A SUBALTERN HISTORY OF THE INDIAN DIASPORA IN SINGAPORE: GRADUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF UNTOUCHABILITY 1872-1965

Untouchable migrants made up a substantial proportion of Indian labour migration into Singapore in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During this period, they were subject to forms of caste prejudice and discrimination that powerfully reinforced their identities as untouchables overseas. Today, however, untouchability has disappeared from the public sphere and has been replaced by other notions of identity, leaving unanswered questions as to how and when this occurred. The untouchable migrant is also largely absent from popular narratives of the past.

This book takes the "disappearance" as a starting point to examine a history of untouchable migration amongst Indians who arrived in Singapore from its modern founding as a British colony in the early nineteenth century through to its independence in 1965