Lee Kuan Yew, the statesman who transformed Singapore from a small port city into a wealthy global hub, has died at the age of 91.

‘Lee Kuan Yew didn’t dislike India, he was disappointed by India’

Few, if any, world leaders could have claimed an understanding of as many Indian Prime Ministers as Lee Kuan Yew did. From his admiration of Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he saw as “demagogue who chose not to become a dictator”, to his controversial approval of Indira Gandhi’s imposition of the emergency, Mr. Lee (Minister Mentor Lee or MM Lee as Singaporeans called him reverentially) had very strong views on India’s leaders and where they should have taken India.

But while Mr. Lee had an easy and often warm relationship with Indian leaders, he was caustic in his criticism of how India had developed post-Independence. His view that India was “ not a real country”, but “32 separate nations that happen to be arrayed along the British rail line”, and his scathing criticism of its leadership and bureaucracy that were in his words “feudal” made many see him as anti-India.

His views on the world, published in a book authored amongst others by former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, included the following passage:

“The average Indian civil servant still sees himself primarily as a regulator and not as a facilitator. The average Indian bureaucrat has not yet accepted that it is not a sin to make profits and become rich. The average Indian bureaucrat has little trust in India's business community. They view Indian businesspeople as money-grabbing opportunists who do not have the welfare of the country at heart, and all the more so if they are foreign.”

(Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master's Insights on China, the United States, and the World (Belfer Center Studies in International Security) by Graham Allison, Robert D. Blackwill, Ali Wyne)

Lee Kuan Yew made his peace with India’s style of growth towards the end of his life, and his belief in the “centrality of entrepreneurship and private sector as a driver for economic development in close harness with the government” is perhaps most admired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who called him “a far-sighted statesman and a lion among leaders” adding that “Lee Kuan Yew's life teaches valuable lessons to everyone.”

In his own words several years ago, Lee Kuan Yew himself called India “a nation of unfulfilled greatness.”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/lee-kuan-yew-didnt-dislike-india-he-was-disappointed-by-india/article7023579.ece