“What kind of Indian are you?” Frictions and fractures between Singaporean Indians and foreign-born NRIs

Abstract

In April 2016, a news blog post titled, “Singaporeans take back Mandarin Gardens from Indian expats”,1 was met with much more interest than is usually garnered by happenings in the community. Describing how migrant Indians asserted dominance over the management committee of a condominium in the eastern part of Singapore, the post claimed that as a result, they started using management funds for activities that unfairly represented the interests of expatriate Indians. The changes that they had attempted to make included instituting a cricket pitch for the children on condominium grounds,2 replacing a Thai restaurant with an Indian one, and using communal funds for Deepavali celebrations. The post continued that Singaporeans clawed back control by showing up in force at the next Annual General Meeting of the condominium, which had even been dubbed “Mumbai Gardens” as a result of the overrepresentation of expatriate Indians in the estate.