Major events of this
period
Sivadas s/o Sankaran, 82, is a retiree. He was a journalist with The Straits Times from 1947 to 1951. He became a sub-editor with the same paper after that and stayed with ST till 1971.
The Maria Hertogh case in December 1950 sparked off racial riots throughout Singapore. Those were chaotic days. I remember being in the thick of some of those riots.
In one incident, my editor had assigned me to cover some racial incident, and I was in the car with a photographer. The streets were crowded, there were so many people milling about in those chaotic days, and our car was stuck. We could not drive on.
All of a sudden, we were stopped by a young boy, aged about 14, holding a big stick or pole. He grabbed and pulled my hand out of the window, and seemed to be examining my skin colour. I think he wanted to see if I was a Eurasian or an Indian, because they were attacking Eurasians at that time.
I think if I was Eurasian, he would have hammered me, but I told him, I'm an Indian, not a Eurasian, you know. He let me go.
But I remember there was a barrister and municipal commissioner, a Mr Patrick Johnson, who was almost killed in a racial riot. After he was assaulted, he was taken to hospital, and when he recovered, he left Singapore. He didn't want to stay in Singapore anymore.
Once, I went over to the area near Sultan Mosque. I found a line of Gurkha soldiers, an army officer and a police officer. There was a crowd of Muslims at the other end of the road. I turned into the five-foot-way at the corner and stood behind a pillar, watching what was going on. A Chinese boy was standing near me.
Suddenly, the group of Muslims came towards us. Then the Gurkha soldiers started opening fire. One of them came around the pillar near where I was standing and started aiming at me.
I knew the Gurkha soldiers were Hindus, so I immediately put up my hands like this -- in a praying fashion -- and bowed down to him to show them that I was a Hindu, too. If they were Hindus, I knew they would not shoot me -- true enough, they did not fire at me.
But the Chinese boy next to me was hit in his foot. I was shocked, and I just stood there looking. The army officer ordered them to stop firing. I went to a nearby shop and rang the office.
It was day time, maybe before 11 o'clock, because The Straits Times was not working at that time, but the Singapore Free Press was an afternoon paper. So I told the editor what had happened, and the story came out, with the byline: Sivadas, reporting from the frontline.
I wasn't afraid to go there. I was only afraid at that moment when this man suddenly came round the pillar and aimed his gun at me.
Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.
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