Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 35 (3), pp 459–478 October 2004. Printed in the United Kingdom.

© 2004 The National University of Singapore DOI: 10.1017/S0022463404000232

459

The Anchor and the Voice of 10,000 WaterfrontWorkers: Jamit Singh in the Singapore Story(1954–63)

Liew Kai Khiun

Jamit Singh’s legacy as a charismatic trade unionist and political activist on Singapore’swaterfront coincided with its changing political developments. He was instrumental inbringing about this change by transforming the dock workers into an effective politicalforce. His subsequent banishment by the People’s Action Party government brought anend to a colourful episode in the history of Singapore’s harbour.

I had a friend who was a Sikh. He threw his past away: he shaved his beard: he threw awayhis turban: he had a haircut. No harm at all. But, something happened to him and in next tono time, he was doing foolish things. He lost his anchorage. You know, it gets very difficultfor a ship without an anchor in a harbour when it gets stormy.

Lee Kuan Yew recounting a story in a speech1

Introduction: The colourful past behind the mechanised presentAs a trade unionist from 1954 to 1963, Jamit Singh inspired the disparate port work-

ers in colonial Singapore to evolve into a vibrant labour movement and a significantelectorate at a crucial political juncture. The former university activist became instru-mental in uniting the port workers in a series of industrial protests against the SingaporeHarbour Board (SHB); more importantly, however, he turned them into a strongpolitical support base for the People’s Action Party (PAP). This support in turn propelledthe party into government in 1959 under the leadership of Lee Kuan Yew. Singh,however, was vilified and subsequently exiled by the very PAP government he had aided,on grounds of his affiliations with opposition political groups that subsequently splitfrom the ruling party. His departure did not simply herald the end of a chapter of activelabour resistance and industrial strife; his political demise was also a harbinger of a more

Liew Kai Khiun is a doctoral candidate at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine atUniversity College in London. His e-mail address is liewkk56@hotmail.com.I would like to express my appreciation to Associate Professor Tan Tai Yong of the History Department,National University of Singapore for highlighting to me the issues of political and cultural identities in theunderstanding of historical personalities in Singapore, an approach which has considerably shaped thisstudy.1 Quoted in Michael D. Barr, Lee Kuan Yew: The beliefs behind the man (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon,2000), p. 154. It is not clear whether Lee was specifically referring to Jamit Singh, but it would not beinaccurate to suggest that he would have seen Singh in the same light.

460 liew kai khiun

dramatic era of exceptional leaders. Principally supported by recently released SHBdocuments, this article’s endeavour to resurrect Jamit Singh’s narrative represents part ofa broader effort to reconstruct the colourful past behind the presently mechanisedSingapore port.

Jamit Singh’s legacy will be examined from several perspectives, including hisplace in Singapore’s postcolonial historical writing and the charged environment thatpropelled both his dramatic entry into, and his painful exit from, the platform of labourpolitics. More importantly, his experience was a larger reflection of the cosmopolitanideals of activism in Singapore during the 1950s, whereby minority groups were ableto spontaneously and effectively participate in the public domain. Through an examina-tion of Singh’s political biography, this article restages the systematic reduction ofthe waterfront labour movement from a site of political contestation to just anotherordinary workplace. It begins with an assessment of the scant attention paid to Singhin Singapore’s contemporary historiography, a historiography that has been overwhelm-ingly focused on the PAP. Political conditions will be highlighted as well, such as theadvent of student activism, trade unions’ increased reliance on (English-) educatedadministrators and legal advisors and electoral reforms towards greater suffrage. In thisrespect, Singh was very much a product and personification of those turbulent times, aswas evident in his leading role in uniting the port workers in dramatic industrial protestsas well as his dedicated support for the PAP’s bid for Parliament and subsequentlygovernment. Finally, the article will examine the government’s attempts to dismantleSingh’s leadership.

The unfinished jigsaw puzzle of the Singapore StorySingapore’s post-war history was dramatically re-conjured by the PAP-dominated

government with the launch of the National Education programme in late 1997, suppos-edly to instruct apathetic youth about their country’s past. This initiative was followed bythe release of the two highly publicised volumes of Lee Kuan Yew’s memoirs in 1998 and2000.2 This sudden interest in history was not meant to reconcile the government’sspeckled and troubled past with its stable and prosperous present; rather, it resembledmore of an attempt by the state to pre-empt the search for alternative narratives throughits imposition of themes on national ‘fragility’ against the onslaught of ‘communist’,‘communalist’ or other external threats. Hence, to Loh Kah Seng the Singapore Storybecomes a ‘tactical selection of facts; those supportive of the party line are highlighted,while others are either marginalised or silenced’, their voices drowned out by the con-temporary historiography of Singapore so completely dominated by Lee Kuan Yewand the moulding of the Republic into a success story.3 As historian Hong Lysa hasobserved, ‘The shibboleth of Singapore’s nation-building and mainstream political credogoverning the direction of political discourse, culture and the institutionalisation and

2 Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Singapore Press Holdingsand Times Editions, 1998) (Vol. I); Lee, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965–2000: Thememoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings and Times Editions, 2000) (Vol. II).3 Loh Kah Seng. ‘Within the Singapore Story: The use and narrative of history of Singapore’, Crossroads,12 (1998): 6–9.

461the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

meanings of citizenship in the country, is thus maintained by a certain sense ofhistory – the ways in which alternatives in the past are labelled as dangerous. . . . ’4

Hong also warns that ‘Singapore’s history cannot be simply reduced to an account ofLee’s political career or a study of his pronouncements, as he himself has done.’5 A muchneeded alternative to the narration of the Republic’s modern history would thereforehave to come from the hundreds of political opponents, ranging from students to tradeunionists, who were either interned or exiled by Lee’s PAP government. Their voiceshave, however, remained largely forgotten; this silence continues despite recent publica-tions on two of the more prominent leaders – Lim Chin Siong and Said Zahari – and thefirst generation of Lee’s Cabinet ministers.6 Although the government has not explicitlyprohibited them from writing their own memoirs, almost all of Lee’s opponents haveremained staunchly reticent. This silence could be attributed to the extent to whichthese players were worn out by prison life or simply to the lack of resources and supportrequired for their own histories to be published. As each of them gradually fades intooblivion, historians are left to pick up whatever pieces they can retrieve in this largelyunfinished jigsaw puzzle.

Theatrical streaks of passionate idealism: Jamit Singh as rabble-rouserJamit Singh has been vaguely referred to in the general histories as either the

Secretary of the Singapore Harbour Board Staff Association (SHBSA) or as one of the‘Big Six’ union leaders who opposed Lee’s government in the early 1960s.7 The SHBrecords described him as a drunkard and womaniser who had affairs with a marriedChinese bargirl and a Javanese woman.8 The Special Branch classified him as a ‘fellowtraveller’ or opportunist whose ‘security importance lies with the fact that he is a rabblerouser, [responsive] to the United [Communist] Front instigation’.9 Those personallyacquainted with him were equally uncivil in their recorded accounts. For instance, topolitical observer Dennis Bloodworth, Singh was a ‘handsome rebel as well as a stridentdemagogue on the docks with a soft, moist eye and a voice to match when beguiling girlsand gullible journalists over a glass. To those close to him, he seemed an insecure egoistdriven by a theatrical streak of passionate idealism.’10 Alex Josey, a British journalist whobecame Lee’s Press Secretary, similarly accused Singh in 1957 of being one of the ‘politi-cally ambitious trade union officials who look[ed] upon themselves more as leaders ofworkers than as paid servants of trade unions’.11 The aspersions on Singh’s character were

4 Hong Lysa, ‘The Lee Kuan Yew story as Singapore’s history’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 33, 3(2002): 546.5 Ibid.6 Comet in our sky: Lim Chin Siong in history, ed. Tan Jing Quee and K. S. Jomo (Kuala Lumpur: Insan,2001); Said Zahari, Dark clouds at dawn: A political memoir (Kuala Lumpur: Insan, 2001); Lee’s lieutenants:Singapore’s old guard, ed. Lam Peng Er and Kevin Tan (London: Allen & Unwin, 1999).7 See, for example, John Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success (North Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1984),p. 263.8 National Archives of Singapore (henceforth NAS), Ref. H/OCT/11-/62, Officer in Charge, SHB Policeto General Manager, SHB, 3 July 1962.9 Public Records Office (henceforth PRO), CO1030/1576, Internal Security Council, ‘Category ‘A’hardcore organizers of the Communist Conspiracy’, p. 27.10 Dennis Bloodworth, The tiger and the Trojan horse (Singapore: Times Books International, 1986),p. 195.11 Alex Josey, Trade unionism in Malaya (London, Singapore: Donald Moore, 1958), p. 60.

