Singapore Is Not Happy With India At Red China’s Behest

Why did Singapore ban the Kashmir Files to the gleeful delight of a senior member of our own Indian National Congress Party? That the Congress point of view increasingly concurs with that of China and Pakistan and Islamic radicals is an important, if worrisome part of the public discourse.

Ostensibly, Singapore banned it because the film seemed to portray Kashmiri Muslims in a ‘one-sided’ bad light. It had also banned, years ago, ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ presumably because it portrayed the ancient Romans in a bad light.

Singapore said, under its film classification guidelines, ‘any material that is denigrating to racial or religious communities in Singapore’ will be refused classification.

While Buddhism accounts for 31.1% of the population of Singapore, added to by Taoism and other Chinese religions at 8.8%, Islam is represented by 15.6% and Hinduism by a mere 5%. Even the Catholics count for more at 7%. But the religions practiced by the majority ethnic Chinese account for 40%.

Singapore has a nice deep-water port from which it has gained its significance. It is the maritime capital of the world, as of 2015, with the second busiest port in terms of tonnage handled. It is also the world’s busiest transshipment port, handling amongst other things, 50% of the world’s annual supply of crude oil. It used to be the world’s No.1 port in terms of tonnage handled, till, you guessed it, Shanghai overtook it in 2005.

Singapore is located at the extreme tip of the Malay Peninsula. The colonial British, who arrived as early as 1819, established a Crown Colony in 1867. In 1963 Singapore became part of independent Malaysia, but was expelled by the former for its fractiousness, and became independent in 1965.

The British had used Singapore for an entrepot trade, and brought in a large number of ethnic Chinese, who are also represented in lesser number in Malaysia. Ethnic Chinese form the bulk of the population of Singapore to this day. Some ethnic Indians, largely from South India, mostly descendants of the erstwhile rubber plantation indented labourers, also found their own way in from Malaysia.

Still, the Chinese part of the population, some 75.9% of the total, accounts for over  4.5 million of about 6 million. It is the Chinese that dominate business and politics. Ethnic Malays account for 15% of the rest, and ethnic Indians for 7.5%. The rest have Eurasian blood, alongside a significant expatriate European, American and Indian presence.

All this in the thumb-nail sized city state of just 700 sq.km, with a population density of nearly 8,500 people per square kilometre.  

The Singapore authorities told Channel News Asia about the Kashmir Files, ‘The film will be refused classification for its provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims and the depictions of Hindus being persecuted in the on-going conflict in Kashmir’.

Not a word about the factual portrayal of Kashmiri Pandit genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forcible expulsion by Kashmir Valley Sunnis, 30 years ago, which is the actual subject of the film. That, and the complicit role played by the Valley politicians, in cahoots with the Congress Party and its government at the Centre.

No, the Singapore authorities emphasise the ‘on-going conflict’, and the ‘provocative and one-sided portrayal’.  

They added ‘These representations have the potential to cause enmity between different communities, and disrupt social cohesion and religious harmony in our multiracial and multi-religious society’. Pretty unctuous, but also angry with India. But why?

As movie review it wouldn’t pass muster, given that the film, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, has been received rapturously in multiple multiracial and multi-religious countries around the world. UAE banned it briefly before lifting it. New Zealand gave it a more restricted classification, from R 16 to R 18.

So, is this hostile over reaction, or just the political stance of a Singapore allying itself to the Chinese and Pakistani position?

Red China of course, has its reasons and vested interests. With increased business interaction with tiny Singapore as sanctions are imposed on it, Singapore is more than a little beholden.

China has illegally built a road through Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) as part of the embattled China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), linking Xinkiang in China to Gwadar Port in Balochistan. It is very concerned at the rapid and positive changes being wrought by India in its Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory (J&K), with an increasing possibility that India could make a move, military, political, and diplomatic, to reclaim its territory in PoK, as well as Gilgit Baltistan before long.

Singapore is simply playing along. But there is also a recent history that is not just club loyalty.

 The first salvo fired by none other than the Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong, was after India banned a Chinese app rolled over via Singapore- Sea Ltd.’s Free Fire’ gaming app. This caused it $ 16 billion in losses in a day. Earlier India had already banned as many as 54 Chinese Apps with major losses accruing to it, because of continued Chinese bellicosity along the Line of Actual Control (LaC).

In this instance, Sea Ltd. stock, listed in New York, fell 18% overnight. The shareholders of Sea Ltd. which still have other wares operating in India besides the Sea Fire App, such as its e-commerce arm Shopee, are overwhelmingly Red Chinese via TenCent. Shopee, while not yet banned, has seen a decline in interest.

Soon after this, Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong criticised the ‘decline of Nehru’s India’ in a marked attack against the Modi government. He said, nearly 50% of the members of the Indian parliament today are facing criminal charges including rape and murder, in a gratuitous set of remarks on India’s internal affairs. They were made at the Singapore parliament in mid-February 2022 and promptly objected to by India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Singapore has business to protect with Red China. It has made its choice despite its Indian ethnic minority and other presence.

The hypocrisy with regard to the Kashmir Files film is glaring because it is just the latest veiled attack on India. This is a consequence of the company Singapore now keeps. But with a population of a mere 6 million it is unlikely to make a dent in the film’s box office.

Meanwhile, film maker Vivek Agnihotri called the wordy Congressman who was clapping at the ban a  ‘fopdoodle’, meaning stupid, and a ‘gnashnab’, meaning a habitual complainer. Good dictionary mining that.

Agnihotri also called the Singapore censor one of the most ‘regressive in the world’, and listed 48 films banned by Singapore that did well around the world.

 

(1,098 words)

May 11^th, 2022

For :Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee