Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015) was a remarkable and brilliant man. In assessing the quality of national governance, international rankings often focus on three related baskets of indicators: first, a nation’s level of democracy and civic participation, and the degree to which citizens exercise political rights; second, the effectiveness of its government in facing issues, making policy choices, executing policy, and preventing corruption; and third, its performance in producing the results people want, including rising incomes, health, and safety. Which raises a question: What is the ultimate purpose of government? A decentralised system would have allowed more centres like Bangalore and Bombay to grow and prosper….India is a nation of unfulfilled greatness. In the 1950s, Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues in the PAP outmaneuvered a violent Communist party to emerge victorious in the election of 1959. Whatever the political leadership may want to do, it must go through a very complex system at the centre, and then even a more complex system in the various states….Indians will go at a tempo which is decided by their constitution, by their ethnic mix, by their voting patterns, and the resulting coalition governments, which makes for very difficult decision-making. If Singapore had taken the democratic route, would it have been as chaotic as India? In Lee’s view, “Democratic procedures have no intrinsic value. Singapore's late leader governed undemocratically but effectively. When he took over as Prime Minister, Singapore’s annual per capital income was $400; today it is estimated at $56,000. All Rights Reserved. Lee was prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. Real GDP per Capita by Country: 1965-2013. Gen Augusto Pinochet, a western stooge who killed thousands of Chileans, was a tyrant. Nothing is morally at stake in the choice of procedures.”, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World by Graham Allison, Robert Blackwill and Ali Wyne, includes a chapter on India. Singapore scores in the top 10 while the United States ranks 20 countries lower on the list, with the Philippines and Zimbabwe in the bottom third. I spent a whole life-time building this, and as long as I am in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”. Lee’s believes the culprit is uncontrolled democracy. This is precisely what Lee had done in Singapore. The death of Lee Kuan Yew shook the foundation of the world and the media as usual, begun to trumpet what he stood for. ‘The people’, as I see it, includes future generations, and governments have a special responsibility to resist popular pressure for tax breaks and welfare measures that undermine the prospects of future generations. Instead of raising living standards, Nehru spent his time and energy on the chimera of world peace. According to one of the greatest strategists of the 20th century, that would be more or less correct. Earning your place in history … “A nation is great not by its size alone. ‘I Never Thought China Could Ever Be This Dark’. In its 2014 ranking, the United States was among the freest countries in the world. Over that same period, real per-capita GDP in the United States and the Philippines doubled, and Zimbabwe’s actually dropped. Lee and Putin, on the other hand are nation builders. Was he a tyrant? As a Russian proverb declares, it is better to be healthy, wealthy, and safe than sick, poor, and insecure. How did Putin achieve that? Graham Allison, a co-author of the book Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World, published an article where he highlights five of Mr. Lee’s lessons. Lee Kuan Yew at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2001. Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew had opinions on topics as diverse as nationalism to terrorism to his late wife. The contrast between Singapore’s ranking in the first two categories, and the third, reminds us of a fundamental question of political philosophy: What is government for? Lee walked his talk. According to the 2014 Gallup World Poll, 85 percent of Americans see “widespread” corruption in their government, while only 8 percent of Singaporeans believe their government is corrupt. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy” were taken. He lived through both the Japanese occupation in the 1940s and British colonial rule. Let’s start with performance, since it is easiest to measure. Rakesh Krishnan Simha is a New Zealand-based journalist and writes on defence and foreign affairs for Russia Beyond the Headlines, a global media project of Moscow-based Rossiyskaya Gazeta. SINGAPORE, March 23 — Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, who died on Monday aged 91, was renowned for his sharp tongue, quick wit and controversial remarks. Its potential has lain fallow, underused.”