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| Looking back to see the future |
| Rajeev Malik / New Delhi Jan 21, 2010, 00:35 IST |
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India’s economic rise since the self-inflicted 1991 balance of payments crisis has resulted in surprising strengthening of linkages with two Asian countries in particular. One is South Korea, where the private sector’s early bet on capitalising on the Indian domestic market is paying off handsomely. The other country is Singapore, which today is perhaps the most well-connected Asian country with different parts of India.
Looking East to Look West by Sunanda K Datta-Ray is a delightful book that covers the rich and age-old political and economic evolution of the India-Singapore story, and suggests Southeast Asia as a window for India to the west. The book is peppered with anecdotes, insightful analysis, and carries Datta-Ray’s engaging writing style. However, the “seal of approval” at the beginning of the book from the foreign ministers of India and Singapore is surprising.
What makes the book even more appealing is content from several hours of interviews that Datta-Ray had with Lee Kuan Yew, maestro statesman and the man credited with transforming Singapore into the bustling global city that it has evolved into.
At the very outset, Datta-Ray attempts to explode the myth that the evolving exuberance in the India-Singapore ties owes to Goh Chok Tong, who was prime minister after Lee, and is currently Senior Minister, which he became after Lee became Minister Mentor. According to the book, Goh’s approach was no more than a return to the original focus that had inspired Lee in the 1950s.
It is somewhat surprising how much of an effort is made on that point. That is because there is precious little in Singapore’s big-picture policies, especially in the early decades of its independence, which evaded the constructive influence of and guidance from Lee’s awesome intellectual power and forward-looking world view.
Further, Datta-Ray acknowledges, in an apparent contradiction, that little happened on the India-Singapore relationship during Lee’s 31 years as prime minister, and that substantive development started only after Goh become prime minister. Datta-Ray offers few insights on the echoes of the current hugely positive overtones over Mission India in Lee’s two-volume memoir, despite having had rare multiple meetings with him.
The debate over whether the engaging focus on India is Lee’s baby is largely unnecessary, I feel. This is because it probably could not have been anyone else’s, given Lee’s long direct and indirect influence on policy, his approach in the early post-independence years, the appealing political views of Nehru, and the personal rapport between Nehru and Lee. Still, execution is important, and the book appears to unfairly downplay Goh’s achievements in managing Singapore’s gearing into India’s rise.
Nothing succeeds like success, and the recent economic rise of India has, undoubtedly, injected a new wave of optimism among Indians in India and those overseas, and also made sceptics reassess their negative position on India’s economic future. In several cases, it has also made people of Indian origin across the world more upbeat about their ancestral land, despite its uneven and uncertain reforms.
Datta-Ray superficially touches on the sensitive issue of lack of inter-mingling between Singapore Indians and the more recent Indian arrivals, both from India and from other parts of the world. However, he offers few insights into the reasons for such a wall, and also does not attempt to offer solutions, despite having had a first-hand experience of living in Singapore.
The book shies away from certain topics that would have made it more engaging. For example, there is a lot India can learn from Singapore, especially in execution and implementation, while Singapore can learn, among other things, corporate vibrancy and how to deal with situations when things don’t work as planned (as they often don’t in India!). Both China and Singapore are examples of varying degree of government-assisted successful growth stories, while India’s economic rise is despite its government.
Further, claims about the success of the Singapore route in channelling global capital into India are exaggerated. India’s approach toward Southeast Asia remains a sideshow at best in the broader Asian geopolitical arena where Pakistan, India as a counter-balance to China, and terrorism are relatively less affected by India’s policy towards Southeast Asia.
There is no analysis on why Singapore’s attempts to woo Indian companies to list in Singapore have been less successful. Interestingly, one of the iconic Indian success stories is conspicuous by its absence: It was reportedly Jet Airways’ decision to fly aircraft with fully-reclining beood-like seats on the India-Singapore route that made Singapore Airlines, perhaps the world’s best airline, to sit up and upgrade its fleet on that route.
Few countries in the world are as diametrically different as India and Singapore, and these differences go beyond the usual banter about size and politics. Singapore is an over-achiever that delivers better results than promised, while India is perhaps the greatest economic under-achiever that habitually delivers less than promised. Singapore constantly tries to reinvent itself, and policymaking remains pragmatic to capitalise on emerging opportunities anywhere in the world. In contrast, India remains a difficult market for everyone, including Indians.
India needs to change its way of doing things but it is striking how the Koreans crib less. They are, even in the absence of any guidance from a Lee-like statesman-institution or any historical ties with India, successfully riding the India story. It is up to Singapore’s private sector to change its mindset to profit more from India’s rise, because others are able to pull things off despite facing the same constraints.
The author is head of India and Asean economics at Macquarie Capital Securities, Singapore. The views expressed are personal.
Looking East to Look West
Sunanda K Datta-Ray
Penguin Books
Rs 499 ; 400pp
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