A Quora user Aron Deon answering a question, ‘How is living in Singapore as compared to Hong Kong for Indians?‘, suggested that the Republic is a far more racist place than China or Hong Kong. He further claimed that the early Indian migrants to the country were from the lower economic class and were also politically repressed in their new country.
There are several exaggerations in his answer – for example his view that ‘“No Malay, no Indian” is common in Singapore’. It is unclear if Aron is an Indian national but he has contributed to several conversations on population from the Indian subcontinent, even outside of Quora.
The following is what Aron said.
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Singapore is far more racist than China or Hong Kong. “No Malay, no Indian” is common in Singapore society while Hong Kong is far more civilized.
Indians living in Hong Kong and Singapore are derived from lower half of Indian society. Indians migrated as lower caste peasants to Singapore while they migrated as soldiers to Hong Kong. Indians in Hong Kong are slightly better than Indians in Singapore.
Though Indians obtain higher socio-economic status and educational (non mathematical) status than Chinese in both Singapore and Hong Kong (while the gap in Hong Kong being very high between indians and chinese), racism is still prevalent.
Indians were far more successful than Chinese in Hong Kong in 1990s. Then smartest people (top 1%) of chinese started migrating from China to Hong Kong and by 2001, the income gap between Indians and Chinese in Hong Kong is 2x paralleling gap between white and black people in USA. (Indians in Hong Kong)
In Singapore, Indian minority was suppressed heavily by Lee Kuan Yew. Chinese did obtain 1.2x higher socioeconomic status than Indians in 1990s. Indians have not only closed the gap but also increased the gap in 2010. As of 2015, Indians are 1.7x richer than Chinese in Singapore (only dumbed down by indian construction workers). Even second generation of Indian construction workers perform at par with 30–40 percent of Chinese in Singapore.