. Thus Lee Kuan Yew leaves students and practitioners of government with a challenge. Contemporary Western Europeans and Americans tend to answer that question by emphasizing political rights. During his long rule, Singapore became the most-prosperous country in Southeast Asia.. Lee was born into a Chinese family that had been established in Singapore since the 19th century. As you are no doubt aware, Swarajya is a media product that is directly dependent on support from its readers in the form of subscriptions. Whatever the eulogists of Lee Kuan Yew told you about the Singapore he created or the Asia that seems resurgent, the praise of him says just as much about America. Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, speaks during an interview at the Istana in Singapore in this December 9, 2008 file photo. It is based on interviews with Mr. Lee by the authors—Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard's Kennedy School, and Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. diplomat—to which the authors add a distillation of Mr. Lee's speeches, writings and … "This book is a call for intellectual and emotional engagement in reshaping the governance of the world we live in. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, the late Singapore strongman, “The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development.”. He has been cited in books on counter terrorism and society in the global south. The death of the founding father of Singapore last Monday is an appropriate occasion to reflect on nation building. "—Fernando Henrique Cardoso, President of Brazil, 1995–2003 Lee Kuan Yew GCMG CH SPMJ (born Harry Lee Kuan Yew; 16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean statesman and lawyer who served as Prime Minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. 1995, The Wit & Wisdom of Lee Kuan Yew. From 7AM in the morning to 10PM late night we operate to ensure you, the reader, get to see what is just right. Copyright: Swarajya. According to its report, “Singapore is not an electoral democracy. In current dollars, the average Singaporean’s income grew from $500 a year in 1965 to $55,000 today. “There are limitations in India’s constitutional system and the political system that prevent it from going at high speed. The economy, remote controlled by the IMF, was in free fall, without the bottom in sight. The country was under the grip of criminal syndicates and sundry opportunists. What matters is good government.” According to the Singapore strongman, the government’s primary duty is to create a “stable and orderly society” where “people are well cared for, their food, housing, employment, health”. Lee served in office from 1959 to 1990, during which time he led his country through a period of remarkable economic growth and diversification. If Churchill was right in his judgment that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, what about Singapore? Our business model is you and your subscription. But in the case of Singapore, it is hard to deny that the nation Lee built has for five decades produced more wealth per capita, more health, and more security for ordinary citizens than any of his competitors. In this book, Lee says in his no-nonsense style: “India has wasted decades in state planning and controls that have bogged it down in bureaucracy and corruption. Visionary, perhaps, but Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew was not democracy's friend. If Churchill was right in his judgment that democracy is the worst form of government … It is based on interviews with Mr. Lee by the authors—Graham Allison, a professor of government at Harvard's Kennedy School, and Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. diplomat—to which the authors add a distillation of Mr. Lee's speeches, writings and … But I'm not impressed by a $5,000 or $10,000 Armani suit." For Americans in particular, this contrast presents a conundrum. A citizen is 24 times more likely to be murdered in the United States than in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World forms a kind of last testament of the ailing, 89-year-old Mr. Lee. In the US, western democracy could not prevent the theft of the 2000 Presidential elections where Al Gore got more votes than George W. Bush and still lost. In short, Lee Kuan Yew was pragmatic, rather than ideological. March 20, 2013 Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, attends the Standard Chartered Singapore Forum in Singapore. It lost points mainly for Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party’s tight management of the political process. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Political stability and social order were part of the attraction. On the other hand, they see mounting evidence daily of Washington’s gridlock, corruption, and theatrical distractions, which makes their system seem incapable of addressing the country’s real challenges. In Zimbabwe, 55. Freedom is the woman who can ride buses and trains alone; freedom is not having to avoid certain subway stations after night falls.” Lee Kuan Yew always insisted that the proof is in the pudding: rising incomes for the broad middle class, health, security, economic opportunity. According to one of the greatest strategists of the 20th century, that would be more or less correct. That is what George W. Bush claimed the Americans were doing in Iraq. The monthly salary of the man in the street went from $80 to almost $600. Singapore