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Toddy, Race, and Urban Space in Colonial Singapore, 1900–59

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2019

DARINEE ALAGIRISAMY
DARINEE ALAGIRISAMY*
Affiliation:
University of Hong Kong/University of Cambridge Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

British Malaya's toddy industry features in history as a problem that plagued the plantation economy, when the city toddy shop was no less important in contributing to a racialized discourse of modernity in Singapore. Although colonial policy served to engender the racialization of toddy drinking as a peculiarly Tamil vice, toddy's social life in Singapore demonstrates that it became the poor man's beer regardless of race. The alcoholic drink gave rise to new adaptations, enterprises, and innovations in colonial Singapore, thus carving out a unique place for itself in the city's cultural landscape. Yet, Singapore's toddy industry dominated the public spotlight for less palatable reasons, which rendered it the subject of numerous demands for increased government regulation. The colonial government responded with a slew of measures that often differed from the federation's toddy policy. Singapore's toddy industry yielded divergent imaginaries of modernity, particularly in the aftermath of the Second World War. Some reformers sought its abolition or relocation away from city spaces, whilst others demanded its modernization on the grounds that this meagre establishment was the labourer's sole source of recreation. In light of recent developments that have prompted the government's intervention in limiting migrant labourers’ access to alcohol, this article will examine the considerations that informed the colonial establishment's urban toddy policy and its corresponding impact on Singapore society as it sped towards decolonization. Through an exploration of toddy's treatment in the English-language press, oral histories, and colonial office records, this article seeks to contribute perspectives on an aspect of Singapore's social history that remains largely unexplored.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 53 , Issue 5 , September 2019 , pp. 1675 - 1699
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

This article is based on a talk entitled ‘Toddy, Race, and Colonial Singapore Society, 1880–1939’, which was presented at the ASEASUK Conference in Brighton in 2014. I would like to record my deepest gratitude to the conference panellists and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback on previous iterations of this article.

References

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10 Mama refers to maternal uncle in Tamil and Hindi.

11 See, for example, Trocki, Opium and empire for an overview of the colonial government's treatment of opium and its repercussions for the Chinese community. I also refer to Pan, Lynn, Alcohol in colonial Africa (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, 1975)Google Scholar; and Ambler, Charles, ‘Alcohol, racial segregation and popular politics in northern Rhodesia’, Journal for Imperial and Commonwealth History, 31:3 (1990), 295–313Google Scholar, for perspectives on colonial policy and the racialization of native drinking habits in the African continent.

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15 Ibid., pp. 36, 195.

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17 Straits Times, 11 June 1870, p. 4.

18 Ibid.

19 Or blooder cake. Oral History Interview of De Conceicao, Aloysius, Accession No. 002057, Oral History Centre, Singapore. See also Straits Times, 17 December 1989. The article discusses several aspects of Eurasian celebrations, including the ‘blooder’ cake—a staple at Christmas and one that, owing to its use of toddy along with brandy and whisky, ‘whets the spirit for the beer and the other drinks’.

20 Subramanian, N., Hikoshaka, Shu, Samuel, G. John, and Thiagarajan, P. (eds.), Tamil social history, vol. 1 (Chennai: Institute of Asian Studies, 1997), pp. 221–222Google Scholar.

21 Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser, 9 June 1920. For an overview of temperance and liquor control initiatives in South India, refer to Baliga, B. S., A compendium on temperance and prohibition in the Madras Presidency (Madras: Government Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

22 IOR V/26/323/11, Report of the excise advisory committee appointed by the Government of Madras (1924), pp. 6–10, British Library. M. C. Madurai Pillai, a labour contractor, was especially insistent on this point, arguing that labourers simply could not withstand the strenuous pressure of their work without the calming effects of toddy or arrack.

23 Menon, ‘Battling the bottle’, pp. 29–51.

24 Arasaratnam and Stenson have both argued that toddy provision was aimed at keeping the labour population in a state of docile servility on the plantations. I refer also to Arunima Datta's talk entitled ‘Tolerated Nuisance: Toddy Issues in Colonial Malayan Plantation Society’, presented at the 15th Annual Southeast Asian Studies Graduate Conference. Datta argued that, despite the many social ills wrought by the provision of toddy, it was still considered to be a healthier alternative to samsu.

25 The literal meaning of the Hindi word kalapani is black water. Upper-caste Hindus considered migration to be a highly polluting activity. Mandelbaum, David G., ‘Alcohol and culture’, Current Anthropology, 6:3 (1965), 281–288CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 289–293. Mandelbaum has argued that Hindu scripture neither required nor demanded abstinence from alcohol from the lowest Hindu castes, to which the vast majority of the Indian labourers in Malaya belonged.

26 Turnbull, C. M., A history of modern Singapore, 1819–2005, 3rd edn (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009), p. 67Google Scholar.

