de·bate

Something that brightened up my Monday.

This language debate needs a skilful moderator
By P N Balji, Editorial Director, TODAY Posted: 07 May 2007 1107 hrs

I have been listening in on a discussion taking place among a group of Indian Singaporeans ("We are Indian Singaporeans and our unifying language is Tamil") in the confines of the Net. They are mainly talking about the disappearance of the Tamil language on signages at a couple of public places.

One talked about how he complained to a government organisation which had missed using the language on a signboard when 12 other languages were there. The person at the other end had been apologetic and promised to get it done within two months. That caused another round of discussions on why it needed two months to make a change.

Another wrote about a sign at a public place that has Hindi, but not Tamil. And yet another complained that some government websites looking for global talent emphasise English and Chinese but put Tamil in the "others" category.

Then there was a posting on the need for an Indian Affairs Minister here, which sparked responses from a couple of supporters.

There are two issues here, one easy to deal with and the other a little tricky, touchy and so more difficult to handle.

Despite how cosmopolitan we may appear to be as a city, language can always creep in and become a spoiler.

The civil servants who deal with things like signages, brochures and advertisements need to understand the language sensitivities underpinning Singapore society.

And this just doesn't apply to the minorities.

Not many of us would have forgotten that during the dengue scare two years ago, official brochures were printed only in English with the other languages, including Chinese, being forgotten.

That was corrected immediately with the pamphlets being re-printed not only in Chinese, but also Malay and Tamil as well.

It looks like some of our government departments have not learned from that error.

The Civil Service, known for its efficiency and its responsiveness, must not allow missteps in language to crop up again. And when such missteps do happen, they should be put right quickly.

But how to deal with an issue like this, especially now that there is an enabler called the Internet?

Before you even get into that, you need to find out why groups like Indian Singaporeans feel the way they do. To be completely colour blind in Singapore is not possible, what with policies like race-based help (CDAC, Mendaki and Sinda) and race-based electoral boundaries (Group Representation Constituencies), race-based quotas for HDB flats and race-related questions in application forms.

But what has complicated the simmering racial pot for the Tamil Singaporeans, who form the majority of the Indians here, is the recent influx of North Indians — who mainly speak Hindi — into Singapore.

Some feel their minority status is being further eroded. To understand their anxiety, one needs to understand the language divisions in India.

Hindi is as foreign to the Tamils as, say, French is. And although Hindi is the official language in India, it is not recognised in the south of the country — especially in Tamil Nadu, where elections can be lost and won on playing the language card.

The discussion on the Net has only just started.

Before it gets out of hand, we need a greater sensitivity on the part of organisations that deal with the public often, as well as a skilful moderator who will be able to better understand what is troubling this group and engage them with trust and confidence.

The ombudsman should be independent-minded, respected in the community and, most important of all, be outside the government embrace.

This Balji dude got most of his points right. Except the part where he says the discussion on the Net has only just started. I reference MDA Xchange from our old kelingkillah blog. Come on, its being going on for ages already. [The exchange was lifted from exactly the same Yahoo group, Mr Balji is subscribed to. We is have our hands everywhere.]

Someone outside the governmental embrace to manage Indian affairs? That would be something to look out for. Our very own Samy Vellu in the making. He's technically part of the government in Malaysia but its not very difficult to mark out his fiefdom.

So are we going to see an Indian Affairs Minister? [We already have Yaacob Ibrahim sitting as Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs, though point noted, one's a religion, we're a community] Would he be drafted from the foreign talent program or will we see a true blue local makkal take it up?

We'll keep you updated.