After Singap

After Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in the course of a parliamentary debate that "Nehru's India" had changed from its lofty values and principles where "almost half the MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal charges pending against them, including charges of rape and murder", India reacted with anger and, in an unusual gesture towards a friendly country, summoned Singapore’s High Commissioner Simon Wong and conveyed its displeasure, saying “remarks by the Prime Minister of Singapore were uncalled for”.

The Singapore prime minister, son of its founder Lee Kuan Yew,  was responding to a parliamentary discussion on a privileges committee report on the Leader of Opposition, who has been accused of lying, and how democracy could function effectively in the small city-state of six million people. 

“Things start off with passionate intensity. The leaders, who fought for and won independence, are often exceptional individuals of great courage, immense culture, and outstanding ability. They came through the crucible of fire and emerged as leaders of men and nations. They are the David Ben-Gurions (Israel's founding PM), the Jawaharlal Nehrus, and we have our own too,” Lee said.

“Nehru’s India has become one where, according to media reports, almost half the MPs in the Lok Sabha have criminal charges pending against them, including charges of rape and murder," adding a caveat "though it is also said that many of these allegations are politically motivated.” 

But India didn't take kindly to the remark, even though it was from the leader with which India has close strategic and economic ties, and showed its touchiness about comments by other countries on what it sees are its "internal affairs".

On Friday, senior Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who has been a former junior foreign minister, said it was most unseemly for the Ministry of External Affairs to “summon” the envoy of a friendly country like Singapore over remarks by their prime minister to their own parliament, and asserted that “we must learn to be less thin-skinned”.

“He (Lee) was making a general (& largely accurate) point. Given the stuff our own pols utter, we must learn to be less thin-skinned!” the former minister of state for external affairs and UN official said in a tweet.

“We should have handled the matter with a statement saying ‘we heard with interest the PM’s remarks. But we don’t comment on other countries’ internal matters, nor on debates in foreign Parliaments, & urge everyone to follow the same principle.’ Far more effective & less offensive,” Tharoor said in another tweet.

In his nearly 40-minute speech, Singapore PM Lee had talked about how a democratic system needs lawmakers with integrity and invoked India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to stress how democracy should work in the city-state and how easy it is for a small country like Singapore to go down that slippery slope.

One of the reasons PM Lee's remarks touched a raw nerve in India's ruling dispensation was because ideologically it has tried to distance itself as far as possible from Nehruvian ideals and worldview, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself not missing an occasion to point out Nehru's policy failures and political shortcomings. 

Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the BJP, despite being in power for more than seven years, continued to blame Nehru for the problems of the people.

Former Indian cabinet minister Jairam Ramesh shared a video clip of Lee Hsien Loong's speech and said, "Singapore PM invokes Nehru to argue how democracy should work during a parliamentary debate whereas our PM (Modi) denigrates Nehru all the time inside and outside Parliament."

(SAM)