462 liew kai khiun

again highlighted in Lee’s memoirs, where he is described as ‘a Sikh who discarded histurban and trimmed his beard, failed his examinations but was active enough for thejob, [and] somewhat hot-headed . . . [Although he] had a strong voice and a fierce publicspeaking style, he had no strategic sense.’ Lee also claimed that Jamit Singh madethe harbour one of the ‘Communist important pressure points on the economy’ andattributed the improved industrial climate at the waterfront to Singh’s banishmentin 1963. 12

Hence, after more than three decades, the legacy of Jamit Singh as a subversivedemagogue in the history of the waterfront continues. Francis Seow, now a politicaldissident in exile, has provided the only mildly positive account of Singh. Prior to hisopposition to Lee Kuan Yew, Seow was the Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) duringSingh’s trial in 1963. In recounting his early years in the legal service, he sheds light on hisown involvement with the PAP government in earnestly seeking to use Singh’s clumsyhandling of union finances and his allegedly promiscuous lifestyle as a pretext for remov-ing him from the SHBSA. Seow recalled how the trial, which brought him into publiclimelight and eventually into high office in the Legal Service, was closely monitored byLee, who was also keen for the prosecution team to focus on Singh’s moral character. Inthis respect, Lee’s personal attention as shown in Seow’s memoirs has been crucial inunderlining Singh’s prominence in the Singapore waterfront labour scene during the1960s.13

Lee’s negative labelling was not limited to Jamit Singh, but was part of a broaderattempt to personify what he deemed as ‘irrational’ forces which he had to struggleagainst, whereby:

We are able to convince the majority of people to stand on that side of the line which standsfor sanity, for national unity . . . in a larger political whole. The other side of the line was theeasy way out, the easy appeal to impatience and frustrations, the slogans that for yearsalways aroused an atmosphere of excitement and, in some quarters, of hysteria.14

It is only by re-examining the role of the vanquished like Jamit Singh as struggles insteadof troubles that we may begin to read the Singapore Story as a voice beyond that of LeeKuan Yew’s.

Even with the availability of SHB records, a more thorough assessment of JamitSingh in terms of his ideological leanings, cultural outlook and political persuasionsremains difficult. To begin with, he has not left behind any published or documentedautobiographical materials. In addition, relevant state (Registry of Trade Unions andInternal Security Department) and trade union records have yet to be made accessible tothe public.15 Although he is still well known within the Sikh communities in Singapore

12 Singapore Port Workers’ Union, Portside: A celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Singapore PortWorkers’ Union (Singapore: Oracleworks, 1996), p. 13. The quotations on Singh’s personality are from Lee,Singapore Story, pp. 195 (hot-headed) and 262 (no strategic sense).13 Francis Seow, To catch a Tartar: A dissident in Lee Kuan Yew’s prison (New Haven: Yale UniversityCenter for Southeast Asian Studies, 1994), pp. 28–31.14 Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success, pp. 261–2.15 The author has requested in vain access to archival records on Singh from the Ministries of Manpowerand Home Affairs and the Singapore Port Workers’ Union, the predecessor of the SHBSA. Although ageneral guideline of 30 years is recommended for the de-classification of official records, the final decisionremains at the discretion of individual government ministries.

463the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

and Malaysia, few oral testimonies about his life and work have been forthcoming.16

Hence, it would be premature to place any labels on Singh that have otherwise beencommonly applied to his counterparts. Rather, greater emphasis is placed here on locat-ing both the cultural and ideological premises of Singh’s political personality and of hisparticipation in industrial relations in both the port and the island at large.

Idealism of youth: The Fajar and the ‘Rendel generation’Jamit Singh was born in 1929 in Ipoh, the capital of the tin-mining state of Perak, to

a relatively well-off and respected Sikh family. His father was a railway Station Master,and his brother a professional soldier in the British military. He was part of the Punjabidiaspora descended from Sikhs who moved to Malaya in the 1870s to serve as policemenand soldiers for the British authorities.17 Singh, however, chose to discard the turban andthe beard – the conventional symbols of the male Sikh identity – for a more ‘modernlook’. Furthermore, being well versed in both English and Malay, Singh was able to repre-sent the aspirations of a cosmopolitan Malayan eager to transcend the ethnic boundariesthat had constrained the colony’s political culture. He finished secondary school inMalaya before pursuing his university education in Singapore in the early 1950s. Thebeginning of his political life on campus coincided with the prelude to more rapidpolitical transformations in the colonial city-state.

To Verne Dusenbery, activists like Jamit Singh represented a generation of thediasporic Sikh communities in the era of post-war decolonisation of the late 1940s andearly 1950s who ‘have chosen to settle and throw their lot with the emerging nations inSoutheast Asia . . . focusing on upward economic mobility and local political concerns’.18

His ascent in labour politics of the early 1950s was the outcome of the political and con-stitutional developments undertaken by the British colonial authorities. The challengeposed to the British authorities by the more direct involvement of the militant MalayanCommunist Party (MCP) in the colony’s urban industrial relations during the immedi-ate post-war period was reduced by 1948 with the declaration of Emergency powers. TheMCP’s hold over the various organisations from schools to trade unions was graduallydismantled either through the arrest of its members or through the decision of its leader-ship to retreat into the jungles to wage a guerrilla war. A semblance of order was restoredin the Singapore harbour as three years of militant confrontation by the MCP-controlledwaterfront unions came to an end with the extension of Emergency powers to the ports.

At the same time, the colonial administration was also keen to replace the ‘militant’culture of industrial politics with a more ‘moderate’ and institutionalised version basedon the British principles of trade unions and collective bargaining and arbitration.Yeo Kim Wah has described the Emergency as a ‘glorious opportunity’ to ‘organise amoderate democratic trade union movement free from political influence’.19 In the

16 I believe that significantly more content can be revealed by systematically providing an oral history ofJamit Singh through the Sikh community in general and the residents of Ipoh in particular, where hereturned after his banishment from Singapore in 1963.17 Sunil Kukreja, ‘The political economy of ethnic group incorporation: The case of Punjabis in Malaya’,Crossroads, 11, 1 (1997): 27.18 Verne A. Dusenbery, ‘Diasporic imaginings and the conditions of possibility: Sikhs and the state inSoutheast Asia’, Sojourn, 12, 2 (1997): 231–3.19 Yeo Kim Wah, Political unrest in Singapore 1945–55 (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1973),pp. 229–30.

464 liew kai khiun

process, English became an increasingly essential language in trade union circles forregistration, drafting union constitutions and communications through minutes ofmeetings, letters of exchanges and arbitration proposals. The establishment of newlegal procedures resulted in new forms of control and discipline which arose out of thedemands for these unions to be bureaucratically and organisationally accountable. TheColony of Singapore Annual report of 1951 highlighted the necessity of these new formsof disciplinary control by stating that ‘the actual running of unions, and the keeping ofaccounts, still leaves much to be desired and for the first time, charges have been laidagainst union officials who have failed to make the requisite returns’.20 These changeswould serve to allow for not just the subsequent introduction, but the eventual scrutinyand expulsion of labour activists like Jamit Singh.

