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Little India

>> 22 photo pages

 

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1 - Masjid Angullia

2 - Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple

3 - Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple

4 - Tekka Mall

5 - Kampong Kapor Methodist Church

As part of his masterplan, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern Singapore, envisioned for the different ethnic groups to live in their own neighbourhoods, Kampongs (villages). Nevertheless, today's Little India was not part of this plan, but an independent development out of the accumulation of camps for Indian workers, who were brought directly from their homeland. When the colonial government started to establish brick yards in this quarter of Singapore, the first one was opened around 1826 by the Indian Naraina Pillai, who had come to Singapore with Raffles. Around 1840 Indian families started using the large resources of water and grassland for livestock farming. The deeply Indian character of the quarter was already feasible in 1900 and retained this ambiance until today.

Indians, meaning people from the Indian sub-continent (Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh), comprise approximately 7% of Singapore's population. The majority of them are Tamil, which explains why Tamil is one of Singapore's official languages. The majority of Singapore Indians are Hindus. Many are Muslims from the Coromandel- and Malabar Coast (Chulias) and others are Sikhs emigrating to Singapore since 1890 from northern India and Pakistan. Many groups have their own temples.

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>> Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple

 

 

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Singapore / City-Tour