all forms of debate and discussion. He understands that there is often more than one view on most difficult issues and likes to keep his mind wide open.