Squatters into Citizens: The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire and the Making of Modern Singapore

Chapter 7: State of Emergency

154 Squatters into Citizens 154 7 State of Emergency Declaring a national state of emergency, the People’s Action Party government made a huge effort to remake the shattered Bukit Ho Swee community. The rehabilitation of fire victims commenced on the night of the inferno and culminated in an emergency public housing estate that transformed a burned-out area of “Old Singapore” and spearheaded the making of a modern nation-state. The crucial initial stage of this relief operation spanned the provision of shelter and food to the relocation of the fire victims in temporary Housing and Development Board flats. The relief work was driven by both historical precedents and a new political will. The PAP inherited the colonial policy of fire relief developed from the kampong blazes of the 1950s, but it also possessed a determination to push through its social programmes more quickly and with less tolerance for opposition than the colonial administration had. Even so, the state faced the anger of many fire victims over two contentious issues: the costs of the temporary public housing and the undetermined cause of the fire. Both issues threatened to disrupt the relief operation. Fire Site under Guard The first step in the relief operation involved control of the fire site. Minister for National Development Tan Kia Gan ordered the chief building surveyor to demolish any new unauthorised buildings on the site.1 As the fire burned itself out at Delta Estate on the night 1 SLAD, 31 May 1961, pp. 1567–8. State of Emergency 155 of 25 May, over 1,500 policemen, Singapore Military Forces soldiers and steel-helmeted Gurkhas with fixed bayonets maintained a cordon around the site. The next morning, as dark clouds of smoke still hung over the area, armed police and soldiers manned checkpoints at the entrances of Beo Lane and other entry points into the site. They scrutinised the identification cards of fire victims standing in long queues, to prevent unauthorised access to the area. Those granted access searched for their belongings beneath burnt sheets of zinc under the watchful eyes of policemen and soldiers, while detectives patrolled the area to prevent looting. Two men who entered the site without authorisation “out of curiosity” were arrested and fined $10 each.2 In subsequent months, HDB officials continued to patrol the site to prevent the rebuilding of unauthorised housing. Some fire victims recovered their furniture, and even money and valuables. To them, the excavation was intended to find not merely their material assets but also the resources required to rebuild personal and family lives. At her former home on Beo Lane, Tan Geok Hak found her damaged sewing machine. Tan repaired it for $200, equal to the monthly salary of a low-income worker, but the act heralded the reconstruction of her family life. “It is a Singer,” she explained, “not the normal Japanese brand. That was no good.”3 Nevertheless, in other cases what little was salvaged merely underscored the enormity of people’s loss. Social Welfare Department Deputy Director Goh Sin Tub recalled how fire victims saved “old kitchen pots and dented pans and … a chamber-pot!” “patchwork blankets” and “mysterious cloth bundles”.4 The elderly owner of a former medicine shop returned to the site and recovered some medicine containers. But the mainstay of his life, the shop that he had owned for decades and was uninsured, had been destroyed. He estimated his losses at about $6,000–7,000.5 2 SFP, 28 June 1961. 3 Author’s interview with Tan Geok Hak, 5 Oct. 2006. 4 Goh Sin Tub, “The Bukit Ho Swee Fire”, in Goh’s 12 Best Singapore Stories (Singapore: Heinemann Asia, 1993), p. 161. 5 NYSP, 27 May 1961. 156 Squatters into Citizens Illustration 7.2 Tan Geok Hak’s Singer sewing machine, 2006. Photograph by author Illustration 7.1 Families with buckets search among the charred ruins, with two bulldozers in the background. Photograph courtesy of National Archives of Singapore State of Emergency 157 A Maelstrom of Activity at the Relief Centre Northeast of the fire site stood the relief centre, the second and by far the most important arena of relief provision and official regulation. The government at first struggled against the scale of the calamity to organise a proper venue to shelter, feed and register the fire victims. The Social Welfare Department had initially estimated the number of fire victims at only...