Meanwhile, on 23 February 1953 a group of politically passionate undergraduatesat the University of Malaya in Singapore established the Socialist Club (Fajar).21 Fajarprovided these young activists with intellectual and ideological foundations, as well as thepractical skills of mobilisation and organisation. One of their founding members wasJamit Singh, who apart from his participation in the other university clubs as HonoraryPresident or Secretary, was also the Publications Secretary of Fajar. Probably due to hisexcessive involvement in student activities, Singh did not complete his university educa-tion. Furthermore, he was unemployed for a year until Lee Kuan Yew introduced andbrought him into the SHBSA as a full-time paid Secretary. At that point Lee, a youngCambridge-educated lawyer, had already distinguished himself as the legal advisor tovarious trade unions and student activists, and was thus in a position to begin ‘planninga mass base for the political struggle for independence’ through these groups. In hismemoirs, he also mentions that ‘I had been looking for potential activists among Univer-sity of Malaya students who were able to work with the unions.’ To successfully infiltratethese unions, he needed lieutenants to undertake full-time jobs. According to Lee, ‘notmany were willing to take less than the going rates of pay for men with their qualificationsand work with the unions. There was no glamour in the job. The few who came forwarddid it for a cause – the idealism of youth.’22

Lee saw that idealism in Singh and recommended him for the SHBSA post. Hisappointment was also part of the larger trend in which trade unions were recruitingnon-members as paid secretaries mainly for their knowledge of English.23 Such practicesopened up new opportunities for collaboration between the industrial proletariatand the growing number of non-European English-speaking activists hungry for socialand political change. The appointment came during a volatile political period in whichthe Malayan Federation was facing imminent independence while Singapore was

20 Colony of Singapore, Annual report, 1951 (Singapore: Government Printing House, 1952), p. 39; thissource mentions the language issue as well.21 Singapore Standard (henceforth SS), 23 Feb. 1953. See Koh Tat Boon, ‘University of Singapore SocialistClub, 1953–1962’ (B.A. Honours thesis, University of Singapore, 1973).22 Lee, Singapore Story, p. 195. The comment on ‘planning a mass base’ is from a speech by Lee entitled‘The harsh realities of today’, reproduced in National Trade Unions Congress, Why Labour must go modern(Singapore: National Trades Union Congress, 1969), pp. 19–20.23 Singapore Annual Report, 1951, pp. 38–9. Lee gave Singh’s full particulars to the Committee, whichafter some deliberation unanimously appointed him with effect from 1 Nov. 1954 as a paid Secretary witha probationary salary of $350 a month (NAS, SHBSA Minutes of Meeting, 21 Oct. 1954).

465the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

gradually moving towards self-governance. The watershed came with constitutionalreforms following the recommendations of the Rendel Commission Report, whichsought to provide a framework in which ‘autonomous and political experiences canbe developed by a otherwise indifferent electorate’. The main thrust of these reformsentailed the expansion of the electorate through an automatic system of registration aswell as the enlargement of the legislative assembly from the municipality (defined admin-istratively as the city centre when the urban population was concentrated in one area) tothe rest of the island.24 It was this expansion of the electoral process that finally grantedsuffrage to the working classes. This development in turn placed the labour movementdeeper in the arena of party politics as unions began to cultivate stronger alliances withpolitical parties to advance their members’ interests.25

Among the first group to gain suffrage were the ethnic Indian minorities, whowere previously registered as British subjects. Though comprising only 10 per cent ofthe population, they had 20 per cent of the votes. Although ethnic Chinese constituted amajority among the workers, Indians dominated the labour movements. In 1946, theregistered trade union members consisted of 54 per cent Chinese and 25 per cent Indians,but by 1952 the latter figure had risen to 70 per cent.26 After the introduction of limitedpost-war elections in 1948, only 23,000 out of a potential electorate of more than 200,000registered to vote. Ethnic Indians made up over 10,000 of those who voted and accountedfor eight out of the fifteen candidates voted into the Legislative Assembly. Accordingto Mary Turnbull, this enthusiasm on the Indians’ part was attributable both to theirconcerns about their place as a minority in Singapore’s future and to an upsurge inconfidence over the success of the nationalist movement in India. In her view, the activeIndian participation from 1948 revealed a refreshing freedom from racial friction.27 Thehuge political stage was thus set for Jamit Singh and his comrades in the port-city ofSingapore in the 1950s. It was on this stage that Singh was to bring out one of the mostdramatic years for the workers of the Singapore Harbour Board.

The 67-day challenge to the ‘King of the Tanjong Pagar seashore’Although Singh was new to the job, it quickly became apparent that he ‘had a strong

anti-British attitude . . . and a very forceful personality and speaker in negotiations whichgained him popular support.’28 His debut into the union scene also came at a time whenharbour workers, from the clerks to the stevedores, were increasingly frustrated withthe management over their unsettled claims dating from the 1940s. Earlier negotiationsby union representatives had broken down when the SHB accused them of economicsabotage with their go-slow actions on the docks. With the failure of negotiations, theSHBSA voted overwhelming in favour of a strike action, which occurred as one of a series

24 R. Nithiamadum, ‘The Rendel Commission’ (B.A. Honours thesis, University of Singapore, 1973),p. 60; the quotation is from p. 51.25 Jayletchimi, ‘The PAP and the Pro-Communist Unions, 1954–1961’ (B.A. Honours thesis, NationalUniversity of Singapore, 1985), p. 9.26 The earlier figures are from K. Vasil Raj, Governing Singapore (Singapore: Eastern University Press,1984), p. 174; the 1952 statistic is in Josey, Trade unionism, p. 55.27 Mary Turnbull, A history of Singapore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 236.28 Singapore Port Workers Union, The port worker and his union: The first 40 years of the SingaporePortworkers Union (Singapore: Times Books International, 1986), p. 28.

466 liew kai khiun

of strikes taking place throughout the colony in response to the forthcoming May Dayrallies. The strike began at midnight on 1 May 1955 when the SHBSA called out its 1,300members, leaving about 20 ships stranded alongside the SHB wharves.29

Along with the violent and dramatic Hock Lee Bus Riots, which overshadowed theSHBSA’s go-slow at the time, the harbour strike became one of the most significantdevelopments in the country’s labour movement. Given the enthusiasm of its workersinspired by a charismatic and indefatigable Union Secretary, the SHBSA was primed for aprolonged strike. Negotiations with the managements were still ongoing, though, andusing worker discontent over the unsettled claims as a lever, Singh and his negotiatingteam managed to bring the issues formerly restricted to the meeting rooms of the SHB tothe highest echelons of local government. The union’s grievances were not merely con-fined to the four walls of the Labour Department, the Istana (Governor’s residence) andthe office of the Chief Minister, for Singh brought the strike to public attention withpickets deployed at the gates of the harbour as well as outside the key government institu-tions. One memorable incident featured the striking port workers’ ‘welcome reception’for incoming Governor Sir Robert Black on his arrival at Kallang Airport on 1 July.SHBSA picketers mingled with crowds of curious onlookers to greet Black’s motorcade,reminding the new Governor that a major strike was in progress. The media, clearlyamused by this awkward spectacle, dubbed them Black’s ‘Guard of Honour’.30

Nonetheless, Singh prevented the strike from being used for purposes not associatedwith the labour dispute. Keeping it strictly as a ‘family matter’, the SHBSA respondedmildly when a federation of predominantly waterfront unions suddenly appeared tothreaten a general sympathy strike if negotiations were not resolved within two days.31

Several ringleaders of the ‘federation’ who were also part of the powerful unions involvedin the Hock Lee action were labelled as subversives and arrested before the threat couldbe carried out. Aside from this isolated incident, the SHBSA strike was generally peaceful,and Singh scored a public relations coup when he announced its conclusion, therebycreating the impression that the union was in control of events.

