Singapore opened the floodgate for hundreds of thousands of Indian workers into the country when it inked the Comprehensive Economic Cooperative Agreement with India in 2005. With no parliamentary discussion, it's left to conjecture whether the means in pursuit of economic numbers were closet decisions by omniscient bureaucrats who never envisioned the backlash and the national perils CECA presents.
By allowing the ease of labour mobility to a country of 1.3b population hungry for jobs, Singapore imported the geo-politics of the Indian sub-continent into the tiny island state. A sectoral, cultural or religious clash influenced by events in exogenous flash points, is a national security threat that the authorities appear to have ignored.
On the Dokalam plateau, Indian and Chinese troops stare across the border at each other. It may be Dokalam, it may be any of the several disputed areas in the Himalayas, hostilities can flare up at any moment. The Sino-India border conflict has been going on for decades. However low the probability, Singapore cannot be reticent that the next Sino-India border skirmish may raise national sympathies between the hundreds of thousands of Indian nationals and PRC Chinese workers in the country that spill hostilities onto the streets.
Racial and religious harmony is a treasured Singapore identity. True blue Singaporeans are no longer emotionally impacted by events in countries where their forebears emigrated from. The same cannot be said of new citizens and other residents. As Indian Prime Minister Modi implements the new Citizenship Act, seen as a thinly-veiled religious cleansing war against Muslims, the world braces for a horrific persecution of non-Hindus on a scale far worse than China's suppression of Uighurs. Another India-Pakistan war triggered by sympathies to the persecution of Muslims in India is a high possibility. The spectre of unrest in Singapore amongst Indian workers themselves is not a far-fetched side-effect of the horrors that will likely unfold in the Indian subcontinent.
Unrest in Singapore, inspired by geo-politics of the Indian sub-continent, is real and the danger lies in the vast number of Indian and PRC Chinese residents. All that is required is a spark that can create an unrest on a scale beyond the capacity of the small Singapore security forces to handle. It can develop into a full scale destabilising event.
The demographics of Singapore since independence has been roughly 70% Chinese, 20% Malays, 5% Indians and 5% Others. Faced with different birth rates amongst the races, the admission of new citizens and permanent residents had been applied in the past to tweak population growth dynamics to satisfy a desire to maintain status quo. The huge influx of Indian nationals comes with a cultural homogeneity shock that is almost inevitable. Not only does it significantly alter the national racial mix, it radically redefines the Indian composition. The inflow of Indian PMETs are mostly drawn from the Northern Hindi speaking part of the sub-continent, in contrast to the Tamil speaking majority of local Indians. Unknowingly, Singapore imports massively a people with an ancient caste culture, the impact of which is slowly being played out. Local Tamils complain of growing Hindi demands for more space in TV, education, places of worship. Will the Tamil-Hindi agitation in the home country take root in Singapore is a question that must be addressed warily.
The open door policy for 127 specified job titles without any qualification test is lowering the sigma for labour quality in Singapore. The Indian educational system has very serious quality and authenticity issues. Whereas pre-CECA, there was hardly one single Indian university that was recognised by Ministry of Manpower (MOM), today, Indian degrees across the board are not questioned, even for some from paper mills. Media reports of Indian sub-par degrees have been publicised regularly, the latest coming from Mckinsey that suggests 95% of Indian engineers can't code. Singaporean patients at hospitals are increasingly requesting to be attended to by non-Indian doctors. The competence, efficiency and effectiveness of Singapore Inc reputation, built up over decades, is being corroded away insidiously chip by chip. In the madness for quantity, the sacrificial lamb is quality.
The core stock of older local PMETs are diminishing by the day as cheaper Indian nationals move in. Wiping away a national knowledge base is nothing short of a long term economic suicide. For a government that prides itself on taking objective economic views on all issues, it is incomprehensible that the long term damage this implies is a non-issue.
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/blind-quotes
Read more at https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/blind-quotes
"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it." George Bernard Shaw
The government is focused on economic growth by population expansion, remaining competitive by wage constraint, and promoting technology sector as the key driver. Labour, vast numbers of them, from India, is a quantitative fit and solution to the desired end. The labour mobility article in CECA is a radical idea that germinated non-egalitarian policies the locals perceive as relegating them to second class citizens in their own country. Is there balance in the fruits of CECA to the dangers that labour mobility present? A million immigrant workers entering a country of 100m people is no issue, but to tiny Singapore with 3.5m citizens, it is a serious threat.
See related blogs :
CECA : The Shocks Of Labour Mobility
The Government Thinks Singaporeans Are Too Stupid For Lots Of Jobs
No comments:
Post a Comment
Appreciate comments that add knowledge to the subject. Please participate within bounds of civility. Admin reserves the right to moderate comments. In any exchange, seek WHAT is right, not WHO is right.