A wise government is cognisant of the need to keep abreast of currents of political and social thought among 'the people'. In any reasonably open society newspapers play a vital role in this task.

But what is an administration to do when it speaks a different language to that of the people? It commissions reports and translations of newspaper articles from the vernacular press, of course. And when the people speak a Babel of languages? Then such translations become something of a guide to the priorities and reactions of ethnic communities, as well as providing a rather detailed sketch of the country's political history.

In Singapore, both the late colonial administration and the early People's Action Party government faced these very dilemmas, and between the years of 1952 and 1961 they responded by producing a weekly digest of the vernacular press in roneoed, foolscap, stapled editions. An almost complete set of these volumes is lodged in the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at The University of Queensland. A slightly more complete set is lodged in the National University of Singapore Library.

The attached document, Index of Political Headlines of Singapore's and Malaya's Vernacular Press: December 1953-September 1961 is designed as a guide to the Queensland University's collection of these documents. It was compiled as a research tool for the Paths Not Taken project, and assumes that the reader has access to one or other copy of the full-text originals.

It is offered here as an historical resource for any to use.

The Index
1953-54 (PDF/157k)
1955 (PDF/131k)
1956 (PDF/125k)
1957 (PDF/98k)
1958 (PDF/75k)
1959 (PDF/86k)
1960 (PDF/64k)
1961 (PDF/59k)

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