TRADITION AND CHANGE IN AN INDIAN DAIRYING COMMUNITY IN SINGAPORE

ABSTRACT

The spread of dairying into Southeast Asia is associated with culture contacts from the Indian subcontinent. The maintenance of cows or buffaloes as milk animals is not commonplace among either the Malay or Chinese elements. Dairying in Singapore is essentially a product of deeply traditional Indian migrant patterns. A sizeable dairy herd has been maintained over a forty year period within an urban area which has a density of over 25,000 people per square mile. The operation of the dairying system, and the life of the small community dependent upon it, are characterized by low investment other than on livestock, institutionalized Indian practices in production and sale of milk and stock, and reliance on a market consisting mainly of compatriots. The social and functional repercussions of enforced relocation to a rural fringe area indicate that the persistence of the unique dairy community will have less to do with pure economics than with the ability of a traditional culture to withstand modernism.