Talk:Indians in Singapore

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Contents 1 Photographs of Indians in Singapore 2 Ethnic group & race 3 Singapore has one of world's largest overseas Indian populations? 4 WikiProject Dravidian civilizations 5 Cross-posted from Wikipedia talk:SGpedians' notice board

[edit] Photographs of Indians in Singapore

This article could do with a few photographs of Indians from different cultural backgrounds – perhaps Singaporean Indians who trace their ancestry to different parts of India, or Indians of different religions – to illustrate it. Does anyone have any that can be used? Cheers, Jacklee 14:50, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ethnic group & race

The article currently states -

"The Singapore Department of Statistics defines ‘Indians’ as both a ’race’ and ethnic group, comprising “persons of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan origin, such as Tamils, Malayalis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Singhalese, etc.” [1] The term 'Indian' therefore refers broadly to the Indian subcontinent, rather than the Republic of India."

According to the Singstat website, ethnic group and race seem to be interchangeable:

"Ethnic/Dialect Group - Ethnic group refers to a person's race as declared by that person. The population is classified into the following four categories:

Chinese - This refers to persons of Chinese origin such as Hokkiens, Teochews, Cantonese, Hakkas, Hainanese, Hockchias, Foochows, Henghuas, Shanghainese etc.

Malays - This refers to persons of Malay or Indonesian origin, such as Javanese, Boyanese, Bugis etc.

Indians - This refers to persons of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan origin such as Tamils, Malayalis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Singhalese etc.

Other Ethnic Group - This comprises all persons other than Chinese, Malays and Indians. They include Eurasians, Caucasians, Arabs, Japanese etc." [1]

This would confirm the existence of a single concept, where race is the dominant term, being used for all official purposes, and ethnic group a rarely-used synonym. As it stands, the article leads to the interpretation that Singstat make a distinction between the two terms. Rather than simply deleting the statement, I propose to rephrase it such as to underline the absence of distinction. JREL (talk) 15:50, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. I'm still not entirely happy with the formulation; maybe you can help? JREL (talk) 21:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Singapore has one of world's largest overseas Indian populations?

The introductory paragraph of the article currently reads: "While they [Indians] are the smallest of the city-state's three main 'races', among cities, Singapore has the one of the world's largest overseas Indian populations." Can this be right? There must be a larger overseas Indian population in countries like the UK and USA by virtue of the larger overall population in those countries. Or does Singapore have one of the world's largest overseas Indian populations relative to the population of the country as a whole? Some clarification of this would be most welcome. Cheers, Jacklee 01:16, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I re-read the sentence in the introductory paragraph set out above, and realized that it clams that as a city rather than as a country, Singapore has one of the world's largest overseas Indian populations. Lower down, in the subsection "Contemporary population size", it is stated that "Singapore has one of the largest overseas Indian population among cities. Only London and Durban have more overseas Indians in terms of both absolute and relative numbers." However, there seem to be a few problems with this statement:

• The article "Overseas Indian population" states that Singapore in ranked fourth and not third in terms of number of Indians in the population, behind London, Durban and New York City.
• The references to the http://www.singstat.gov.sg website in footnotes 14, 15 and 16 no longer work, and need updating.
• It does not seem accurate to say that "[o]nly London and Durban have more overseas Indians in terms of... relative numbers". Again, according to the article "Overseas Indian population", 8.8% of the population of Singapore as a city is Indian. However, 75% of the population of Port Louis in Mauritius is Indian, no doubt because Port Louis has a much smaller overall population. But doesn't this mean that Port Louis has more overseas Indians than Singapore in "relative numbers"?

Cheers, Jacklee 00:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi there - thanks for your attention to / interest in this article. Hope this clarifies things a bit: while NYC may have a larger absolute number of ethnic Indian residents, Singapore seems to have a higher percentage. Conversely, Port Louis may have a higher percentage of ethnic Indians, but Singapore has a higher absolute number. The point of the line - "Singapore has one of the largest overseas Indian population among cities. Only London and Durban have more overseas Indians in terms of both absolute and relative numbers" - is that when we look at the size of overseas Indian communities in cities around the world - in terms of *BOTH* absolute AND relative numbers - only London and Durban have more Indians than Singapore on both counts. I'm afraid I'm not sure how to put it more clearly. To me it seems a good / valid way to capture both measures of size. of course, we could also / alternatively rank Singapore by each measure individually, but that seemed too fussy / detailed to me for this entry, especially since the info is already carried on other Wiki pages.

Re: links no longer working - am not free to look into this right now, but hope to get round to it at some point unless someone can do it first! ishouldbeworking

[edit] WikiProject Dravidian civilizations

Wiki Raja 11:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cross-posted from Wikipedia talk:SGpedians' notice board

Although the article is well-referenced, I am concerned that it is not written in summary style. Here is how I think the article should be structured:

• A short Etymology section, discussing the definition of "Indian" (already present).
• A long History section, detailing the migration of Indians to Singapore (can be created by merging several existing sections).
• A short Demographics section, containing various statistics about Indians in Singapore, such as languages, religion, education and income (some information is already included).
• A long Culture section, detailing Singaporean Indian culture, such as cuisine, music and literature (some information is already included).
• A short Institutions section, discussing various Singaporean Indian institutions, such as self-help groups (more information is needed).

--J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 14:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I believe I'm one of the main contributors to this article so far. I confess I've not been very good at logging in each time I edit, or noting the changes in the edit summary - sorry if this makes things more difficult for other editors. J.L.W.S - I'm not a very active Wikipedian, but to the extent that I think I understand the issue of 'summary style', I do share your sentiments. One of my own concerns about the article is its length. I was hoping some kind soul with more experience could step in at this point and help to clean up and wikify the piece, but failing that, i have had another go. I think J.L.W.S.'s proposed structure makes sense, and have attemped to work towards that in recent edits. I have also created new pages to move some content there (e.g. History of Indians in Singapore), so that this page remains a summary. Am still in the process of doing this. Meanwhile would appreciate any further comments or ideas. I'm pleasantly surprised that Jackless thinks the article is a potential GA, and I'm hoping that with some new contributors, we could have a new Singapore GA to add to the list before too long. Ishouldbeworking (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 07:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)