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SINGAPORE: In the modern republic of Singapore, several seemingly ordinary people who work in offices or drive taxis can claim to be of royal blood, descendants of a 19th century monarch who ceded control of the island to the British.
But few inhabitants of one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world are even aware of this lineage, a sore point with Tengku, or Prince, Shawal, hailed by some members of his family as “head of the house of Singapore.”
“Do they still exist?” It’s a response the 51-year-old says he often gets when he tells people that he is one of the descendants of Sultan Hussein Shah, whose treaties with the British led to colonial rule and the founding of the modern country.
Shawal is one of several Singaporeans who bear the honorific name Tengku, which means prince or princess in Malay, and claim to have ties to the sultan.
Until the beginning of this century, some of them still lived in their ancestral home, a crowded and dilapidated palace, before the government evicted them and turned it into a museum.
79 descendants, 14 of whom lived in the palace, were offered payments as part of the colonial-era agreement to support the sultan’s family, the government said at the time. Many of the others lived abroad, he said.
The names of the legal beneficiaries were not made public, making it difficult to verify actual claims.
The Singaporean government, which has ruled uninterruptedly since the city-state’s independence in 1965, told Reuters that all but one of the payments had been made, but could not share further details about the beneficiaries.
Not a dynasty
Shawal, who showed government correspondence from Reuters identifying him as the beneficiary, still regularly visits the palace-museum and its nearby mosque and cemetery in the Malay-heritage enclave of the city-state called Kampong Glam.
Despite facing personal problems with his cut in income and his logistics work at risk due to the coronavirus pandemic, Shawal says he spends time keeping the sultan’s heritage alive by dressing in traditional royal robes and attending celebratory events.
But gaining wider recognition is challenging, even among a disparate and somewhat divided group of plaintiffs.
Other descendants warn of the dangers of living in the past or are overly concerned about the difficulties of the present.
“We are not a dynasty. It doesn’t matter if you are a descendant of the royal family or not, ”said Tengku Indra, a 67-year-old consultant who lived on the palace grounds as a child.
“What is crucial is that he must earn his living through meritocracy rather than enjoying ascribed status based on ancestral position.”
Indra was described as Sultan Hussein’s great-great-great-grandson in an article from the government-affiliated heritage society Friends of the Museums Singapore last year.
Indra’s son, 40-year-old businessman Tengku Azan, has a two-year-old daughter who would be one of the youngest descendants.
He believes that future generations will not be very interested in the history of the sultan. “The past inadvertently takes a back seat and remains indifferent,” he said.
For other former palace residents, life in the outside world has been a rude awakening.
Tengku Faizal, 43, said that after leaving the palace in 1999, he took a job as a condo cleaner and would be mocked for being the prince who handles the garbage.
Now she drives a taxi, but says she is struggling to make ends meet and has been given financial assistance to cover her daughter’s childcare expenses. To help, his wife has taken a part-time job at McDonald’s.
“We are not smart, we are not rich,” Faizal said, speaking in English. “We only have the title.”
In neighboring Malaysia, a constitutional monarchy where sultans still play an active role in public life, honorific names are much more common.
Of seven Singaporean plaintiffs interviewed by Reuters, Shawal was the most eager to celebrate his inheritance.
But even he had his own doubts about passing on the “burden” of the royal title and did not give it to his daughter at birth.
Puteri, who is now 27 and working for a biotech company, has brought back his Tengku name, but says he also considers explaining his credentials to be an arduous task in a country that has largely forgotten this part of history.
“Part of me feels sad because I need to explain who I am. But the moment they look at Prince Harry, they know he’s the prince, ”he said, referring to the world-popular grandson of Queen Elizabeth II.