The 15-point final agreement reached on 7 July at the Ministry of Labour after 100hours of negotiations, gave the SHBSA wage increases as well as shorter working hours,and cost the SHB a sum of $11,500. Singh was jubilant, calling the agreement ‘a greatvictory for the Trade Union movement of this country’. The end of the strike was markedby ceremonial slaughter of seven goats in accordance with the coming Muslim holiday.32

Barely a year after Singh’s initiation into the labour movement, his leadership hadwon the workers considerable concessions. However, the celebrations did not markthe achievement of industrial peace; instead, there was only a brief respite before thedramatic developments awaiting them in the next few years.

29 On the strike see Liew Kai Khiun, ‘Raised voices and dropped tools: Labour unrest at the harbour andnaval dockyard in Singapore, 1952–1972’ (M.A. thesis, National University of Singapore, 2003), pp. 49–53;the initial report is in Straits Times (henceforth ST), 30 Apr. 1955. While Singh’s close personal affiliationwith the leaders of the Chinese-dominated unions is generally acknowledged, it remains uncertain whetherthe strike was deliberately orchestrated to take place as part of an island-wide general strike.30 ST, 1 July 1955.31 Singapore Free Press (henceforth SFP), 14 June 1955.32 The agreement and ceremony are in ST, 7 July 1955; Singh is quoted in SS, 7 July 1955.

467the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

From go-slow to MerdekaAfter the 67-Day Strike, the status of the SHBSA soared to new heights, for it was

transformed from a recreational club for clerical monthly rated workers to a dynamictrade union successful in its struggle with one of the colony’s largest employers.33 Singh,who was instrumental in this transformation, became an icon of the waterfront and ofthe labour movement in general. His network of relations expanded to include theharbour workers and residents at the waterfront districts of Tanjong Pagar, assembly-men, political activists and other trade unions; he became the medium through whichthe dockworkers could connect themselves to the tide of change in Singapore during the1950s. Outside the SHB gates, Singh was valued for his oratory skills and leadership in thelabour movement; he was sought after to undertake a number of positions, from paidSecretary of the Singapore Telephone Board Workers Union to Chairman of the variouscommittees within the local Trade Union Congress.34

Unity pains at the waterfrontAside from widening his political scope beyond the harbour premises, Singh also

deployed his newfound status to unite the various waterfront trade unions, which werestill divided along occupational and ethnic lines. Although in 1956 he initiated discus-sions with 15 other waterfront unions unaffiliated with the SHB, many of them remainedunreceptive to the sudden calls for unity from the white-collar staff of the SHB withwhom they had little in common. Talks with the SHB-based unions were more fruitful,however, given the fact that they all had to deal with the same employer. With JamitSingh’s influence, by 23 April 1956 the main page of the Singapore Standard reported‘Exit: 5 Small UNS [unions], Enter: One Giant. 10,000 Harbour Workers Unite’. FiveSHB unions including the SHBSA had agreed to dissolve and form a single SHB Workers’Union (SHBWU) which aimed to represent every category of local harbour workersemployed by the Board. This amalgamation appeared to the media as ‘one of the mostpowerful unions in the colony . . . which under Jamit Singh, is pro-PAP’.35

Once the euphoria of the merger had faded, the administrative and political difficul-ties facing the new union became more apparent. The main problem lay in combiningthe administrations of the various unions that had been run differently from the moreefficient SHBSA. With the exception of the SHB Employees Union and the SHBSA, manyof these unions were little more than empty shells unable to even gather a quorum fromtheir general members to vote on the resolution for merger.36 Moreover, Jamit Singh’sdominance raised fears among many union leaders who were reluctant to surrender theirauthority to one person. Nonetheless, this did not prevent SHBWU from registeringwith the Ministry of Labour as a trade union in December of 1956. To Singh, the greatestobstacle to the amalgamation of the waterfront unions came from the SHB and the

33 Singapore Port Workers Union, Port worker, p. 22.34 Jamit Singh was also responsible for mobilising the predominantly female workers of the SingaporeTelephone Board to take industrial action in 1957 against the Board’s Chairman (prominent Chinese busi-ness leader Loke Wan Tho) on issues ranging from poor salaries to institutionalised gender discrimination.For Singh’s involvement see, for example, ST, 21 June, 12–16 July and 2 Aug. 1957.35 SS, 23 Apr. 1956.36 NAS, SHBSA, ‘Memorandum to the Court of Inquiry on the dispute between the SHB and the SHBSA’,23 July 1957, p. 2.

468 liew kai khiun

colonial government. He accused the former of exploiting the difficult transition so as todeny the new union the premises occupied by the SHBSA, and the latter for treating it aspotentially subversive solely on the grounds that its new logo resembled Communistemblems. He openly condemned this suspicion, stressing that the union ‘was working forlegitimate causes’.37 Given the tensions between unions and the SHB, it was unsurprisingthat relations between the Board and the SHBWU deteriorated in the space of under twoyears, with the potential to explode at the slightest provocation. Oddly enough, given thevolatile situation in Singapore, it is surprising to note that the spark originated in PortSwettenham on the Malayan Peninsula.

‘Be firm as steel and not melt away like ice’In June 1957 the vocal National Union of Railwaymen in Port Swettenham waged

a ‘work to rule’ over irresolvable labour disputes.38 The news attracted widespread pub-licity in Singapore, and Jamit Singh rallied the SHBWU to boycott cargo diverted fromPort Swettenham as a show of support for its port workers. Although it was initially asymbolic sympathy strike, the boycott opened old wounds in the SHB. On 22 July 1957,an estimated 4,000 SHB workers downed their tools at 5:00 in the evening after a fieryspeech by Singh, who said that ‘the time has come when we must fight SHB to the finish.We must be firm as steel and not melt away like ice.’ However, Singh also claimed thatthe SHB was notified of the boycott on the same day ‘with a request that the officersconcerned be informed that this is in the interests of industrial harmony’.39

The management did not take this message kindly and initially suspended some20 workers for either spreading the news of the go-slow or for refusing to handle cargodiverted from Port Swettenham. Subsequently, another 72 forklift drivers were alsosuspended on grounds that their slow driving techniques were spoiling the machinery. Italso moved to cancel overtime work, the main source of income for the dockworkers, andsought to further override the go-slow by contracting private lighterage companies for itsoperations.40 In addition to these measures, the SHB found convenient allies amongthe different factions of the harbour unions, who claimed ignorance of the go-slow andaccused Jamit Singh of being ‘dictatorial’ for not calling for a resolution on the industrialaction. To demonstrate these public differences directed against Singh, the SHB lifted theban on overtime for these unions and their factions.41 Its most publicly direct challengewas the confiscation of Singh’s harbour pass on the grounds that he was frequentlyaccompanied by a large group of supporters who were intimidating workers for refusingto participate in the go-slow. In a letter to Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock, the SHB Chair-man argued that this confiscation was carried out in accordance with the Emergencyand Protected Places Ordinances, which he alleged Singh had been violating ‘on a moremassive scale on many occasions’.42

37 ST, 11 May 1957; see also ST, 7 May. Singh’s criticisms of SHB are in SHBSA, ‘Memorandum’.38 SS, 14 June 1957.39 SHBSA, ‘Memorandum’, p. 6. The ‘steel and ice’ quotation is in ST, 22 June 1957.40 SHB’s initial reaction is in ‘Memorandum’. For its subsequent measures against the strikers see ST, 28June and 2 July 1957.41 ST, 5 July 1957.42 NAS, personal letter from SHB Chairman P.A.T. Chrimes to Chief Minister Lim Yew Hock, 8 July1957.

