LAUSR

During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on the Singaporean Hindu community. The paper traces the journey of Tai Pucam as a declared public holiday in colonial Singapore to the 1950s when the Hindu community had two gazetted public holidays to 1968 when Tai Pucam was removed from the list of public holidays, a situation which persists into the present. The “making and unmaking of Tai Pucam as a public holiday” remains a controversial issue for Singaporean Hindus who express unhappiness over the fact that their religious community is granted only one religious holiday, when the norm in Singapore is such that each ethnic community has two holidays. This inequality is cited by Hindus and Indians in Singapore as a discriminatory practice. In 2015, a recent case, Vijaya Kumar s/o Rajendran and Others v. Attorney General , the controversial ban on musical instruments during a Tai Pucam celebration triggered yet again the sensitive issue of Tai Pucam as a “non holiday”.