Singapore Sting

Remember the time every Indian politician promised that India would be like Singapore? Remember how its former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was idolised for the very things that Indians cannot do – be disciplined? Remember the shoppers glowingly talk about walking down Orchard Street, which had a better ring to it than London’s Oxford Street, teeming with its migrants?

Migrants. Yes. There is not much noise about the report that Indians are finding it increasingly difficult to rent houses in that country.

If you are an Indian in Singapore and looking for a house on rent, it is highly likely that you won't get one. Most Singaporean landlords don't rent their house to Indians and people from mainland China. According to local media reports, many landlords are open about it. The moment they realize that the tenant is an Indian, they say sorry and slam the door. According to a report by the BBC, a quick glance at online rental listings shows many that include the words 'no Indians, no PRCs (People's Republic of China)', sometimes followed by the word "sorry".

Such discrimination is not legally permissible. As this report says, Singapore is only about migrants. So, choosing to segregate one or two groups is racist in the extreme and shows how certain nationalities are seen as better or superior.

Among the reasons cited are smelly curries and lack of hygiene. Were one to accept these as flaws if viewed from another cultural perspective, then all ethnic groups can have similar problems. Besides, these are properties to be rented, not shared. The landlord can always add a clause that after the lease period the property should be returned in the condition it was rented out in.


I have visited several parts of Singapore and there are different smells and sights, some of which I found revolting. The residents might feel the same. ‘Little India’ is not a ghetto, but a hub of activity. And there is a growing clientele for smelly curries. I did not see much hygiene in other areas, too.

Except for the main boulevards, and their antiseptic streets and obedient flowerbeds, there are patches of a grim controlled environment, with drab beige buildings where the majority of the middle-class lives. The markets are piled with natural cures in the form of walking and flying little creatures. At dinner one night at the famed Harbour Front, a congregation of restaurants from different regions, all I recall was a woman throwing up, her indulgence a murky pool on the pavement.

I know this has nothing to do with segregation; I just wanted to recount what memories can do. Should I judge a person’s nationality by a natural occurrence such as vomiting?

As almost everyone is a migrant there is no pressure to be nationalistic in the narrow sense. I read that Indians are identified as a race, too. The product of cultural synergy would be properly referred to with a hybrid term, e.g. the child of an Indian and a Chinese would be a Chindian.

Does this complicate issues for renting out houses? Would a Chindian be turned away twice, because of the Indian and the Chinese connection, both ‘not allowed’? And would a Eurasian be more acceptable, because the ‘euro’ factor would take away the curry smell?

There are indeed some Indians who have done well for themselves, and many are second and third generation. Their legacy includes contributing to the country. But, then, can any society survive without its labour and its white collar workers? They may not live in homes where the spluttering seeds in oil reach out, but each day they keep the wheels lubricated for things to function. Denying them space merely for their origin does not reveal a modern attitude that Singapore prides itself in.

This is a silent sort of discrimination, its impact no less damning than the violent ones in other countries.

© Farzana Versey

Fighting Shit

Everybody needs to use the toilet. Every day. But in India, we exaggerate it. By doing so we do not give it importance; we merely magnify it in the lab under a microscope. More appropriately, we bring awareness to people who probably have a bidet, use perfumed toilet paper, and have a warm jet of water to clean up with.

National award-winning actress Vidya Balan is now the brand ambassador for the sanitation drive. This is the brainwave of Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh, who said:

"It is going to be a two year programme. She's had a dirty picture in reel life, but this will be a clean picture in real life. I think she will help in making sanitation a national obsession."

This is a silly comment, the transposition of dirty and clean. It is also a cheap gimmick. Ms.Balan’s giggle act and repetitious references to the film was bad enough, now a central minister wants to ride on it. There are people who have to shit in the open, in fields, in dug-up holes, and sewage even from hotels near water sources floats into our rivers and seas. Those people would have liked to have such facilities long ago. What does the minister mean by saying she will make it into a national obsession? The film became a publicity-geared obsession only for those involved. The others bought tickets, whistled, got off and moved on.

Using public facilities is a basic need. What is obsessive about it?