469the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

These actions brought an immediate reaction from Singh, who rallied the portworkers in an emergency general meeting to protest against the confiscation and calledfor the reopening of negotiations. In spite of the rather diplomatic overtures to the SHB,which assured the ‘Board of our whole hearted cooperation in seeking an amicable settle-ment and having harmonious industrial relations’, the management did not respond.43

Realising that he had been snubbed, Singh was forced into declaring an indefinite con-tinuance of the go-slow and called for funds to prepare his men for the longer campaign.As with the 67-Day Strike, Singh also sent his workers to picket outside the SHB gates asboth a public show of protest and a reminder to the workers of the go-slow. The mostdramatic display came from Singh’s 24-hour hunger strike at the police station where hispass was confiscated. However, he also successfully undertook an initiative to end thego-slow by requesting that the Chief Minister should commission a joint Board ofEnquiry to resolve the matter.44

The actual report of the Enquiry requested by Singh was, however, less than sympa-thetic to both parties. It reported the serious administrative lapses in the management ofthe harbour unions; in so doing, it cast serious doubts on the claim that Singh’s SHBWUrepresented the majority of the SHB workers. Still, a number of recommendations weremade to ensure that the SHB would reinstate its suspended workers and establish a jointarbitration council concerning matters of labour relations.45 Believing that the Enquirywas politically prejudiced, the SHB was reluctant to accept the findings. It claimed that itwas difficult to retrench workers who had been hired to replace their suspended counter-parts and that it was trying unsuccessfully to reengage the latter, who were not turning upin spite of repeated notifications.

While the 1957 go-slow served only as an expression of a vague solidarity with thePort Swettenham workers, it was through the Enquiry that the SHBSA and Jamit Singhmanaged to gain moral and political high ground over the SHB. The Board’s publicrefusal to abide by the Enquiry’s recommendations reflected many of the reasonsfor labour troubles during a period of decolonisation, as it was dominated by colonialmanagers who blatantly disregarded the local government. The port workers, on theother hand, had come to be seen as victimised employees and oppressed colonisedsubjects struggling for independence. For the political parties involved, the Lim YewHock government (which expressed disgust for Jamit Singh’s theatrics) was perceived asa crony of British interests, while Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP, who were supporting theharbour workers, became anti-colonial fighters.

In 1957 constitutional talks in London prepared the way for Singapore’s self-government, with elections to be held in 1959. The PAP contested all 51 seats; althoughJamit Singh did not run as a candidate, he nevertheless supported the PAP candidatesin constituencies within the harbour district. Some observers remembered Singh going

43 NAS, General Secretary, SHBSA to Chairman, SHB, 27 June 1957.44 For these events see ST, 9 July (indefinite campaign) and 12 July (picketing) 1957 and SS, 24 June 1957(hunger strike). Lim Yew Hock had to rush back to Singapore from constitutional talks about the colony’sfuture in Geneva to settle the dispute. The agreement to set up a Board of Enquiry came only after a three-hour talk with the union (SS, 5 July). The main purposes of the Committee were to formalise and regularisestaff negotiations, promote a spirit of cooperation and provide for a channel of communication betweenmanagement and staff (SHBSA, ‘Memorandum’, pp. 1–2).45 Ibid.; the recommendations are in SS, 10 Sept. 1957.

470 liew kai khiun

door-to-door calling for constituents to vote for the PAP; he also accompanied Lee incanvassing for support with speeches and pamphlets outside the harbour gates every dayduring the election campaign. An Indian playwright, Pandarapillai Valluppillai, recalledthat many Indians workers in the harbour area were receptive to Singh because they wereswayed by his oratorical skills and the perception that he was fighting for the poor. Heobserved that Singh’s influence even overshadowed his rivals who had stronger financialand political backing from business interests.46

On 30 May 1959 the PAP swept the polls, decisively winning 43 of the 51 seats.47 Forthe harbourfront constituency of Tanjong Pagar, Lee Kuan Yew defeated his opponentby obtaining 7,617 of the 10,870 votes cast. With all the results announced, the PAP lead-ers were ‘garlanded, chaired [physically carried around], and then taken in a victorymarch through the streets to the cheers of thousands of their supporters’. In the course ofthe celebrations, a triumphant Lee – who subsequently became Prime Minister – wascarried around and cheered by a group made up predominantly of ethnic Indians, pre-sumably from the SHB. Among those supporting the legs of the future Prime Ministerwas a jubilant Jamit Singh.48 Like many of his fellow activists, however, Singh would soonfind himself in the darkest years of the 1960s under the new government.

The passing of soft words and gentle handling: ‘Get rid of the communists’The PAP rose to government mainly with the support of the trade unions, who in

turn expected a pro-labour administration. The ties quickly soured, however. The newleaders claimed that they inherited a depleted Treasury, hence making it difficultfor them to honour and implement all the agreements they had fought for prior to 1959.In fact, even before it won the general elections, the PAP was gradually charting amore conservative economic policy based on creating a more favourable ‘investmentclimate’.49 This paradigm shift had also reinforced Lee’s latent apprehension towards themore radical elements of the PAP. One of his most trusted advisors, Dr AlbertWinsemius – the Dutch industrial economist who led the first United Nations industrialsurvey team to Singapore – urged the Prime Minister to:

Get rid of the Communists; how you get rid of them does not interest me as an economist,but get them out of the government, get them out of the unions, get them off the streets.How you do it, is your job. . . . I took the stand that if you want to be a socialist, you haveto be a businessman first.50

Jamit Singh, for one, claimed to be one of the ‘many persons who tried to persuadethe government to keep its elections promises, but failed’. After 1959, he noted that thePAP government had developed a ‘those who are not with us, are against us’ mentality.51

46 NAS, Oral History Dept., A000339/55. Interview with Valuppillai s/o Pandarapillai, Reels 3–4.Communities of Singapore; Part 2, p. 183.47 Yeo Kim Wah and Albert Lau, ‘From colonialism to independence’, in A history of Singapore, ed. EdwinLee and Ernest C. T. Chew (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 138.48 NAS, ‘Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew chaired by supporters after 1959 victory’, Accession No. 95075,1959. See also Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success, pp. 221 (quotation) and 232.49 Carl Trocki, ‘Development of labour organization in Singapore (1800–1960)’, Australia Journal ofPolitics and History, 47, 1 (2001): 127.50 Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success, p. 252.51 Shahid Siddiqi, ‘The registration and deregistration of trade unions in Singapore’ (LL.M. thesis,University of Singapore, 1968), p. 109.