27 Goh, Lam Bee (ed.), Pioneers of Singapore: a catalogue of oral history interviews (Singapore: Archives and Oral History Department, 1984), p. 30Google Scholar. Rasoo Shanmugam, a toddy tycoon from Singapore, had formerly been a mechanic, while Singapore's last ‘Toddy King’, G. Sathasivam, lived in a comfortable bungalow and reportedly never drank toddy because of its stench.

28 See, for example, Straits Times, 1 August 1940, p. 8; and Straits Times, 12 July 1941, p. 10.

29 Ng, Irene, The Singapore lion: a biography of S. Rajaratnam (Singapore: ISEAS, 2010), pp. 12–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Oral History Interview of Ramasamy Narayanasamy, Accession No. 001194, Oral History Centre, Singapore. See also Manderson, Lenore, Sickness and the state: health and illness in colonial Malaya, 1870–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 141Google Scholar.

31 Manderson, however, has argued that estate managers generally assumed that labourers would walk long distances to get their daily toddy fix. Manderson, Sickness and the state, p. 141.

32 Author's email correspondence interview with Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014. See also Oral History Interview of Singh Mohinder, Oral History Centre, Singapore.

33 Author's email correspondence interview with Gejapathy Radhakrishnan and Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014.

34 Oral History Interview of Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, Accession No. 000081, Oral History Centre, Singapore.

35 Oral History Interview of Aloysius Leo De Conceicao, Accession No. 002057, Oral History Centre, Singapore. De Conceicao recounted that a toddy was located close to the Municipal labourers’ quarters at Joo Chiat. The perspective that toddy shops were deliberately located close to workers’ quarters is supported by other oral history interviews, especially that of Ramasamy Narayansamy.

36 See, for example, Oral History Interview of Foo Kee Seng, Accession No. 002017, Oral History Centre, Singapore.

37 See, for example, Oral History Interview of Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, Accession No. 000081, Oral History Centre, Singapore; and Oral History Interview of Rasoo Shanmugam @ Mr. Samy Shanmugam, Accession No. 000861, Oral History Centre, Singapore.

38 Oral History Interview of Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, Accession No. 000081, Oral History Centre, Singapore.

39 Singapore Free Press, 17 October 1931, p. 7. From personal interviews, it appears that other complementary ‘Indian’ snacks were also available for the drinkers’ enjoyment in the toddy shops. These included kajang (fried peanuts) and the savoury fried murukku. Personal email correspondence with Gejapathy Radhakrishnan, 22–23 June 2014; and Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014.

40 Oral History Interview of Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, Accession No. 000081, Oral History Centre.

41 Ibid.

42 See, for example, Straits Times, 1 April 1939, p. 14.

43 Straits Times, 30 January 1936, p. 12.

44 Trocki, Opium and empire, p. 1.

45 Straits Times, 21 June 1926, p. 11.

46 Singapore Free Press, 22 January 1932, p. 1.

47 Arasaratnam, Indians in Malaysia, p. 71.

48 Straits Times, 19 February 1929, p. 11.

49 Singapore Free Press, 2 November 1931, p. 7.

50 Annual Departmental Reports of the Straits Settlements for the Year 1932 (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1932), p. 121.

51 Ibid.

52 Singapore Free Press, 19 January 1914, p. 7.

53 Sunday Times, 14 May 1933, p. 1.

54 Official Report of the Parliamentary Debates, Fifth Series Volume LXIV (London: HMS Office, 1914), pp. 1901–1902.

55 CO273/560/15, Legislative Council Proceedings, 2 September 1929, The National Archives, United Kingdom.

56 Ibid.

57 Mackay, Eastern customs, p. 193.

58 Foucault, Michel, Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison (translated from the French by Sheridan, Alan), (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), pp. 26–27Google Scholar, 184. However, the ‘toddy only in toddy shops’ legislation appears to have been commonly circumvented as restricted amounts of the drink could be purchased for the purpose of making bread and other confections. For an overview of the official rationale for ‘the toddy only in shops’ legislation, see Mackay, Eastern customs, p. 193.

59 Wong, Hong Suen, Wartime kitchen: food and eating in Singapore, 1942–1950 (Singapore: National Museum of Singapore, 2009), p. 48Google Scholar.

60 Kratoska, The Japanese Occupation of Malaya, p. 229.

61 See, for example, Straits Times, 27 October 1945, p. 2; and Malaya Tribune, 6 December 1946, p. 4. The notion that toddy was a wartime cure for beri-beri in Malaya and Singapore is corroborated by Singapore's former president, Mr S. R. Nathan, in his memoirs. Nathan, S. R. and Auger, Timothy, An unexpected journey: path to the presidency (Singapore: Editions Didier Millet, 2011), p. 78Google Scholar.

62 CO 852/1243/1, Foreign Secretary to Comptroller of Customs, CSO6534/46, 17 March 1949, The National Archives, United Kingdom.

63 CO 852/1243/1, Comptroller of Customs to Foreign Secretary, Toddy Retail Selling Price, 15 March 1949. Tamil domestic servants were, however, exempted from the samsu rule.

