the relationship is one that is actually imposed by our educational system so
most of us learn our history through schools and there is a certain narrative
that is shared through our school textbooks through our national education
lessons and we grow up believing for many years for instance that Singapore's
history started in 1819 that the founder was Sir Stamford Raffles and then after
that there was this journey to nationhood and we overcame adversities
of war occupation and then merger and separation and then Singapore became
moved from a third to a first world country I think after a while young
Singaporeans particularly feel that this is all a bit of a propaganda and they
want to hear a more exciting story of our past they want to hear the
controversies they want to hear about the tensions surely everything is not that
great right but where are the dirt in other words so I think what is happening is
that you're gonna see more and more people asking questions about our
national narrative not that our national narrative is wrong but I think they want
to see where the edges where the complexities where the nuances and I
think if we are able to bring that about that would of course get people more
excited about our history
so this has something to do with our national policies in 1965 when Singapore
became a sovereign state the political leaders were thinking how should we
think about our history as we built a nation in other words as we project
forward what sort of historical tasks should we
try to remember and how that would help in the enterprise of nation building I
think the political leaders decided that the most neutral party would be the
British I mean they were colonialists no doubt but at least they brought
according to them modernity to Singapore so the best was to identify the British
and their part the part they played in building Singapore as a colony leading
to a modern city-state the other thing is Singapore did not go through a period
of mass based nationalist movement or revolution now if you were to compare
say with India India went through half a century of nationalist movement so at
that time the idea was about self-rule the idea was about freedom from
colonialism and of course colonialism was portrayed as evil and wrong so to
build your new nation it had you have to have the negative other and that
negative other was the colonialist in Singapore we didn't go through that in fact
we didn't have a revolution we had what was called a transfer of power in other
words when the British decided that it was time for them to go they found a
good set of successors and power was more less handed to this group of people
so there wasn't that rupture there wasn't that violent disjuncture between
the nationalists and colonialists and therefore you know the kinds of
antagonism that you see in other countries other Asian countries of their
colonial masters did not happen in Singapore
my answer is I'm gonna surprise you because as a historian of India I have
found that you know I studied the nationalist movement and I found that
Mahatma Gandhi the leader of the Indian nationalist movement from about 1920s
onwards was a really fascinating figure and someone whom I have great interests
in so he has once been described by Winston Churchill who found him a bit of
a nemesis as a half-naked fakir fakir is an Indian holy man and British
politicians have found him very difficult to deal with because you know
they say that he was either a saint trying to be a politician or a
politician pretending to be a saint because of his methods of his ability to
adopt a certain personal lifestyle and then develop very interesting methods of
contesting the Empire the whole idea of non-violent movements the whole idea of
civil disobedience the whole idea of what he calls soul force or satyagraha
which means that you don't use weapons to fight against the colonialists you
use the whole idea of what's right and wrong and I think he succeeded he
succeeded in doing that so what was remarkable was that you know he was able
through non-violence literally bring about an end to the British Empire and
then in a way personified what he thought was important for the Indian
people and that is basically a belief in himself a belief that you know they have
a great civilization that they had what it takes to regain their rightful place
in in their own country so the concept of Swadeshi self-reliance
self-rule were concepts that he developed there are there are also aspects
of his life which people have criticized in the way
he had to keep sudden existence a certain lifestyle that was quite complicated the
way he refused to negotiate with the British at certain points in time when
he had the upper hand and because he felt that some of the things that had
happened were not what he wanted like activities degenerating into violence so
a very complicated man but one that had tremendous impact unfortunately no I think maybe
because I talked too much about history at home but you know they think of
history as subjects and I think that is the problem they think when I talk of
history that oh I want them to be historians I want him to read history
books I want him to major in history which is not my intention I just want
them to appreciate historical depth in any in anything they encounter I think
they did not enjoy history the history they learned in the classroom and in a
way that developed in them that aversion but I'm sure I'm sure when they get to
their 30s they will have a better appreciation I meet people all the time
who tell who tell me when they were in school they hated history but now they're
in the 30s and in the 40s history is now one of the most favorite
topics because he find it it's so enriching and so important you look at
popular culture you look at Netflix I mean there are of course a lot of this
shows about the sitcoms and all this but the more successful ones are the
historical dramas and I think there is an interest in history but it's just
that people see history as a burden when they are in school