scored in the bottom half, behind South Korea and the Philippines. His entry was dramatic – the Russian stock market jumped 17 per cent the day he got the job in 1999. Get Swarajya in your inbox everyday. This has happened most starkly in India where the Congress party ruled India for over five decades despite not getting the majority of the votes. The second basket in assessing governance focuses on what experts call the effectiveness of the governmental process itself. Around 2300 years ago, Chanakya, the original master of statecraft and policy and the mentor of the greatest empire in Indian history, wrote in the Arthashastra: “The foremost duty of a ruler is to keep his people happy and contented. Singapore’s widest lead over both the United States and comparable nations comes in the prevention of corruption and graft. Now, the Americans and their NATO friends claim they are introducing democracy in Libya. The number of families living below the poverty line decreased from 30 per cent in 2000 to 14 per cent in 2008. Lee Kuan Yew, (born September 16, 1923, Singapore—died March 23, 2015, Singapore), politician and lawyer who was prime minister of Singapore from 1959 to 1990. To Western ears, the claim that an autocratic state can govern more effectively than a democratic one sounds heretical. 53. He disallowed dissent, curbed free speech, introduced corporal punishment, and even banned chewing gum. In … On these criteria, how has Singapore performed over the course of its first five decades versus the United States; or the Philippines (which the U.S. has been tutoring in democracy-building for a century); or Zimbabwe (an African analogue that declared independence from the United Kingdom just a few years after Singapore, and where dictator Robert Mugabe has been as dominant a national force as Lee Kuan Yew has been in Singapore)? The late Mr Lee Kuan Yew was a lifelong admirer of the United States, but not an uncritical fan of the superpower, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday.. Read more at straitstimes.com. Claim: A quote attributed to former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew says, "The Philippines' version of democracy as of late is best called a government by stupid people, of stupid people." In 2012, Bloomberg Rankings judged Singapore the world’s healthiest country based on the full array of health metrics; the United States ranked 33rd, the Philippines 86th, and Zimbabwe 116th. For instance, a large number of candidates can divide votes so that a totally unpopular candidate can squirm his way to power. Bush stepped into the White House and took the US into the senseless war against Iraq, in 2003. It’s ironic that while a man of Chinese ethnicity internalised Chanakyan strategy, Indians have paid lip service to it. Is it a drag that prevents us from achieving great power status? Tributes begun to pour from around the globe, eulogizing this national hero who transformed Singapore from a small port city into a wealthy global hub. They will not support a weak administration.”. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, the late Singapore strongman, “The exuberance of democracy leads to undisciplined and disorderly conditions which are inimical to development.”. Singapore also has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. This is your life and mine! In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Index, Singapore was ranked second overall, behind only Switzerland (the United States came in third). But for Lee Kuan Yew, “the ultimate test of the value of a political system is whether it helps that society establish conditions that improve the standard of living for the majority of its people.” As one of his fellow Singaporeans, Calvin Cheng, wrote this past week in The Independent, “Freedom is being able to walk on the streets unmolested in the wee hours in the morning, to be able to leave one’s door open and not fear that one would be burgled. We do not have the muscle and backing of a large media conglomerate nor are we playing for the large advertisement sweep-stake. Swarajya - a big tent for liberal right of centre discourse that reaches out, engages and caters to the new India. Unlike Lee, Nehru lapped up what his former colonial masters dished out to him. Lee spoke against such imperfect election tools during an interview in 1999: “My view is that people’s preferences matter, but I don’t define the people’s preferences as merely the views of existing majorities. Singapore leads the United States by a significant margin on each of these measures and is not even on the same level with the Philippines and Zimbabwe. … Opposition campaigns have typically been hamstrung by a ban on political films and television programs, the threat of libel suits, strict regulations on political associations, and the PAP’s influence on the media and the courts.”