South Asian Post, 16 Oct 2008
Lee Kuan Yew, the man behind the Singapore success story, has outlined his vision of the route that India should take to fast track its evolution as a developed global power.
In an extensive hour-long interaction with participants at the mini Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Singapore, Minister Mentor Lee called for a dramatic shift of Indian multitudes living in villages to cities and towns.
This was the formula that Singapore used to transform this city state from a mosquito-infested swamp to the shining financial metropolis it has become, he said. And this was the route that countries across the globe, whether in Europe or America, South Korea, Japan or Taiwan, took in their struggle to become developed nations.
He held up the example of China, where every year more than 10 million people are moved from the countryside to the cities, enabling the country to provide them with education, health care and quality housing.
“In 1978, nearly 80 per cent of China’s population was rural and a mere 20 per cent was urban. Today, this proportion had changed to 60 per cent of the Chinese people living in rural areas, while 40 per cent of the people now live in cities and towns,” he said.
Lee, who ruled Singapore for 30 years after the country became an independent republic in 1965, said he employed the same formula when he converted Singapore into the financial powerhouse it is today. He described how residents of remote islands were settled in Singapore’s main island and given access to education and housing.
“I cheered when the last village in Singapore was demolished in 1980,” he said. “Today there is not a single village in Singapore.”
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