Singapore: K Shanmugam, a senior minister in the Government of Singapore has said that certain racist and xenophobic comments directed at people of Indian origin are “shameful” and “nasty”.
The police in Singapore are looking into the matter, he said, according to a report in The Straits Times.
The remarks were posted online in response to the August 26 flash floods in Nepal, in which nine Singaporeans are among the missing, and reports that Air India has sought about 1.5 billion dollars from its shareholders, one of which is Singapore Airlines, as reported by The Indian Express.
Speaking to the media at Social Space @ Chong Pang, Shanmugam said some of the comments were “shameful, nasty and totally unacceptable”, and that they leaned on stereotypes involving snakes, curry, pratam, and black magic.
The coordinating minister for national security said he had decided to call out those posting such comments so that the behaviour is not normalised-which, he warned, would debase public discourse and damage social harmony.
“These people should be unmasked and dealt with, rather than be allowed to hide behind online anonymity,” he said.
Shanmugam also said that Singapore’s ministry of gigital development and Information will ask platforms to take the comments down, as they breach guidelines.
The Nepal flash floods, triggered by a glacier collapse in the Himalayas, have killed more than 1,200 people.
Shanmugam singled out posts suggesting that the missing Singaporeans were “not our own” and one that used ABNN, a derogatory term for Indians. He asked what kind of person would say such things about people who are missing.
The country’s ministry of home affairs later circulated 20 examples of racist comments it had come across, most of them from the comments sections of local news outlets’ social media pages. Among the slurs used was the phrase “CECA faces”-a reference to the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, the India-Singapore free trade pact signed in June 2005 that has long been a lightning rod in Singapore’s debate over foreign workers.
The senior minister also flagged online attacks on Temasek chief executive Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara and the state investor’s senior management, including claims that he would favour Air India because he is ethnically Indian.
Shanmugam called the attacks “vile”, and said the suggestion was nasty and libellous. Temasek is the majority shareholder in Singapore Airlines.
Singapore Airlines holds a 25.1 per cent stake in Air India, with Tata Sons owning the rest. Reuters reported last month that the airline had asked both shareholders for roughly 1.5 billion dollars in fresh equity.
Air India and Air India Express together posted losses of about 2.33 billion dollars in the financial year ending March 2026, weighing on Singapore Airlines’ earnings.
