Why Modi is no Lee Kuan Yew

[ashok321]

I have no idea about Mumbai but my belief is that ur comparing prime property but I'm talking about normal blocks and flats where normal people like u and i stay

It is relative.
Real estate prices in India are quite expensive.
Mumbai prices are higher than those in Sydney, Australia.

 

[SelfServeFive]

Did Lee Kwan Yew order ghar wapsi?

 

[uparyupari]

We were not always 1 billion.

Man, national pride is something good but too much of it is also not good.

I disagree. You cannot have too much of a good thing. If anything, we have too little national pride.

Here's a situation:

When in 60s, 70s etc when sometimes water supply was running short and people had to queue up in lines, on seeing a water truck what would you people do? Now say after some filling, if the water truck man said that there is only limited water for the rest of the people and that it will be back with more water in some time, what would your reaction be?
All Indians would be hitting each other, pushing each other out of their way to get the remaining water.

That is human nature.

In other countries, all these people would attack the truck, then go to their office and attack them for not making sufficient arrangements for a locality of so many thousands of people despite earlier information. Had Indians done that for 10 years, the successive regimes in India would have been shit scared and would have worked like Singaporean government, delivering results.

You cannot generalize, but yes, I do not expect the rest of the world to be as civilized or cultured as Indians. We as a society have an inherent faith in our rulers to practice their Raj Dharma, even in the face of extreme odds. That is why we hero worship our leaders.

We do not turn violent and barbaric, we tend to take a holistic view of things. That is how the british could rule our Nation even though they were less than 1% of the population. We have been tamed by 5000 years of contineous civilization and it is not something you can reverse overnight.

Gandhi realized this, that is why he devised a platform like satyagraha to fight the british. Nothing else would have worked successfully in India.

Let's face it; as they say, there is no smoke without something burning.

We do not need smoke.

We Indians have also destroyed our country systematically by keeping ourselves above the system and a sense of self-deserved entitlement.

1- Having dozens of kids with no responsibility of seeing how to bring them up giving them basic facilities.
2- Demanding reservations based on caste, creed, state, language, minority/majority etc.
3- Demanding free 'everything' while giving nothing back to the country in terms of productivity.
4- Fighting among each other rather than fighting governments to give proper infrastructure to be productive.
5- No sense of discipline, self-inflated egos and unnecessary suspicions over each other.
6- Entitlement mentality.

There is a long complex answer for each point. Nothing something I care to go into at this point. But its quite immature to point to only one thing as the root cause. In a complex society, they are more than on cause.

Enough to say, Human nature is common all over the world. Only Indians happend to be more civilized than the rest of the world.

Take the case of Railway budget hike. There have been ministers even in useless UPA where they meant well to increase the rail fare by Rs 5. What has happened? Furore over it. No one understands that this will improve rail facilities and infrastructure and make rail safer.

People start howling about expenses and force to keep the fares low knowing that this will harm them later.

Before increasing the fare, there is a LOT Indian Railway can do to improve their service. Increasing the fare should be the LAST step in that, Not the first.

In a country like Singapore, Dubai etc, the government will just announce a hike; take it or get out of the country and find some other homeland.

That is not really a choice in India, is it ?

What India needs is an authoritative republic government that can actually make people disciplined, be meritocratic and be ruthless in dealing with populism, while giving equal opportunity for all to grow.

Only then we Indians will get disciplined.

Democracy Indian style won't work.

Sorry, I do not agree with such simplistic and childish assessment of a complex civilization and society.

Democracy is the best of available platform to provide equity and opportunity to all Indians. Its the best among all the flawed systems available to us.

Just because one Harvard educated failed means education has no value.

Bring back Rabri devi as Bihar CM by your logic.

All the education in the world is worthless if Intent is missing.

 

[Tshering22]

I disagree. You cannot have too much of a good thing. If anything, we have too little national pride.



That is human nature.




You cannot generalize, but yes, I do not expect the rest of the world to be as civilized or cultured as Indians. We as a society have an inherent faith in our rulers to practice their Raj Dharma, even in the face of extreme odds. That is why we hero worship our leaders.

We do not turn violent and barbaric, we tend to take a holistic view of things. That is how the british could rule our Nation even though they were less than 1% of the population. We have been tamed by 5000 years of contineous civilization and it is not something you can reverse overnight.

Gandhi realized this, that is why he devised a platform like satyagraha to fight the british. Nothing else would have worked successfully in India.




We do not need smoke.




There is a long complex answer for each point. Nothing something I care to go into at this point. But its quite immature to point to only one thing as the root cause. In a complex society, they are more than on cause.

Enough to say, Human nature is common all over the world. Only Indians happend to be more civilized than the rest of the world.




Before increasing the fare, there is a LOT Indian Railway can do to improve their service. Increasing the fare should be the LAST step in that, Not the first.




That is not really a choice in India, is it ?




Sorry, I do not agree with such simplistic and childish assessment of a complex civilization and society.

Democracy is the best of available platform to provide equity and opportunity to all Indians. Its the best among all the flawed systems available to us.



All the education in the world is worthless if Intent is missing.

That's another point I forgot to highlight: basking in the past glories while doing nothing for future.

 

[uparyupari]

That's another point I forgot to highlight: basking in the past glories while doing nothing for future.

