Singapore, a city and a country, with as much heterogeneity as it can possibly fit in, with as many skyscrapers as it can relentlessly build, interestingly but not surprisingly (given the ‘developed’ and par first world country status) could give enough pointers to be examined from the lens of a country with at least a fifty cities as big as Singapore. Enough pointers to learn from and to feel jealous about.
The easiest way to reason out why India cannot make a Singapore is to put the shame shame on three most visible factors: the size of the country, the very population and the corrupt, inefficient and self centred politics. But, I would like to keep these three out of the equation while trying to examine the relevance of Singapore’s success and processes from our country’s implementation perspective for the mere case that it provides us with the option of finding possible solutions without depending on the three reasons above.
The discussion should start with the way Singapore has dealt with the concept of Democracy. It is a working democracy as much as the free will of the people is concerned and it puts our romantic concepts of democracy to shy. It seems as if the government of Singapore tries to preserve democracy for its citizens by not practicing it themselves internally! They made us realise that democracy is not just majority decisions and free-fair elections. It is providing the dignity of life for its citizens and enabling them with opportunities to develop. It is providing them with freedom and security to live with dignity and prosperity. Though i would be cautious not to exaggerate it too much because I do see people struggling to get their lives to move on, but i am sure the kind of democracy Singapore has, they won’t put the blame on the government entirely.
Similar is the case with secularism. I have not heard anyone even using the word ‘secular’ in Singapore, yet it being able to make sure the many ethnic and racial communities are coexisting in harmony: Another romantic ideal of our country put before a question mark. They were able to do this with a simple policy of enforcing a prescribed floor ratio for all the communities in their public housing program. It means, if there are ten flats on a floor, not more than six flats would be reserved for Chinese community and the rest four would mandatorily be reserved for other communities like indian,malay etc., with the ratio defined by the ratio of the respective communities in the total population. Sounds similar to our reservation policies, yet so effective in its results. Can it be possible in India to ‘enforce’ such a secularism? Possible yes, but would need a change of our perspective towards reservations and not-so-free-willed enforcement of making people of different communities to live together.
I found the Singaporeans slightly rude (not to be treated as a generalised and sweeping judgment) when compared to our compatriots. It might have to do with their pride that even being a small red dot on the world map, they were able to bring themselves to be one of the topmost economies of the world, or it might just have to do with the cultural evolution. Nevertheless, the missing humbleness in its success story among the Singaporeans gives us a reason to be happy with what we have than becoming developed and rude.
Singapore is a pedestrian friendly country, something which is still a far cry in India. Even if we cannot overnight change the secular and democratic character of the country or its citizen’s perspectives towards development and communal harmony, making Indian a pedestrian country should be a definite possibility. Almost all of our world class cities are anti pedestrian, in fact they seem to mainly try to cater to cars and other large vehicles (visible in the importance given to multi lane highways and accident free roads, yet not pedestrian friendly). It is important to learn from Singapore and other countries to bring the citizen to the centre of their public transport and road planning, and to give pedestrian the first priority. We ensured that we walked as much as possible during our short stay in the country, and I should say it feels home being able to feel and enjoy the country you are living in.
The public transport system also gives similar contrasts between the two countries. Singapore encourages public transport and explicitly discourages private transport by taxing more. We on the other hand does exactly the opposite, only that the taxing is implicit and ‘in kind’!
Talking with the bureaucrats in Singapore gave a mixed picture regarding their career profile, perks and packages, freedom and professionalism, yet one aspect stands out: all of them were highly motivated to work and they visibly take pride in being a part of the government and helping their tiny city country to surpass some of the biggest names in the world. A unified vision for all of them, though with little or no flexibility, yet with strong operating procedures and enforcement of rules and with the strong backing of the political system, they were able to bring on to ground everything that’s in the policy books. This is something I dearly aspire to be seen in our country, a unified direction for all the civil servants (which is almost entirely non-existent) and a sense of pride, not because of the three or four letters attached to the name but a pride of serving the country.
But the biggest takeaway from Singapore is to realise the importance of enforcement, not just implementation. The government and its machinery were able to ensure that whatever is there on paper and on policy is executed in letter and spirit. This singular aspect has the spiralling effect of correcting every aspect related to the country’s administration. Given that soon we will be handling the responsibilities of this very aspect, I am sure to have learnt to take it seriously and enforce the enforcement.
Yet, at times within our six day stay itself, I had to fight my own thought process unable to answer the questions whether the development and the economic success of Singapore is because of the little autocratic way of their governing system, or whether it is because they were able to put people out of their policy equation while trying to bring development to the very same people and whether the vision they had for their country some thirty years back could be replicated, if at all.
Its is a country that has not seen many natural disasters (interestingly and surprisingly, its an earthquake free and cyclone free country!), it is a country that has not seen (or allowed) any riots or strikes (a daily feature in India), a country that literally removed chaos from its dictionary. It would be interesting to see how the country fares in the face of a troubled situation. (In fact, we learnt that there was a small communal riot after around thirty years in one of the areas called ‘little India’ and they tackled the post-mortem by banning alcohol consumption in that area during nights!).
Anyone visiting Singapore would not miss to observe the green areas separating each of their towns, the central water sewerage system, the solid solid waste management system, the way the tall skyscrapers are covered with tree-natural green and the very discipline with which the country runs. If we just have to believe that all of this was possible in Singapore only because they are paranoid for the fact of their size and missing natural resources, we would be taking credit away from their best available resource – the human resources.
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Good that you shared your views.
We will try , now and always to make a better community. we can.
A very well grounded and thought provoking article. What we need now is not a sweeping, radical set of changes that try to achieve things overnight. Addressing one issue at a time and a piece-by-piece legislative support with a contemporaneous constitutional backing is what proves fruitful. Take, for example, how London penalizes all its urban traffic with a congestion charge during off/on-peak hours or the way NYC enforces its parking violations.
Speaking on a more personal note, I had received a second traffic violation, when on a parking spot for just 15 minutes, that I was not supposed to be, while running a quick errand in Manhattan!
Equally interesting is the sense of national sentiment that sweeps consistently across nations from west to east which we witness in bureaucracies that govern the executive bodies of their respective nations. An NHS worker administering injections in Great Britain or a CIA informant in the States or a railway employee in HRC (China) does have something in common: A common sense of repertoire and a laudable work ethic that he/she needs to do his part for the country and under-promise, over-deliver.
Happy for you brother that had got to witness it first hand and let us all continue to get our stuff right, for a better community, country. eh.?