471the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

Lee’s fears were manifested in his government’s attempts to pass legislation aimed at con-solidating the trade union movement into a single body under a government-controlledtrade union congress that would have sole authority to call for industrial action.Even though the proposal was withdrawn due to strong opposition, the state fell back onmaintaining its grip through its authority to suspend and withdraw the registration oftrade unions. Further strains within the PAP came with the party dissidents’ support foropposition personalities such as Ong Eng Guan, a senior party member who was expelledfor his populist inclinations. The dissidents were also allegedly supporting formerChief Minister David Marshall against the dominant faction of the PAP. Both Ong andMarshall ran as opposition candidates in the 1961 by-elections in Hong Lim and Ansonconstituencies respectively. As both were located in the waterfront districts, Jamit Singhwas inevitably accused of exploiting his trade union influence to swing votes away fromthe PAP candidates.52

The internal tensions were also exacerbated by irresolvable differences concerningLee’s push for Singapore’s merger with Malaysia, which had already received full inde-pendence. The leftist elements of the party were strongly opposed to the merger becausethey felt that the terms were unfair to Singapore; they were also apprehensive of the anti-communist leadership in Kuala Lumpur. These differences culminated in the historic riftwithin the fragile PAP government and its supporters in the labour union, resulting inthe emergence of two opposing groups on the political scene. On the one side were thePAP and the pro-government National Trade Unions Congress (NTUC), facing offagainst the Barisan Socialis (Socialist Front, consisting of former PAP activists) and itsaffiliate body, the Singapore Association of Trade Unions (SATU). By the time of the rift,Lee Kuan Yew felt that ‘the situation as regards to Industrial Relations was in a flux. Thetime for soft words and gentle handling was passing now that there was a threat of realtrouble provoked by the communists.’53

While the PAP controlled the government ministries, statutory boards (includingthe SHB) and other main public-service-sector trade unions, the Barisan Socialis supportbase lay in Singapore’s six major trade unions in Singapore. Their representatives, collec-tively known as the ‘Big Six’, were also founders of SATU: Lim Chin Siong and Fong SweeSuan of the Chinese Middle Road unions, Dominic Puthahceary of the white-collarunions, S. T. Bani from the Business and House Employee Union and from the water-front, Sandrasegaran (commonly referred to as ‘Sydney’ or ‘Sandra’) Woodhull from theNaval Base and Jamit Singh from the SHB.54

Unlike his counterparts from the Chinese unions, Jamit Singh’s position seemed tobe more ambiguous. He was well acquainted with Barisan Socialis and was activelyinvolved in SATU, but his involvement seemed to be based more on his personal solidar-ity with his Barisan counterparts; at no time did he try to affiliate SHBSA with SATU.This could be interpreted as a tactical move on his part so as to prevent the governmentfrom using the SHBSA’s political affiliation as an excuse to dismantle it. SHB Police

52 Ministry of Home Affairs Press Release, ‘The true facts of the manipulation of the SHBSA by theBarisan Socialis’, 10 Nov. 1962.53 PRO, DO197/16, Internal Security Council Minutes, 23 Nov. 1961, p. 4. For a more detailed discussionon the Barisan Socialis, see Turnbull, History of Singapore, pp. 268–85.54 Ibid., p. 286.

472 liew kai khiun

intelligence, however, suggested that Singh was also constrained by the divisionswithin his association, especially from the pro-PAP rival elements. The SHBSA meetingsmight have been frequently attended by prominent members of SATU and the BarisanSocialis, either in their capacity as formally appointed advisors or simply as concernedfellow unionists. Nonetheless, certain sections of the SHBSA rank-and-file, especially theIndian and Malay workers, were more apprehensive about this connection, especiallywith regard to the government’s portrayal of Barisan Socialis as a party representingChinese interests.55 Hence, while openly campaigning against the PAP as an activist,Jamit Singh continued to play his role as SHBSA Secretary in its routine dealings with themanagement. Such divisions provided the pro-PAP faction within the SHBSA executivecommittee with reasons to openly accuse Singh of both administrative and politicalmisconduct within the union.56

Singh’s management of the SHBSA came under greater scrutiny from government.The Registry of Trade Unions (RTU) in the Labour Ministry also took up the issuesraised within the SHBSA on a more detailed level, which was calculated to incriminatethe pro-opposition SHBSA leaders. The RTU observed that the administration of theassociation ran contrary to the rules of its constitution and that it was also contraveningthe laws laid out by the Trade Union Ordinances. Altogether, eight breaches of the lawwere spelt out, with Jamit Singh being responsible for the most serious one of unlawfullywithdrawing funds for a year without the approval or knowledge of the Executive Coun-cil. The RTU charged that he had failed to conduct elections, had passed resolutions by asimple show of hands instead of using the secret ballot required by the Association’s rulesand regulations and had not circulated minutes of meetings to his members; it was alsoalleged that he failed to submit annual financial returns to the Ministry of Labour.57

An attempt to resolve the outstanding issues took place on 10 October 1962, whenthe Labour Commissioner, assisted by officials from the Labour Ministry and the Regis-try of Societies, met the SHBSA Executive Committee for the whole day. When queried asto what became of the funds he had withdrawn without authorisation, Singh admittedthat they had been taken without the sanction of the general body but said that they hadbeen distributed to the members in need of financial assistance. Unfortunately for Singh,there were neither witnesses nor documentary evidence to support his claims. Given suchcircumstances, the government officials felt that it would be necessary for the affairsof the SHBSA to come under further investigation. This angered Singh, who saw thestatement as an attempt by the government to break up the union.58 Discussions became

55 NAS, SHB Police, Ref. H/Oct/11/71/62, 19 Nov 1962. While there is indeed an element of truth in theclaims of the SHB Police about fears that the Barisan Socialis only represented the Chinese, the actualsituation was more complex. From the SHB Police reports, it also seems that some port workers’ distrust ofthe Barisan were based on a fear more of being sucked into a dangerous political minefield than of beingoverwhelmed by the Chinese majority. These fears were consistently being fed by the government’s blatantpublic accusations that Jamit Singh was using the SHBSA for ulterior political motives.56 These accusations came not only from the SHB Chairmen, they were also supported by the Ministry ofHome Affairs, which claimed Jamit Singh ‘thought fit to look after the workers’ interests only if the politi-cal situation heated up for Barisan Communist reasons. In between, one year elapsed when the interests ofthe workers were conveniently forgotten’ (Ministry of Home Affairs, ‘True facts of the manipulation’).57 NAS, Singapore Government Press Statement, ‘SHBSA’, Mc.NO.5/62 (LAB), 26 Oct. 1962.58 Singh subsequently returned the amount to the SHBSA towards the end of his trial. NAS, SHB Police toGeneral Manager SHB re: SHBSA & Labour Ministry Meeting, Ref. H/Oct/11/-62, 10 Oct. 1962.

473the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

heated and Singh went on to allege that in 1959 Prime Minister Lee had also withdrawnfunds amounting to $3,000 from the SHBSA for the use of the other unions. He alsoclaimed that he had not collected a total $2,500 in back pay, instead using the money toprovide members with financial assistance during the go-slow.59

Claiming a loss of confidence in Singh over the alleged unlawful withdrawal offunds, the RTU handed the case over to the Commercial Crime Branch after the meeting,and Jamit Singh and his Treasurer Yeow Fook Yuen were subsequently arrested andcharged with misappropriating funds amounting to almost $7,000 from the SHBSA. TheDPP (Francis Seow) initially recommended that bail be denied to Singh, but after aspirited defence by Defence Counsel T. T. Rajah, the presiding judge – Justice ChoorSingh – relented on the account that the accused was a ‘man of character and standing’.Incidentally, the arrests took place shortly before the convening of an extraordinarygeneral meeting by the SHBSA intended to resolve the remaining claims with the SHB.60

Closing in on Jamit SinghThe tumultuous enquiry and subsequent trial of Jamit Singh and his Treasurer

brought some of the most dramatic moments in SHB’s industrial relations to publicattention. The entire process of the Enquiry and Singh’s conviction after an exhausting23-day trial brought the dark sentiments of jealousy, resentment, division and betrayalwithin the SHBSA to light. The state showed its ability to attack lawful political opposi-tion. Although the theatrics of the courtroom intrigued the media, it should be remem-bered that the trial was also a means for sections of waterfront workers to express theirsolidarity with their union leader.

Using the claim that its actions were in the interest of the SHBSA workers, theLabour Ministry quickly reconvened the Enquiry to resume its inquisition of Jamit Singhand his Executive Committee. Not surprisingly, the discussions deteriorated into heatedquarrels over the contents of a public memorandum, ‘The voice of 10,000 waterfrontworkers’, which the SHBSA had submitted in an effort to explain the discrepancies listedby the RTU.61 Nonetheless, the latter was still ‘anxious to give the Association officialswho were responsible for its management every opportunity to make out a case if it can’within a week, by 21 January 1963.62 When the deadlock continued, the case was referredto the courts; meanwhile, the RTU suspended the operations of the SHBSA, pending theoutcome of the trial. This suspension gave the SHB an opportunity to seal off the union’spremises from its members.

