Strongman who took Singapore to the First World
What truly set him apart was his obsessive social engineering. He rebuilt Singapore virtually brick by brick…
As an Indian, I wish Lee Kuan Yew had lived to be at least 97. He may then, in 2020, have taken a more positive view of India before finally signing off. In 2007, he endeared himself to Indians when he wrote admiringly about “India’s Peaceful Rise” in a column in Forbes. By 2012 he was writing India off as a “nation of unfulfilled greatness.”
Regrettably, those were his last recorded views on India before ill health slowed him down. He told Robert Blackwill, former United States Ambassador to India and the co-editor of a volume on Mr. Lee’s view of the world, (Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World by Graham Allison, Robert D. Blackwill and Ali Wyne, 2013): “Look at the construction industries in India and China, and you will know the difference between one that gets things done and another that does not get things done, but talks about things…” — words that many believe still ring true about India.
Rebuilding Singapore
Mr. Lee was unique. Alone among the developing, post-colonial nations, Mr. Lee made bold to define his nation’s destiny as that of moving, within one generation, from being a Third World country to becoming a First World country. He achieved it.
Mr. Lee’s critics will draw attention to his dictatorial tactics and the stifling of dissent and the media. His admirers, however, view him a benign dictator who, in fact, actively sought democratic legitimacy and ensured that he secured it by running a welfare state, in which he sought to instil hope in the future for every citizen.
It is not just phenomenal economic growth and modernisation that marks Mr. Lee’s Singapore out. What truly set him apart was his obsessive social engineering. He rebuilt Singapore virtually brick by brick, tearing down the old, changing social behaviour and creating an ‘air-conditioned’ metropolis in the middle of a green, manicured garden island. As Singapore modernised, it also invested in the arts and in culture, always emphasising the diversity of its cultural roots.
Mr. Lee had strong views about how society ought to be organised and how governments ought to function. He had the opportunity and the space to put his thoughts into action and used social engineering to create a plural nation with four official languages and a housing policy that ensured the intermingling of races.
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