The Big Challenge for Little India: Finding Home

GSSS Summer Programme Social Policies & the Urban Fabric

Date of Submission: 1st August 2016

6.9 million people by 2030 this was the projected population figure released by the
Singapore government upon unveiling the Population White Paper in January 2013. Amidst
declining birth rates, an ageing population and shortages in the workforce, a key strategy to
be adopted would be to increase the percentage of foreign workers (National Population
and Talent Division, 2013, p.6). It is hoped that controlled immigration would reap
substantial benefits in terms of an increased talent pool, a larger market and better business
opportunities (Chia, 2015). At the same time, imperative to overcoming the nations
demographic challenge is ensuring a strong Singaporean core and a solid national identity
a good home (National Population and Talent Division, 2013, p.2). Translating this national
roadmap to reality, however, might prove to be a difficult task. The Population White Paper
triggered national backlash, with competition for jobs, housing and living space being
among some of the key concerns raised by citizens. Others have pointed towards mounting
social tensions and a diminishing national soul as a cause for concern (Sim, 2013).
Issues of immigration and the tensions that accompany it are not unique to
Singapore. An increase in global flows and movement of people have led to both place and
space taking on different meanings. Similar crises of home are also experienced by America
and Western Europe. In the Netherlands, for instance, native Dutch feel increasingly
alienated in their own country owing to a stolen home taken away by an influx of
immigrants (Duyvendak, 2011, p.84). In Singapore, the height of tensions between
immigrants and locals occurred in 2013, during Singapores first riot in over 40 years.
Triggered by an accident involving the death of a migrant worker hit by a bus, rioting ensued
in the neighbourhood of Little India vehicles were torched and civilians were injured (Lim
and Sim, 2014). This incident brought to fore issues of home and belonging, and once again
sparked a nationwide debate on the place of migrant workers in society.
Duyvendak (2011, p. 83) relates this phenomenon to the problematic conflation of
haven and heaven. Home that is lived as a haven, in private, poses no problem. Yet,
difficulties arise when home lived as a heaven in relation to the public sphere, especially at
the level of the nation-state. It is not possible for an individual to feel at home at all places
and with all people, because fundamentally, feeling at home is an exclusive and
discriminating emotion. Morley (2001) further argues that the home, the neighbourhood
and the nation are intimately intertwined, with each space conditioning the other. It is
perhaps pertinent then, to examine home and feeling at home at the more fundamental
level of the neighbourhood, where tensions between competing notions of home are
perhaps more apparent. Through the case study of Little India, a neighbourhood where the
local and foreign converge, this essay seeks to answer the research question: how stable
is the private home in the neighbourhood of Little India? It is argued that in the contested
landscape of Little India where a strong insider-outsider dichotomy exists, the idea of a
private home or the conventional home is highly unstable. Perceptions of home, the
spatiality of home and privacy of home are all being challenged. The neighbourhood of Little

India is first briefly introduced. Following this, the ways in which home is contested and
negotiated in Little India is discussed, and interventions aimed at reconciling divergent
meanings of home are proposed. It is hoped that the interrogation of the politics of home at
the scale of the neighbourhood can shed light on the issues of home and belonging that
countries and states are grappling with at a broader scale.
High-rise Housing Development Board (HDB) flats mark the quintessential
Singaporean home. Over 80% of the population reside in these public housing flats, and
home ownership rates stand at a high 90% (HDB, 2015). Most neighbourhoods in Singapore
comprise residential areas, both public and private, accompanied by facilities and amenities
that service the town, including community spaces, shopping centres etc. However, marked
by the presence of both residents and other visitor groups, the historic district of Little
India is a neighbourhood unlike any other. Locals reside mainly in the three main residential
areas within the neighbourhood, namely the HDB estates at Tekka Market, Kerbau Road and
Rowell Court (URA, 2016). However, besides residents living in these dense, built-up HDB
flats, Little India is also an established Indian community space, housing a high
concentration of Indian-themed retail and services, ranging from garland makers to
provision stores (URA, 2016). This is one major pull factor contributing to the influx of
foreign workers, mostly from South India, that visit Little India over the weekends (The
Straits Times, 2013). For them, Little India serves not only as a gathering point, but also as a
location where specialised services such as fund remittance are present (Chang, 2000,
p.349). Recent estimates have placed the number of migrant workers that visit Little India
over the weekends at over 30 000 on Sundays (The Straits Times, 2013). This close proximity
of these two groups, the sheer number of migrants moving in and out of the
neighbourhood, and the sharing of spaces and facilities within Little India invariably shapes
Little India into a contested landscape where different notions of home meet and are
negotiated or contested.
In the heterogeneous and highly diverse neighbourhood of Little India, the meaning
of home has transformed from from one that is personal to one that is relational. Against
the backdrop of globalisation and increased mobility of people, familiarity of place alone is
not enough for natives or locals to feel at home, or for one to assert an insider status.
Rather, how comfortable one feels at home is increasingly contingent on the behaviour of
other people who have disrupted this familiarity of place (Duyvendak, 2011, p.30). The
idealised view of home as a haven which is safe, secure and private could then come
under threat (Duyvendak, 2011, p.38). In Little India, the neighbourhood is increasingly
perceived to be unsafe and dangerous, especially in the aftermath of the Little India riot. In
a joint interview with a mother and grandmother who were watching over their children at
the playground, they responded:

If we have groceries or have to go out, we always go in pairs at least, and we will

take a big round to avoid the foreign workers. We actually do not go out at all on
Sundays because it is just too crowded. There are too little places we can go to eat
around here without having to go over to the other side (Serangoon Road).
In this case, the presence of others molds ones perception of home, and diminishes
ones ability to feel at home. Feeling at home then becomes highly selective and exclusive,
in two aspects. For one, feeling at home could be a zero sum game, where people can only
feel at home if others continue to exist as outsiders (Duyvendak, 2011, p. 30). When asked
about their plans for the future, residents who have stayed in Little India for five years now
have decided that enough was enough:
Were moving out already! We cant take this anymore.
Secondly, in dealing with the presence of migrant workers, residents have chosen to
avoid going out or sharing public spaces with the workers, especially on weekends, unless it
is absolutely necessary. This has caused feeling at home to take on a temporal element,
where residents selectively feel at home. This transition of home from being personal to
relational has implications on how home is being thought about. Home can no longer be
perceived and experienced in isolation, but rather it is done so in terms of dialectics what
belongs and what does not, what is inside and outside, and who can be called we as
opposed to others. (Duyvendak, 2011, p. 31).
In Little India, tensions between locals and foreign workers have also led to the
redrawing of the spatial boundaries of the private home. As the spatial boundaries of home
are challenged, contestations over what is considered public spaces ensue. Duyvendak
(2011, p. 121) notes that there is a marked blurring of boundaries between the private and
the public spheres. In Little India, this tension has very visibly been mapped onto the urban
landscape. Home then, can no longer be viewed in terms of rigid boundaries that separate
haven from heaven. Rather, as these boundaries become increasingly porous, home
should be reimagined in terms of networks and social links with the outside, and with an
extroverted sense of place (Massey, 2007, 154). As Easthope explains, While homes may be
located, it is not the location that is home (2004, p. 136). In Little India, a key source of
tension stems from competing claims to place and space. Property rights form the basis of
residents claim to call Little India their home, and residents further stake their claim to
place by extending the private sphere of the home to the rest of the community (Chang,
2000, p. 362). No longer does a liveable private home suffice, but quality of living in the
communal home is equally important as well. Residents feel that some foreign workers have
made themselves too much at home, and have intruded the common areas of public
housing estates, such as at void decks and at playgrounds. As a result, residents have shown
much disdain towards the noise, rowdiness and littering that result from the activities of the

