This is Part 7 of a 10-part series of excerpts from an NHB HRG Research Project (Ref. 029, 2019-2021) led by Dr Imran bin Tajudeen.
A fluid identity spectrum: Tamil Muslims, Chulia, Keling, Jawi Peranakan
The Chulia community or Tamil Muslims is a complex one involving both those who migrated directly from Tamil Nadu and those who were already accultured by way of earlier migration, intermarriages, and locally-born members of the community in Aceh and/or Kedah, Melaka, and Penang. In these older ports, intermarriages between Tamil Muslims and Malays, along with the adoption of Malay dress and particularly the Malay language, gave rise to a community known as the Jawi Peranakan or Jawi Pekan (Fujimoto 1988).
The earliest Malay-language newspaper to be published in Singapore, Jawi Peranakkan, was begun in 1876 by a group of Bombay Jawi Peranakans led by Munshi Muhammad Said Dada Muhyiddin, from the printing company Matba’ al-Saidi at no.431, Victoria Street (this street address has yet to be identified as it is absent from the 1893 map that gives the most detailed street number annotations).
In Melaka the alternative term “Peranakan Keling” was used, for instance by a prominent member of this community himself, Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir Munshi, who lived in Kampong Melaka in the 1840s (Skinner 1972, 26-27).
Campong Kling, Kampong Susu, Chulia Street
In Raffles’ Instructions of November 1822 for the Town Plan that was then drawn by Lieut Philip Jackson, the Tamil Muslims merchants were allocated a ward labelled “Chuliah Campong”, which was to be sited on the location beyond a street named Chuliah Street in the Plan, which in fact later became New Bridge Road (Fig 8 and 9).
“Chuliah Campong” was originally indicated at the site which developed as Campong Malacca by the 1840s. Yet from the start, the Jackson Plan of 1822 also contained two significant annotation: a “Kling’s Chapel” and “Kling Houses” were inscribed on what is today Upper Cross Street, which at that time was simply named Cross Street. The two special labels in the Plan foreshadowed the later association of the Cross Street area with three toponyms connected to the Chulia and Kling, or the Tamils (primarily denoting Tamil Muslims):
- The area from Cross Street to Pagoda Street was called ‘Campong Kling’ in Municipal notices of 1849 to 1855 – this is the date range that can be ascertained thus far and further investigation might reveal a wider time span of the name’s currency in official use. Campong Kling thus coincides with the town blocks occupied by the Jamek Chulia Mosque and the Sri Mariamman Temple.
- Cross
Street itself was called Kampong Susu or Milk Quarter in Malay and its
equivalent, Pal-kadei Sadakku or Milk-shop Street in Tamil.
A special note should be made here on the fact that there is another Kampong Susu in Singapore, namely at Victoria Street (Lane), which was called Pal Kampam in Tamil. This is the translation-and-transliteration for Kampong Susu. However, this other neighbourhood is beyond the scope of the current project. - Finally, Cross Street was called Kiat-leng Kia Koi in Hokkien, meaning Kling-men’s Street.
A number of other streets whose names are connected to the Chulias/Klings around and beyond Cross Street should also be noted:
- Kling Street (renamed Chulia Street in 1922) at Raffles Place, attesting to the central position of the Chulias in the commercial heart of the colony
- Market Street, known in Tamil as Chetty’s Street or Chetty Theruvu (Haughton 1891, 64) though historical photographs indicate that Market Street, like Chulia Street, had numerous Tamil Muslim business premises as seen from their names prominently displayed on the shop signboards.
- Chin Chew Street was known in Tamil as “Arampillei Sadakku” (Haughton 1891, 63). The research has not been able to identify Arampillei / Arumpillai.
Other aricles in this 10-part series:
Part 1: Campong / Kampong: Forgotten shared urban ward names in colonial Singapore
Part 2: Compound houses and compound shophouses
Part 3: Lorongs in Kampung Bengkulu: The forgotten alleys of history
Part 4: Kampong Serani: Some Notes on the Eurasian Community in Town
Part 5: Kampong Melaka and the other story of Singapore River
Part 6: Chinese beyond Chinatown: Kampong Melaka
Part 7: The multiple sites of the Chulia community
Part 8: Malays in the heart of “Chinatown”: Kg Penghulu Kesang
Part 9: Kampong Bengkulu’s Jewish Mahalla and Japan Town
Part 10: Kampong Dhoby, Queen Street: A lost North Indian quarter
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