The trial of Jamit Singh, which appeared to be just a criminal prosecution by thejudiciary, was, according to Seow, both politically motivated and crucial for the PrimeMinister. Lee, who observed the proceedings closely, impressed upon the DPP the needto keep Jamit Singh preoccupied with the trial in order to lessen his capacity for ‘politicalmischief’. Seow also claimed that the Prime Minister insisted that the prosecution should

59 NAS, SHB Police to General Manager SHB, Ref: H/OCI/1/68/62, 14 Nov. 1962.60 ST, 18 Oct. (arrest), 19 Oct. (bail), and 12 Nov. 1962 (meeting).61 ST, 17 Jan. 1963. Prepared by T. T. Rajah and Jamit Singh, the memorandum spelt out both the legaland political basis for the actions of the SHBSA and also served to dismiss the PAP government’s claimsthat the leadership was corrupt and subversive.62 NAS, Singapore Government Press Statement, ‘The SHBSA given another chance to explainirregularities’, MC. JA.38/63 (LAB), 18 Jan. 1963.

474 liew kai khiun

exploit Singh’s apparently promiscuous lifestyle (based on information gathered by theSpecial Branch) in order to tarnish his public image.63 During the trial, the DPP fired thefirst shot with a list of charges accusing Singh and Yeow of ‘wilfully and dishonestly mis-appropriating a total of $10,650 from the SHBSA’. He tried to establish evidence based ona ‘clandestine meeting’ of the SHBSA Executive Committee where Singh publicly prom-ised to repay the money he took as expenses and loans. Seow also sought to impress uponthe judge that due to Jamit Singh’s wielding of ‘dictatorial powers’ in the union, he wasable to direct his Treasurer into issuing advance payments on a total of seven occasionsduring 1961–2 without going through the Executive Committee as stipulated by theSHBSA constitution. Seow also stated that the intentions of the accused were irrelevantto the case: whether or not ‘Jamit Singh was a Robin Hood’ was immaterial.64

The defence counsel wanted to present the case as a larger political attempt by thegovernment to crush Jamit Singh rather than as a strictly legal issue. The courtroomdrama was characterised by yelling, mockeries and insults to the extent that even T. T.Rajah lost his voice.65 Jamit Singh’s moral standing was also considered; the defencecalled attention to his self-sacrifice through his refusal to accept his pay for a long periodof time, a period which corresponded to his difficulties in administering the SHBSA.Finally, an emotional Singh summed up his defence:

Helping people is not a matter of records but a matter of heart . . . feeling for the peoplewho are suffering in this way, helping to build a better society where man does not have togo to another man to survive. I believed that I was not born in this society to receive moneyor to collect gold. I have reached a stage where I try to get meaning of life. My needs in lifeare little.66

Hidup Jamit Singh!As the routine administration of the SHBSA was disrupted by the RTU and SHB,

Jamit Singh could no longer carry out his official role as General Secretary. Nonetheless,he seemed undeterred by the daily hearings of his trial and kept the union functioningthrough nightly meetings held at an open ground near the harbour. Hence, these sessionsresembled public rallies instead rather than the more formal deliberations of an executivecouncil over trade union issues. In the process, highly politicised speeches were made,and resolutions were passed with a show of hands from the crowd. Aside from briefingson the progress of the trial and updates on political events, these nightly meetings alsobecame a lobbying ground and a kind of emotional sanctuary for Singh and his followers.In addition to the ritual condemnations of the PAP government as well as the calls forworkers to fight for their rights, the tone of the meetings was relatively bleak given theprospect of further arrests and convictions.

During these meetings workers came forth to pay tribute to Singh’s services for theSHBSA; he was himself deeply emotional, breaking down as he recalled his earlydays in the Association. Telling the audience that his present situation was the resultof his refusal to ‘stoop and crawl’ because he was fighting for a just cause, Singh

63 Seow, To catch a Tartar, pp. 28–31.64 Seow’s remarks are in ST, 22 Jan. 1963.65 ST, 9 Feb. 1963.66 ST, 15 Feb. 1963.

475the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

described how his heart ‘cried not because he was going to jail, but [because he was]separated from the 10,000 workers to whom he became so greatly attached’. Afterthe crowd had voted on resolutions against the detention orders, he concluded by againthanking his followers ‘with great emotion all members for their warm support and[asking them] to pardon him for the mistakes he had made over the years’. As Singhfinished, his supporters burst into nine loud cheers of ‘Hidup [long live] Jamit Singh’ atthe urging of the union’s president Markandu. Work along the wharves and in thedockyard slowed down during some of these meetings, reflecting the level of support forSingh.67

Yeow and Singh were sentenced to 9 and 18 months in prison respectively, with thelatter serving his term in Malaysia. Both were, however, allowed to appeal the verdictbased on the contentious argument that the sums taken were loans that were later ratifiedby the Executive Council of the Association. While upholding the verdict, Chief JusticeWee Chong Jin suspended their prison sentences and replaced them with fines. He rea-soned that Yeow had nothing to gain from the alleged misappropriation and that Singh’sservices in the SHBSA should be taken into account. Wee added that Singh ‘ha[d], whenthe Association was in lean times, helped it financially by not drawing his salary for aperiod of seven months’ and that he had ‘also made full restitution before the trial com-menced’.68 In spite of the repealed verdict on the Singapore charges, Singh was underrestriction orders placed on him by the Internal Security Council under Operation ‘ColdStore’, when the police detained more than a hundred leaders and activists of politicalparties, trade unions and societies for alleged involvement in ‘communist-led subversiveactivities’. He was one of those arrested in the operation on 2 February 1963, though hewas only placed under restrictive orders in order for him to complete the trial.69 Interest-ingly, he was not included in the initial wave of arrests the previous November, as the ISCfeared that it might prejudice his defence against charges of misappropriating SHBSAfunds. He was, instead, served with restrictive orders not to leave Singapore.70

As a result of ‘Operation Cold Store’, Singh was imprisoned for a year in the jails ofthe Malaysian Federation under the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance and wasordered never to return to Singapore. The day that Malaysian Federal Police escortedhim to Kuala Lumpur, a government statement announced that ‘in accordance to thedecision of the Internal Security Council, Jamit Singh [who] was one of the personsknown . . . to be deeply implicated in the Communist United Front conspiracy, has beendetained and sent back to the Malayan Federation’.71 Once released, he was forbidden tobe ever involved in political activities again. As the PAP government stressed even beforethe conclusion of his trial, the banishment ‘will demonstrate to the public that personswho are a security risk in Singapore and not born in the state, will not be allowed to

67 NAS, Ref: H/COI/11/54/63, Officer in Charge, SHB to General Manager, SHB, ‘SHBSA ExtraordinaryGeneral Meeting on 16 January 1963’, 6 Feb. 1963. All quotations in the paragraph are from this documentexcept for the comment on crying, which is from Officer in Charge, SHB to General Manager, 9 Mar. 1963(in the same file).68 Siddiqi, ‘Registration and deregistration’, pp. 123–4.69 Tan Jing Quee, ‘Lim Chin Siong. A political life’, in Tan and Jomo ed., Comet in our sky, p. 87.70 PRO, CO1030/1573, 8 Feb. 1963.71 ST, 9 Mar. 1963.