For Vidya Balan it is just one more satellite benefit for The Dirty Picture. She does not have to say it. Instead, the words are typically managed:

“It's an honour for me to be the brand ambassador for the sanitation drive and like Mr Ramesh just said, it needs to become a national obsession and I am going to do everything in my capacity to make sure that the message is taken across to every person.”

What will the ads tell people living in slums or in the interiors? It is the job of the government to provide public toilets and ensure that women do not have to hide their faces behind umbrellas as they sit alongside drains on roads to empty their bowels. Have you seen such scenes? Do you know how heartbreaking it is? Do you know how young women have to take someone along because there are predators waiting? Do you know that many cannot afford even the two rupees to use the public loos? Do you know that the cloth they use during their periods has to be washed in dirty water because there isn’t enough of it? Do you know that they stand for hours to fill buckets to use the water for drinking and cooking and recycle what is left? Do you know that children squat for hours only to see their malnourished droppings taken over by flies?

We look away, hold up our noses. Vidya Balan is doing it out of “conviction”, she says. Every Indian she reaches out to will remember her as she lectures on sanitation. They will probably have an inauguration in some cleaned up poor locality. After that, there will be clips on what to do and how to keep your environment free of disease on television.

The municipalities and panchayats should be regularly visiting these places. They ought to involve key workers from those areas, people who belong there, have suffered. I know that with Ms. Balan it is possible to get some industrial houses to shell out money. Yet, it won’t really reach out unless the infrastructure is in place.

I am waiting for someone to compare her to Mahatma Gandhi the minute she holds up a broom in her hand. It’s been over six decades when he started it. Has it made any difference? It did not then. It will not now. Except to honour the celebrities for their sanitised concern and conviction.

Squeaking about clean

I am charmed by Lalit Bhanot, the secretary general of the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. The fact that the facilities are unhygienic and he deems it as a difference in perception of standards of hygiene reveals a truth that we and the rest of the world refuses to accept.

It could be a nice cocoon within the complex, but does it change the way Indians perceive hygiene? Have you used toilets in public places? Haven’t you seen the manner in which people defecate and urinate in the streets? Before screwing up your noses, and we do that, let us remember that these people have no choice. Let us also try and look back at our ‘lesser’ athletes who have to make do with very basic facilities. Let us recall the times we have glorified this excreta and let the westerners make millions of dollars over the dump.

One is not pro-dirt. Bhanot has not ‘shamed India’ as the headlines claim. We need to see how we shame ourselves and our citizens everyday. If some countries want to bring their own janitors, then they might as well bring their mosquito nets and Evian bottles too.

It seems that they are deliberately showing these aspects much as the fear created over security. Why would our authorities let them take these pictures? And how do we know for certain what these particular photos are from and about? Something stinks here and it is not the poop.

Those who have travelled overseas do know that the quick-fix fragrance and automatic flush stuff is not always about cleanliness. Loos there have sanitary napkins and toilet rolls on the floor; the seats often have menstrual stains. We all know about the legendary lack of male aim, and it is universal. Garbage bins overflow and are collected weekly as they wait in the backyards of those who can afford backyards. People do pee against bushes. And where do you think the homless go to clean up?

There appears to be less dust due to the climate, but there is enough of it going around. Mouldy foodstuff is pushed into a microwave to come out as good as new. Yes, Indians spit, but if you have seen any Phil Donahue show or read some silly stuff about Hollywood starlets and models you will know that their natural resources are expended in quite public a fashion. I know of women unable to control their bladders who have sat nonchalantly on pub stools as their stockings got drenched. But, the weather’s so chippy nippy that it dries and their glasses of ale warm them up so.

Of course, it’s all nice and clean at Flushing Meadows and Wimbledon and the World Cup and other events because the guys who mess up in the locker rooms are the guys who win the medals. So, no one complains because no one talks about it.

Get over it, people. Cricketers rub their balls against their balls and footballers spit on the grounds; tennis players lick their sweaty upper lips and athletes fart in their shorts. And people will pay money to wear, touch these items of clothing. Go clean up your minds first, then we can talk about how prepared we are.

Are our players ready to run, pole-vault and stand tall? Ask that question and let the drains choke to death.