Abdul Rahman, N (Singai Mukilan)

N Abdul Rahman (1922-1992), generally known by his pen name Singai Mukilan, was the first Tamil writer to receive the Cultural Medallion award for Tamil literature in 1988. Over his 50-year writing career, he penned more than 1500 poems and stories. Mukilan was born in Cholapuram, India, in 1922. He left India for Malacca in 1938, where he began working as a grocery shop assistant. In Malacca, he was active in the Malayan Dravidian Association and the Malacca Tamils Reform Association. He also served as a signaller of the Malayan headquarters of the Indian National Army. After the war, he moved to Singapore and worked as a proofreader in Tamil Murasu. Mukilan passed away in 1992.

His poems were first published in the late 1930s in Kudi Arasu, a weekly magazine in India founded by social reformer E V Ramasamy, widely known as Periyar. Mukilan considered Arunasalam Chettiar, who ran the weekly magazine Tamilkkodi in Malacca, as his guru and learned the grammar of poetry from him. Mukilan’s first two volumes of poetry were published by the Malacca Tamils Reform Association in 1939. These poems generally advocated for social reforms, including the abolition of the caste system, within the immigrant Tamil community. His third volume was published in 1940. During the Japanese occupation, he published poems in Tamil language periodicals in Singapore supporting the withdrawal of British forces from India. In later days, his poems were published in the Tamil dailies such as Tamil Nesan, Tamil Murasu and Tamil Malar. Mukilan published more than 10 collections of his poems from the 1950s through the 1970s, along with a collection of parables in 1976. Some of his poems have been translated into English and included in the Anthology of ASEAN Literature: The Poetry Of Singapore, published in 1985. He received the prestigious Cultural Medallion award in 1988 for his literary contributions, with the citation that “he has been a strong influence on two generations of Tamil poets in the region.”



For more information
Arts House Limited. “N. Abdul Rahman.” Our Cultural Medallion Story. Accessed on 1 August 2025. https://artshouselimited.sg/ourcmstory-recipients/n-abdul-rahman 
“Cultural Medallion and Young Artist Award.” National Arts Council Singapore. Accessed on 1 August 2025. https://www.nac.gov.sg/singapore-arts-scene/cultural-medallion-and-young-artist-award/cultural-medallion-page/about-the-cultural-medallion 
“Culture’s six of the best” The New Paper, 28 February 1989, 18. (From Newspaper SG)
Singapore Tamil Writers. “Singai Mukilan.” In 200 Writers, Accessed July 25, 2025. https://singaporetamilwriters.com/ASTW/200%20Writers/S4%20Singai%20Mukilan.docx 
“Singai Mukilan.” Wikipedia. Accessed on 1 August 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singai_Mukilan 
Thumboo, Edwin, Wong Yoon Wah, Lee Tzu Pheng, Masuri bin Salikun, and V. T. Arasu, eds. The Poetry of Singapore. Jakarta: ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information (COCI), 1985.

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The information in this article is valid as of August 2025 and correct as far as we are able to ascertain from our sources. It is not intended to be an exhaustive or complete history of the subject. If you have any feedback on this article, please submit here.