workers (Chang, 2000, p. 357). In an interview, one resident expressed dismay over the
aftermath left by workers in the void deck:
They are loitering in the void decks, leaving litter all around. Canned food or beer
bottles would be left on the ground, and the clean up would only arrive at 10am. It is
very unhygienic everywhere. Mosquitos are also a problem, then and now, due to the
dirty ways of the foreign workers.
There is general consensus among locals that there are pockets within the
neighbourhood where foreign workers rightfully belong. These Indian spaces include
Indian temples and open spaces away from the housing estates (Chang, 2000, p. 357). For
foreign workers however, their right to stake claims to these spaces and places stem from
ethnicity, and the implicit recognition that Little India is a catchment for the Indian
community. Since Little India is considered a home away from home for the workers, and
granted that void decks are typically considered to be public spaces, migrant workers would
not view these spaces as being out-of-bounds. On weekends, it is also not uncommon for
see open spaces including large fields and car parks being colonised by groups of migrant
workers (see Fig. 1). Therefore, we can see that competing rights to call Little India home
has inevitably led to territorial struggles. The boundaries of the private home have become
fluid, and extended to the whole of the neighbourhood. Encroachment upon ones rightful
living space then forms the crux of these contestations.

Figure 1 Foreign workers gathering in a car park and the surrounding space on a Sunday
afternoon
For outsiders in a foreign environment, home can be governed, and even imposed upon
them. As Low (2008, p. 242) argues, conflicts in the domestic realm mirror those that occur
at national scales. This then gives urban managers, in this case the state, the right to
intervene in terms of dictating and reshaping what should be considered as home, and who

belongs to which home. Aggressive urban design is commonplace in the residential blocks of
Little India, in order to restrict and even curtail the activities of the foreign workers. Fences
are erected along the boundaries of public housing estates, and grass patches are cordoned
off to prevent foreign workers from gathering in these areas (see Fig. 2). Patrols by auxiliary
police have been stepped up, especially over the weekends when numbers of foreign
workers peak (see Fig. 3). Simultaneously, integrated dormitories in faraway industrial areas
such as Tuas are being constructed, seeking to divert the large numbers of foreign workers
that visit Little India during their free time. These integrated dormitories can accommodate
up to 16 000 men, and house facilities such as supermarkets, food courts, a cricket pitch and
a gym (Glennie, 2015). The combined effect of these interventions is the gradual
transformation of Little India from a home away from home to a highly securitised and
controlled area. In doing so, foreign workers invariably feel more out of place.

Figure 2 Steel fences erected along the boundaries of a HDB estate at Serangoon Road

Figure 3 Security briefing conducted at the void deck of Roswell Court

How then, can a home that meets the needs of both locals and foreign workers, ever
be found in Little India? It begins with the recognition that with the inherent diversity of
cities, cities should be viewed as places of co-existence, rather than as mere places of
conflict (Staeheli and Thompson, 1997). Duyvendak (2011, p. 121) very rightly points out
that the way different groups of people express feelings of home vary greatly, and it is
impossible to demand that everyone conform to a uniform behaviour in a collective and
public home. Rather, the answer lies in acknowledging and respecting each individuals
innate desire to belong. Urban planning and design is one part of the solution to creating a
more inclusive public home. Currently, community spaces in Little India are highly divided
between those for use by residents and those for use by foreign workers. Transforming the
spatial configuration of Little India as a home for various groups of people could aid in
reconciling divergent notions of home. One such way could be through the creation of
hybrid zones, a space that straddles the private and public spheres. These spaces can act as
a starting point for interaction between neighbours, and to get the conversation going (Ham
and Ulden, 2016, p. 142). In Little India, giving the controversial void decks a new lease of
life as hybrid zones could potentially break the barrier between residents and workers, both
spatially and socially.
The case of Little India has illustrated the politics of home, and how notions of home
are challenged or appropriated when the transnational home of the mobile foreign
workers coincides with the stable and well-established home of local residents. As issues of
home and belonging increasingly become a source of national tension, similar micropolitics
pan out at the scale of the neighbourhood. In Little India, the idea of a private home is
highly unstable, as it is challenged in various aspects of the word home shifts from
becoming personal to relational, is freed from the confines of the dwelling unit and now

comes under the purview of the state. What this essay hopes to achieve is that through
interrogating the ways in which meanings of the private home has been transformed,
greater clarity can be brought to debates of home at the larger scale of the nation. Spatial
contestations, competing claims to space and place all point towards the need to shift away
from conventional thinking of home, and to consider the plurality of the urban. Home is no
longer exclusive and about a singular sense of place, but it needs to be sensitive to multiple
senses of place. This, is the big challenge for the neighbourhood of Little India.
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