Speech by Minister Chan Chun Sing at Indian New Year Celebrations, Indian Cultural Fiesta

1.A very good evening to all of you, to my parliamentary colleagues, the sponsors, and organisers behind the scenes. Special thanks to the Little India Shop Owners and Heritage Association (LISHA) and the organising committee for working so hard to bring together this event. Thank you very much.

2.Second, I would like to wish all of you a happy and blessed Indian New Year ahead of time. May everyone and your families enjoy an abundance of blessings in the coming year. My best wishes to all of you.

3.The last point that I would like to share with you tonight - I thank the organisers for doing something that is very unique to Singapore. You might think that this is just another community event, but if you look carefully, you will be able to see something very special about Singapore. Something very special in the way we celebrate different cultures, different events.

4.If I may just build on what you have seen during the beginning act tonight, in Singapore, we have a diversity of cultures not just amongst the Indians, the Chinese, the Malays and many other communities. But within each of the communities, there are smaller sub-ethnicities we celebrate.

5.What makes our way of celebrating events a testament to the Singapore spirit? In many other places with a diversity of cultures, they usually choose one of two ways to work together. One way is, "to each his own". Another way, the other extreme, is that they harmonise everything, and then they unify everything and then they have a single outcome.

6.In Singapore, we do it very differently. In Singapore we never try to erase diversity. Instead, we build upon this diversity, be it within the Indian community or across the Indian, Chinese, and Malay communities. We have a deep sense of appreciation of each other's culture, and it is upon this diversity that we build something new, we build something together.

7.It is the beauty of the Singapore system that allows us to stand out in the world to demonstrate not just our unity, but our ability to create something amidst our diversity without losing the respective roots of our cultures.

8.In the opening act, what was so unique is that you have seen the Maharashtra culture, you have also seen the Malayalee culture, but in that same performance, we can clearly detect the roots of both without any one being subsumed. Yet at the same time where the two are put together, it creates something fresh, something new. That is the essence of the Singapore spirit.

9.So, I would like to complement the organisers and choreographers behind that opening act, for reminding us of this simple yet powerful Singaporean aspect.

10.We celebrate not just the diversity of our roots, but we also celebrate the unity of purpose, the creation of something new from the diverse. I hope that we will truly celebrate all our festivities the Singaporean style, where we deeply appreciate the diversity of our roots, never losing them, and yet always seeking to transcend, to surpass our differences and instead build something fresh, something new for generations to come.

11.On that note, may I wish all of you a blessed Indian New Year ahead and an abundance of blessings in the years to come. Thank you very much.

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