By: Subhashini, Asstt. Editor-ICN
How did Lee Kuan Yew engineer Singapore’s economic miracle?
NEW DELHI: Let us consider Singapore, a nation that was transformed from a small town to a global financial hub by the late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. His set of impressive policies for public welfare proved to be a wonderful example of the political and administrative cohesion. I believe Lee was a global thinker and an influential leader, whose vision and approach led Singapore on the path of rapid progress and development.
Lee was able to correctly assess things way before other people. He not only inspired the Southeast Asia but also had a powerful impact over the entire Asiatic region. Lee was a promoter of economic development, and he wanted to establish peace and stability throughout Asia and worked relentlessly towards achieving this objective. Lee became the Prime Minister of a nation which was known to be equivalent to a mere city. The total population of Singapore even today is just 5.399 million. It is made up of fifty four small islands, with a total national area of 718 sq km. Its original name is derived from the Sanskrit word, ‘Singhpur’. Its population comprises a large number of citizens of Indian origin, consisting primarily of Tamil speaking heads.
Singapore had been dominated by the British for a long time and also by the Japanese (for a shorter period) and was a victim of serious racial discrimination. Earlier, the entire world used to look at it as a colony of fishermen and a place with backwardness and poverty, where people were usually tepid and lazy. It was considered the crowd of homeless people and the empire of mismanagement and malnutrition.
But if we look at it now, we see some pivotal changes that turned the fate of Singapore in a way that no one ever expected.
- Today, Singapore is doing much better than so many countries of East Asia, especially ASEAN countries and in fact has been performing excellently when it comes to education and research. The economy has also been growing rapidly. The trade to GDP ratio is on an average 400 per cent, one of the highest in the world. The savings rate is also the highest here.
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2.The rate of growth of GDP per capita is higher in Singapore than in the US, and is way ahead of Germany, Japan and France. The GDP is 298 billion dollars, which is indeed a shockingly high figure.
3.Singapore holds the second position in the world’s freest economies and also a second position in terms of corruption among the forty two countries of Asia pacific region (ranked from lowest to highest). It also has the lowest crime rate in the world.First– P-1 category with a salary of over 8000 dollars per month
Second– P-2 employment visa for incomes between 4500 dollars to 7999 dollars
Third– Q-1 visa where the minimum is 3000 dollars per month
With this we can figure out how high the incomes of ordinary citizens would be.
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Source – Business Insider
The gulf countries are prosperous because of their huge oil reserves but the radiance of Singapore is the result of the hard work of the citizens and the farsighted vision of their leader. A nation’s greatness is not measured in terms of its size or population, but in terms of the achievements it acquires with time. A country which had almost no natural wealth but still transformed into the world’s economic center is an incredible concept in itself.
Initially, Lee Kuan was influenced by the communist ideology of China. When he laid the foundation of People’s Action Party in 1954, his intention was to represent a strong voice in the Legislative Assembly of the people of Singapore. However, this struggle did not end there. He wanted Singapore to be a part of Malaysia, but the Malaysian Government separated it and hence handed over the reins of an independent Singapore in the hands of Lee. That was the period when the nation faced countless number of problems, and Lee was the only ray of hope. Lee addressed the need of change in the country and hence formulated his ideology according to the same. He abandoned the communist ideology and swore that he would change the fortune of his nation.
In just one generation, Singapore transited from being in the Third World countries to being in the line of developed nations of the world.
Despite being the Prime Minister of the country, he would go out to sweep the streets himself, making all the people who create mess embarrassed. He was strict in discipline and integrity and hence was known as a tyrant for the dishonest and unscrupulous. The Singapore Airlines pilot strike was strongly faced by the Lee administration and is a major historical example of how fierce a leader he was. His main objective was to increase the income of every citizen of Singapore and provide them with the best health care system in the world. He was quite successful in encouraging other nations to invest their capital into Singapore. Lee never practiced the policy of subduing other nations with their own military power; instead he chose the path of wisdom and knowledge and truly made a seemingly impossible task achievable.
Lee was considered a brilliant and influential politician because he succeeded in convincing the public that real growth is possible only through hard work, efficient schemes, a corruption free Government, a single-party rule and positive media.
He always stressed that only those who keep the nation above their personal interests should become leaders. Every nation in the world has something or the other to learn from Lee’s method of governance, be it a developed or a developing nation.
