10 - Singapore's ‘Mild India Fever’

Summary

Responding to the guidelines he had inherited, Goh made history. He abandoned his fear of Indian hegemony, sponsored India for membership of various Asian forums and made a major breakthrough with the Bangalore Information Technology Park. A grateful India invited him to be the first Singaporean guest of honour at New Delhi's Republic Day parade. But the first post-Lee highlevel visit was by Lee's son, future prime minister Lee Hsien Loong while George Yeo was credited with carrying out the most exhaustive practical survey of the prospects for India–Singapore relations. There were disappointments, too, as several ambitious Singaporean proposals foundered on the rock of India's traditional suspicion of foreigners. But movement was forward and that was largely because Narasimha Rao also made history by opening India to the world, meaning the United States with which he sought economic and strategic ties after decades of frosty neglect. He also made history by being the first Indian prime minister to be invited to deliver the Singapore Lecture when Lee compared him with China's Deng Xiaoping.

Narasimha Rao inherited a bankrupt exchequer when Rajiv Gandhi's assassination pushed him centre stage as he was packing his bags to retire to his native Hyderabad. Few took him seriously. ‘When in doubt pout’ was one of the less impolite gags about the new prime minister. Rajiv's drive for modernization had boomeranged. Lavish imports of capital goods had created a huge balance of payments deficit compounded by the high cost of fuel and fertilizer, the end of rupee trade with the Soviet Union, the first Iraq war and suspension of workers’ remittances from the Gulf. Foreign exchange reserves dwindled to US$1.1 billion, while foreign debts soared to US$70 billion. India was in crisis but the new premier lived up to the Chinese spelling of the word with two ideograms meaning danger and opportunity. He combined an acute strategic sense with a disarming turn of phrase. ‘I will follow the Nehru line,’ he told this writer after taking over, pre-empting charges of jettisoning cherished Nehruvian principles by adding, ‘Manu the lawgiver gave the law but it was up to each Brahmin to interpret it.’