64 CO 852/1243/1, Customs Confidential, 8/49/32, date unspecified.

65 Ibid.

66 Customs Confidential 8/49, 22 September 1952.

67 Ibid.

68 Straits Times, 29 October 1952, p. 5.

69 Yeoh, Contesting space in colonial Singapore, p. 87.

70 Ibid.

71 Smith, Michael A., ‘Social usages of the public drinking house: changing aspects of class and leisure’, The British Journal of Sociology 34:3 (1983), 367–385CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Straits Times, 11 November 1952, p. 9.

73 Solomon, Subaltern history of the Indian diaspora in Singapore, p. 110.

74 Ibid., pp. 127–129.

75 Singapore Free Press, 8 July 1931, p. 10.

76 Personal email correspondence with Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014. Mama refers to maternal uncle in the Tamil and Hindi languages.

77 Turner, Bryan S., ‘The government of the body: medical regimens and the rationalisation of diet’, The British Journal of Sociology 33:2 (1982), 254–269CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 266.

78 Personal email correspondence with Gejapathy Radhakrishnan. See also Straits Times, 9 November 1979, p. 8.

79 Author's email correspondence interview with Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014. See also Kannusamy s/o Pakirisamy, National Archives of Singapore, Oral History Archives, Reel No. 11, Accession No. 000081, interview recorded on 11 October 1983. Pakirisamy said that women could never be seen inside the toddy shops. While Massasingh's account corroborates this view, he added that sometimes coolie women could be seen near these establishments.

80 Personal email correspondence with Gejapathy Radhakrishnan. Radhakrishnan recounted that there were four grades of government employees: divisions 1, 2, and 3 were all monthly rated, while the DRE's had their pay calculated on a daily basis and were generally paid very little. This class of workers was not entitled to most of the perks that the monthly rated ones could claim. Most of the DREs were Indians or Malays.

81 Author's email correspondence interview with Gejapathy Radhakrishnan, 20 June 2014.

82 Singapore Free Press, 4 October 1951, p. 5.

83 Singapore Free Press, 12 June 1954, p. 7.

84 See Dinesh Sathisan, ‘The power of print: Tamil newspapers in Malaya and the imagining of Tamil cultural identity, 1930–1940’ (unpublished Master's Thesis, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 2008), p. 91.

85 Straits Times, 26 December 1929, p. 14. For a detailed study of religious reform in Malaya, and its treatment of ‘unclean’ offerings like toddy and cheroot, refer to Sinha, Vineeta, Religion-state encounters in the Hindu domains: from the Straits Settlements to Singapore (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011), p. 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 Straits Times, 26 December 1929, p. 14.

87 Sathisan, ‘The power of print’, p. 91.

88 Stenson, Class, race, and colonialism, p. 47.

89 Ibid.

90 Swadeshimitran, Madras, 19 April 1926, in April–June NNPR, 1926, pp. 506–507.

91 Amrith, Sunil, ‘Tamil diasporas across the Bay of Bengal’, The American Historical Review 114:3 (2009), 547–572CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially p. 548.

92 Stenson, Class, race and colonialism, p. 236.

93 Ibid.

94 Brown, Rajeswary Ampalavanar, The Indian minority and political change in Malaya 1945–1957 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 93Google Scholar.

95 Tuan Besar translates to ‘great master’ in Malay, which could refer to the Europeans or wealthy Anglophone Asians. Straits Times, 27 October 1951, p. 10.

96 Singapore Free Press, 1 May 1957, p. 4.

97 Ibid.

98 C. Mclaren Reid, Comptroller of Customs to the Financial Secretary, Singapore, 18 July 1949 and 7 September 1951, in Customs Confidential, 8/49.

99 Ibid.

100 Straits Times, 3 May 1954; see also Straits Times, 5 December 1955; and Straits Times, 7 March 1956.

101 Straits Times, 1 April 1951, p. 11.

102 Straits Times, 15 December 1955, p. 6.

103 Personal email correspondence with Gailsingh Massasingh, 22–23 June 2014.

104 Mackay, Eastern customs, p. 195.

105 Ibid.

106 State of Singapore: Annual Report (London: HMS Office, 1959), p. 69.

107 Straits Times, 18 February 1955, p. 6.

108 A spokesman from Yeo's quoted in Straits Times, 28 January 1968, p. 5; see also ‘Business: success with sauce’, TIME, 16 February 1968, pp. 85–86.

109 Singapore Medical Journal, vol. 36 (Singapore: Singapore Medical Association), p. 575.

110 Ibid.

111 Information about the pressure exerted by this group on toddy contractors comes to us from several sources; see, for example, Mallal, Bashir Ahmad, The Malayan Law Journal (Singapore: Malaya Publishing House, 1980), pp. 266–267Google Scholar, for the details of the dispute between the tappers and their contractor, Rasoo Shanmugam. The dispute ended with an agreement to pay the union members higher wages the following year.

112 Straits Times, 9 November 1979, p. 9.

113 New Nation, 19 November 1979, p. 5.

114 Straits Times, 24 November 1979, p. 21.