. Over the past decade and a half, U.S. GDP has grown an average of less than 2 percent a year—while Singapore’s averaged nearly 6 percent. Both attempts have been spectacular failures. Rather, the pictures of once proud pensioners now reduced to trading their World War II medals for a loaf of bread were gleefully published by TIME, Newsweek, and The Economist. The people are his biggest asset as well as the source of peril. A child born in the United States has three times the chance of dying in infancy of one in Singapore. It is the will, the cohesion, the … Remembering Lee Kuan Yew: Iron Fist Rule That Made Singapore What It Is Today.. « on: April 17, 2016, 12:08:42 AM » Si Lee Kuan Yew ay kamay na bakal ang pina-iral, disiplina, strikto kaya umunlad ang Singapore, Ayaw mo bang umunlad? All of this has made me think about the impact of ourselves and our executives in leading the organizations and corporations that we are part of. Becoming a Patron or a subscriber for as little as Rs 1200/year is the best way you can support our efforts. The IMF, which worked overtime to destroy Russia’s state-owned corporations and banks, admits that from 2000 to 2006, the Russian middle class grew from 8 million to 55 million. In this speech, Lee Kuan Yew had clearly given solid bits of advice to the audience as well as to all Filipinos, and it is this particular speech from whence the famous words “ I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. From 1963-1965, Lee attempted to integrate Singapore into the Malaysian Federation in order to fend off the Communists and maintain economic and political stability. A leader who protects his country’s interests is not necessarily a tyrant. In a democratic form of government the party or candidate that gets the most votes is the winner. He imposed western democracy on a poor and divided country, causing chaos that slowed economic growth and caused numerous caste and religious conflicts. During this period, industry grew 75 per cent, while real incomes more than doubled. He is on the advisory board of Europe-based Modern Diplomacy. First up, he rejected the notion that western democracy and values are universal. It is yet another example of the rejection of western ideas by the emerging world. In the Philippines, 23 out of every 1,000 children born die in infancy. Many observers saw a contradiction between Singapore's free markets and its lack of democracy… Indeed, Singaporeans loved him for raising their living standards and, more importantly, their prestige. We deliver over 10 - 15 high quality articles with expert insights and views. ... democracy has worked and produced results only when there is … The creator of modern Singapore, who passed away on March 23, thought that India’s political system has left it “a nation of unfulfilled greatness”. Such a system may seem fair but in reality can create unfortunate outcomes. On the one hand, Americans hold as a self-evident truth that their democracy is the best form of government. Rakesh’s articles on defence and foreign have been quoted extensively by a number of leading think tanks, universities and publications worldwide. For the answers let’s turn to Russia and how it experimented with unbridled democracy and then later with strong central rule under President Vladimir Putin. The concept was advocated by Mahathir Mohamad (Prime Minister of Malaysia, 1981–2003, 2018–present) and by Lee Kuan Yew (Prime Minister of Singapore, 1959–1990), as well as other Asian leaders. Indeed, because of the dramatic economic growth of Russia, China, Singapore and other South East Asian countries, authoritarian prosperity rather than democracy is now a viable governing option for developing countries. His detractors deride him as the “breaker of modern India”. On democracy: "But we either believe in democracy or we not. Under him, Singapore became a de facto one-party state. In the words of Lee Kuan Yew, the late Singapore … Each year, the World Bank produces Governance Indicators metrics on government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. So perhaps we should define democracy as a government chosen by the people, including contemporary and future generations.”. As the Singapore Prime Minister was fond of saying, “I do not believe you can impose on other countries standards which are alien and totally disconnected with their past.” In his view, “to ask China to become a democracy, when in its 5,000 years of recorded history it never counted heads” was completely unreasonable. Is democracy a spoiler for India? The popularity of the concept waned after the 1997 Asian financial crisis , when it became evident that Asia lacked any coherent regional institutional mechanism to deal with the crisis. “Furthermore, populist democracy makes Indian policies less consistent, with regular changes in ruling parties.”, During a rally in 1980, Lee described what it took to transform a small, dirty colonial trading post into one of the wealthiest nations in the world: “Whoever governs Singapore must have that iron in him, or give it up! The West treats democracy as religion – so sacred that it will bomb countries into the stone age in order to sow the seeds of democracy in those places. Into this mess, Putin walked in. As the table above shows, over the past 50 years, real per-capita GDP in Singapore grew 12-fold. In contrast to Lee’s strong sense of nationalism, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was completely delusional.