Comments on: Lee Kuan Yew on India

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew

Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew — Thu, 10 May 2007 17:06:19 +0000

[...] pleased that right up there is a link to one of my favorite series of posts on this blog: Lee Kuan Yew on India. Read it but be warned that it is a bit long and it is not a prett [...]

By: re{cycled,used} inspirations » Lee Kuan Yew Lecture

re{cycled,used} inspirations » Lee Kuan Yew Lecture — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 04:06:27 +0000

[...] titled "India in an Asian Renaissance" deserves mention. Atanu Dubey has done a commentary on it, which is worth a cup of coffee in its own right. Read t [...]

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew on India — Part 4

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 13:40:01 +0000

[...] lysis of India’s economy incisively accurate. I annotated his speech in parts (parts one, two, and three) and this one is the concluding summary of what I gather from his ta [...]

By: Nachiketa Version 0.1

Nachiketa Version 0.1 — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 17:53:58 +0000

Wonderfull series! I have two comments:

1) I don’t remember who was proposing the following thesis but I found it appealing (even though I hated Nehruvian policies). The capitalist experiments have proved to be detrimental to the young democracies both in Africa and South America. When the democracy is too young and the masses are poor, the experimentation with capitalism and foreign inflows made things worse in Africa & South America. Most of the MNCs and even local capitalists tend to play with the political system using money and they eventually lead to coupes by military and some land in communism. May be, Nehruvian slower capitalization may have indeed helped grow our young democracy to take strong roots.

2) That was a wonderful articulation regarding low cost labor. I think, this point needs to be an article in itself. Most of the Indians don’t get it. I am not able to reconcile fully but I liked the following quote from book “China Inc” by Ted Fisher: â€œEven at twenty-five cents an hour, Chinese workers cost more than laborers in the poorer countries of Southeast Asia or Africa. China is the worldâ€™s workshop because it â€¦ offers the worldâ€™s manufacturers a reliable, docile, and capable industrial workforce, groomed by government-enforced discipline.â€

By: sepoy

sepoy — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 13:47:15 +0000

“I should mention that the ruling dynasty of India does not have a single university degree among the whole lot of them, starting with the celebrated Nehru whose name graces scores of universities and colleges around the country.”
um. and what exactly did Nehru get at Trinity College?
http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=23

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 3

Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 3 — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:16:36 +0000

[...] ivate sector uses capital very efficiently. Lee Kuan Yew points it out in his lecture (see part 1 here and part 2 here of my commentary):A factor worth noting: India gets a much b [...]

By: Anshul

Anshul — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 00:49:55 +0000

There is no doubt that LKY has done wonders for the economy of Singapore. I wonder what you have to say about some of the other facts that, in LKY’s words, “come with the success”, namely – more than four people cannot peacefully assemble in Singapore; there is no freedom of speech (even bloggers have been known to be jailed); and the opposition party exists only in name and its leader is regularly arrested?

Do you think it would be worth taking away these freedoms from the people of India in order to achieve quick economic growth?

By: rob

rob — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 07:51:26 +0000

Lee Kuan Yew may say nice thing about India that make you feel great but he is racist, corrupt and a bully. If only you knew the half of it (talk with a Singaporean with more than half a brain).

Allegedly of course …

Atanu’s response: Rob, I see very little in LKY’s speech that would make me feel great. As I wrote, he is being as diplomatic as he can and yet it looks like in his assessment, China is leagues ahead of India. May I suggest that you actually read my comments on his speech?

By: Tarun Anand

Tarun Anand — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 06:50:15 +0000

Rightly said… without enforcing contracts you cannot have a functioning economy. This is the basis of capitalism.

On the low cost workers: I wonder whether low cost workers can be made more productive. Are you sure aggregate wages and productivity must balance? Dont you think they go out of balance, cause labour arbitrage and cause “migration” of jobs from one economy to another?

By: Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 2

Atanu Dey on India’s Development » Lee Kuan Yew on India - Part 2 — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 05:33:05 +0000

[...] XML-Feed Previous post: « Lee Kuan Yew on India 19. Dec '05 11:19 pm [...]

By: Venkat Ramanan

Venkat Ramanan — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 13:53:37 +0000

Atanu!!
Too Good!!! I completely enjoyed reading through this article. Yes, Our netas and babus stand out (wish they were outstanding!!) and keep exhibiting their mismanagement skills!. Did you hear about how the dynastic congress is preparing the next person Rahul in line for the next PM post? Wish somehow that doesn’t happen!!! Please continue writing the complete article….
And, that part dealing with efficiency of Indians, where you had answered one of my previous questions.. Thanks a lot.. I shall read more about that..
Cheers,
Venkat.

By: Parvati

Parvati — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 08:48:33 +0000

“Before distributing the pie I had first to bake it.” With the Left having so much of a say in every decision regarding our economy, I don’t think we will ever be able to understand this simple rule of life. Welfarism seems to be here to stay…

By: Abhishek

Abhishek — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 02:46:56 +0000

Atanu, you could add the following tags:

Socialism haywired, Lost oppurtunity, mediocre leaders,corruption, pseudo secularism, minorty glorification, Hindu Supression,nepotism, politician bureacrat nexus,Chacha Nehru(!), DYNASTY, illiterate dynasty, Congress, WTF.

By: Guru Gulab Khatri

Guru Gulab Khatri — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 21:29:33 +0000

Well I take a nuanced view of everything includeing Nehru, India Singapore LKY. I dontlike when people idolize anyone which is my gripe with congress. They created an idol worshipping class. But comparing singapore to india is a mistake on many accounts. Singapore shouldnt be a model for india. Even today the relative meritocracy in singapore is lower than in US. There isnt innovation coming out of SG (oh well i’ll only half heartedly concede soundblaster). My point being there are “cultural” traits that indians have to adopt from other cultures and pretty soon they will get the right economical framework. India should look at US,germany,Japan, These societies not only produce something but innovate.
Indians in US have done OK(not great yet) with respect to that. IMNHO SG is too small, lacking in innovation and SG was screwing around with all kind of wierd policies and ‘got its act’ together in 68-72 period. SG and the SG chinese in particular did quite well under the brits.
They weren’t screwed by brits as majorit of the indians were. India had negative gdp growth under the brits. Its only after they were out of the picture did india’s gdp recovery start. Naipaul did corectly understand that india indeed is a wounded civilization(after repeatedly being subdugated by more than one foreign power) and it still doesnt have the intellectual means to fully understand the mess its in.
Again my point is not to put down singapore but to look at the complete picture. I wouldnt want every one to start to idolize singapore.
With that said i dont disagree with LKY that india needs better education and infrastructure otherwise it will collapse (he doesnt explicitly say that but it should be obvious from the sources he’s included)