476 liew kai khiun

participate in its political life. It will be felt that persons not entitled to, but who have beenparticipating in Singapore affairs are being rightly excluded.’72

Singh had given the waterfront workers their proudest moments against the Britishauthorities in the 1950s and had proved himself tenacious in his struggles against the PAPgovernment. However, the ‘lion’ of the SHB, as he was nicknamed, was permanently cutoff from his support base after his trial. An appeal by the Barisan Socialis not onlysummed up Singh’s legacy, but also signalled his exit from the political scene after beingworn out by imprisonment. It read:

Mr Prime Minister, you may still remember that . . . Jamit Singh shouldered you down thestreet in a victory march in 1959 when the PAP won the General Elections and he was yourclose colleague every week until the split. Now he has been kept in solitary confinement inthe Central Police Station lock up for 38 days. He is being treated so badly by the SpecialBranch that he literally sheds tears every time he sees his own people.73

Singh’s political demise was more than a mere loss of a historic personality inSingapore’s waterfront; it demonstrated the need for the PAP to use political tools to dealwith the unions.74 As long as the indefinite ban on Singh remained, he could never revisitthe gates of the Singapore harbour after his release in March 1964. Instead, he returned tohis home state of Ipoh and settled down as a schoolteacher in the Anglo-Chinese School;he was subsequently transferred to the Methodist School, where he became a principalbefore he retired. Singh died of a heart attack at his home on 10 December 1994 and wasquietly cremated two days later. In January, the Malaysian media reported that about 150people congregated in the Anglo-Chinese School auditorium to pay tribute to him.75

Among those in attendance were his old comrades who, like him, were once proudactivists in Singapore before being forced out of the historical and political mainstream.Despite his status as a man who had enjoyed considerable limelight in Singapore’s past,Singh’s death went unnoticed in the Republic’s official media.76

Conclusion: Despair of the ‘Old Testament Fundamentalists’In ‘What is a nation?’ French historian Ernest Renan stated that:

Forgetting . . . is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation, which is why progress inhistorical studies often constitutes a danger for the principal of nationality. Indeed,

72 PRO, CO1030/1573, ‘Action against the Communist United Front’, 6 Dec. 1962.73 NAS, Open letter from the Barisan Socialis to the Prime Minister, 22 Apr. 1963. The SHBSA had alsosent (in vain) pleas to the International Labour Organisation’s Committee on the Freedom of Associationto investigate the alleged infringements of trade union rights after Singh’s arrest. The Singapore govern-ment replied to the ILO that Singh’s arrest was due not to his trade union activities, but to his politicalaffiliations (PRO, DO187/15, 18 Feb. 1963).74 With Jamit Singh out of the way, the government intervened to destroy the supposed militancy of theworkers by offering monetary incentives known as the ‘Malaysian Bonus’ while simultaneously dismissingworkers who had suspected political affiliations with pro-communist elements. It also subsequentlyoutlawed strikes and industrial action after declaring the port as an essential service in 1968; see Liew.‘Raised voices and dropped tools’, pp. 104–10.75 New Straits Times, 21 Dec. 1994 (death) and 16 Jan. 1995 (tribute).76 This omission was probably due more to oversight than deliberate censorship, as the deaths of Singh’sfellow comrades, like Lim Chin Siong, Lee Siew Chow and S. Woodhull, have been extensively reported inthe local media.

477the anchor and the voice of 10,000 waterfront workers

historical enquiry brings to light deeds of violence which took place at the origins ofall political formations, even those consequences have been altogether beneficial. Unity isalways effected by means of brutality.77

The PAP government has been consistently keen to ensure that Singaporeans do notforget their ‘national’ history as a means of ‘nation-building’. As Lee Kuan Yew oncereminded his citizens, ‘Before you discuss your future, remember how we got here – thepast. You have a role to play in transforming a dependent underdeveloped community toan independent industrial society.’78 For both the state and mainstream historiographies,such a transformation has entailed a triumphant struggle by the forces of rationality andpragmatism (as defined and represented by Lee’s PAP) against the irrational and theprimordial. Those who have fallen on the wrong side of the PAP’s ideological vocabularyhave been systematically marginalised and isolated and eventually made to become thebogeymen of the Singapore Story. Nevertheless, it is essential to critically appreciate thatthe political formation of contemporary Singapore should be treated as a historicallymore complex process than the Manichean struggles which have commonly beenconjured up.

German sociologist Wolfgang Mommsen states that ‘in times of crisis, in societies inwhich decision making is open to public debate, the great orator can mesmerise us andsway us to his banner, speaking like a god, lending us a feeling of confidence, cohesionand moral superiority that had heretofore been lacking’.79 Such was the world JamitSingh found when he entered the politically turbulent port city of Singapore. In his twen-ties, the youthful and charismatic Singh caught the imagination and inspired the passionsof the otherwise disparate group of port workers, turning the harbour area from a colo-nial institution into a formidable political arena. When he was 30, Singh both figurativelyand literally (in the case of the rally) supported Lee Kuan Yew and PAP on their way intogovernment. At that point, the SHBSA Secretary never expected to find himself back inhis quiet hometown as a teacher. Singh did not anticipate that his meteoric rise wouldend at the age of 33 in an exhaustive court trial that would successfully tear him awayfrom his support base at the port. Heavily penalised for minor administrative lapses, con-victed for allegedly misusing union funds, and subsequently banished from Singaporeunder internal security regulations, Singh was transformed from a towering orator into acriminal subversive.

Singh’s story, however, is far from being merely a personal biography; it is also partof a gradual reconstruction of the Singapore Story that has been heretofore dominated bythe narrative of the PAP and the political career of Lee Kuan Yew. This story relates to the‘idealism of youth’, where former student activists led the labour movement in turningotherwise neutral workplaces into sites of political contestations. Singh’s fate serves as amanifestation of the increasingly bureaucratisation of industrial relations as well as theextension of PAP dominance over the state. In a 1968 speech on the ‘Role of the tradeunions in Singapore’, Labour Minister S. Rajaratnam highlighted the passing of an age

77 Quoted in Craig Calhoun, Critical social theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1995), p. 235.78 Drysdale, Singapore: Struggle for success, p. 408.79 ‘Introduction’, in Charisma, history and social structure, ed. Ronald M. Glassman and William Swatos,Jr (London: Greenwood Press, 1986), p. 4.

478 liew kai khiun

of labour politics. He regarded his generation as traditional trade unionists or ‘OldTestament Fundamentalists’, whose ‘primary aim was to inject a corresponding degree ofmilitancy into a docile and disorganised working class which for long had accepted injus-tice, exploitation and oppression as the natural order of things’.80 On the other hand, theemerging ‘new style trade unionists’ – what he also termed as ‘New Testament prophets’– functioned as technocrats concerned with statistical data rather than angry rhetoric.

As highlighted in this article, the personality and legacy of Jamit Singh resembled thedescription of ‘Old Testament Fundamentalists’ in many aspects. His political departurein the 1960s also coincided with what Rajaratnam saw as ‘the dismay, confusion anduncertainty which now afflict some union leaders’. This situation, he said, ‘is not to meevidence of the decline of trade unionism [in general] but of the inevitable and necessarydecline of old style trade unionism and unionists. It is the despair of the Old TestamentFundamentalists with the assertion of the New Testament prophets’.81 The generation ofthe ‘Old Testament Fundamentalists’ should not be regarded as part of an anachronisticpast. Instead, each of their stories and struggles deserves careful attention and meritrather than the seemingly immutable labels imposed upon them. More importantly, itis through their narratives that one begins to hear critically alternative voices to theSingapore Story. Hence, by revisiting Jamit Singh’s past, as this article has, we are restor-ing a vital part of the human legacy behind the highly mechanised port of contemporarySingapore.

80 The Prophetic and the political: Selected speeches and writings of S. Rajaratnam, ed. Chan Heng Chee andObaid ul-Haq (Singapore: Graham Brash, 1987), pp. 272–3.81 Ibid., p. 275.