The official historical narrative about India during the colonial period had a tendency to avoid the Tamil country in the South almost as if it did not exist. The community has had trade links with Sri Vijaya and Majapahit and has been at the forefront of cultural, linguistic and religious influence from at least 800 AD. Intellectuals within the Tamil community in Singapore were keenly aware of the long tradition of Tamils as sea-farers reaching South East Asian shores for centuries as traders. It was a movement intended to unify Tamils by giving them a sense of self-respect based on their true historical heritage and to destroy superstition and create a casteless society. In India, the 1920s coincided with the Tamil ‘self-respect’ movement. Superstition and caste divisions were very strong within the community. The stereotype of the Tamil community was that of being uneducated labourers that got drunk on ‘todi’. The community of migrant Tamils in Malaya was composed largely of ‘coolies’. Whilst there was a strong merchant community of Indians and many of them of Tamil origin, the British had engaged in an active policy of importing labourers from Tamil Nadu. Arriving in Singapore in 1924, he would have landed in a prosperous and thriving port. KoSa (as he is known within the Tamil Community) lived in Singapore during some of this island’s most tumultuous periods. However, it will be useful for the reader to understand the position of the Tamil community during his lifetime. The following links will enlighten those that want to have a broader picture of the man. I do not want to do a summary of his life here. We hear of efforts of people like Sarangapany as being crucial in the recognition of Tamil as one of the 4 official languages of Singapore. His name is well remembered by my parents’ generation. As a member of the local Tamil community, this play is of special interest for me as I have heard much about the struggles of the community during the colonial period and the Sarangapany story is also very much a story of the community between the 1930s to the 1970s. Murasu is a play about Ko Sarangapany, the founder of Tamil Murasu, the sole Tamil language daily in Singapore today.
(It is not entirely a deviation from the usual stuff and so there is a bit of commentary on the socio-economic conditions of the Tamil community in Singapore during the colonial era.) This is a review of a Tamil play that I watched on 27 June 2015. This is an article written jointly for Article14 and for The Guru Project and so I am making a small deviation from my usual focus on Singaporean society, politics and law.
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