There is nothing to bask, It is what it is. You have to accept it, not reject it.

 

[wiseone2]

Lee Kuan Yew (LKY or Lee ), Singapore’s founding father who passed away last month, could be counted as one of the few people in history, who became a legend in his own life time. What is a legend without these heroic tales, sometimes factual, but often embellished with the imagination of the story teller? Let me share with you a couple of stories I heard during my stay there last year that offered me some new perspectives.

First was from a first generation immigrant businessman from Tamil Nadu, who had moved in the late nineties. His simple measure of the success of LKY and his policies was that the day he landed, the Singapore dollar was worth Rs 20 and now around Rs 50.

His little story on LKY was about the great man’s relationship with Tamils, an ethnic minority that accounts for about 7 per cent of the population today. In the early days, when LKY was still a London returned lawyer and budding politician, there were often violent clashes between various ethnic communities.


“The ethnic Chinese people were too soft. They were too scared to even see blood. But, the Tamil people were hardened by physical labour in the port and plantations. They were rough and tough. They used to get things done for LKY. They played a key role in his rise. That’s why LKY reserved a special place for them, when the country got independent. He paid back by making Tamil one of the four official languages,” he told me while driving me around in his bright red car.

It is tales such as these that have built the goodwill and adulation that LKY enjoyed back home in Tamil Nadu. So much that anxious Lee fans misplaced a much alive Tony Tan’s picture in their rush to put up flex banners to pay respect to Lee.

The second story, that came from an immigrant engineer, was about a mysterious 'ghost writer' who scripted the parliamentary debates, which were then later read out by members of parliament. He apparently wrote speeches for both participants of the debate, one vehemently supporting the move by the ruling party and a second less vehemently supporting it. These then got reported as a ‘serious discussion’ and ‘heated debate’ in the media, which LKY had a stranglehold on.

These little accounts offer their own narrative about how people perceived LKY, the different facets of his personality and his relationship with minorities, the media and the parliament.

Now, it is no secret that our prime minister Narendra Modi holds LKY in high regard. He also takes inspiration from the legendary Singaporean as he sets out on his ambitious plans to build the country’s infrastructure from scratch and transform its economy. He was also seen in Sunday’s funeral.

Not a small number of Modi’s fans and followers see in him the Lee Kuan Yew of India. Journalists are finding to their horror that he is already going his idol’s way in certain aspects.

But, is that all there is to become LKY? In a post on his website airconditionednation.com, Cherian George, my professor at Singapore who is now teaching in Hong Kong, very lucidly explains how many world leaders say they want to be the next Lee Kuan Yew, “but conveniently ignore some of his most important qualities.”

One of the most respected, independent voices in the ‘airconditioned nation’,(also title of the book he wrote), George identifies three important qualities of LKY namely – zero tolerance towards corruption, his role as an unshakeable bulwark against majoritarian tendencies and his determination to ensure adequate minority representation in the parliament.

Though George talks about the poor records of other wannabe LKYs like Thaksin Shinatwara of Thailand and Indonesia’s Suharto on the issue of corruption, he doesn’t make any such observation about Modi or BJP.

While Modi himself has declared “Naa Khaaoonga, Naa khane doonga,” this intent is yet to be seen to have solidified into action. What action was taken against the top cop, who met corporate middlemen at his home office? Where is the transparency in appointments to public sector units and banks? Have the corporate sponsors of people in race to bag top posts at sectoral regulatory bodies and big banks been identified and nailed? What happened to the issue of the conflict of interests of lawmakers on corporate retainerships? Awaiting to read something on that. Hope some minister will tweet soon.

On the issues of minority protection and curbing of majoritarian tendencies, Modi and BJP have a long way to go, George argues suggesting Modi considering himself Lee Kuan Yew at this stage would be akin to or even worse than the guffaw of Tamil mourners mistaking Tan for Lee. I can’t find any credible evidence to the contrary.

“Yes, he (LKY) was a firm leader who stretched the limits of democratic government to breaking point in order to get things done. But a leader who makes minorities feel unwanted, insecure and fearful? That’s not a face that Singaporeans recognise,” the piece titled ‘Mistaken Identity’ concludes. That's not a face ordinary Indians would approve of either.

To be recognized as India’s Lee Kuan Yew, a leader should not only take decisive strides on economic front, but he must also take along the minorities and weaker sections. He needs a large heart to go along with a sharp mind and a sweet tongue. He should not only claim to be protecting minorities but also be doing so by the people he claims to be protecting. Recent outbursts by former top cop Julio Ribiero and former Naval chief Sushil Kumar speak for themselves.
Narendra Modi is no Lee Kuan Yew, not yet.

Why Modi is no Lee Kuan Yew | Business Standard On The Beat

India is not Singapore
there are things we can learn from Singapore

 

[my2cents]

Lee did state that India was stitch together by the ?British railway. So maybe Indians should experiment separating out states like Goa out of the control of the Union gov and see what happens

I always felt that some parts of India like Goa, Mumbai should be given autonomy to run their own affairs without state and central interference.

 

[happycanuck]

The common element between them is their vision and unrelenting pro economic development goals for their respective nations. Both have individual personalities and let us leave as it is.