When then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew called upon his Indian counterpart Indira Gandhi to take bold decisions during his visit to Delhi, the latter declined, maintaining it was not how India could be run, according to Tamil Nadu Governor R.N. Ravi.
Speaking at the Entrepreneurship and Rural Development Conclave at the IIT Madras Research Park in Chennai on Thursday, January 18, 2024, Mr. Ravi recalled the former Singapore Prime Minister’s visit to Delhi and also his reported remarks on Indian politics and its economy.
Mr. Ravi said that in a public speech after his meeting with Indira Gandhi during the Emergency, Yew had said India could grow militarily but it shall never be an economic power and that its leaders were not prepared to take bold decisions. “He said, Madam Prime Minister! You are strong. You have the courage to impose emergency in a country with such a diversity and such a huge dimension.”
Mr. Ravi went on to say that Yew had said Ms. Gandhi could “take bold decisions because your [India’s] economy, the way you are moving forward, it was not going to take you anywhere close to what you can be, what India can be...And the reply he got was: ‘No, Mr. Prime Minister. This is how Indian can be run’.” Mr Ravi continued, “And he [LKY] said: India can never be an economic power.”
However, the Governor said, in his view, a decade ago, there was a change in thinking. “We started thinking big. We had a national leader. We started thinking big. [From] A country which was condemned not to be an economic power, today we have graduated from tenth to the fifth-largest economy in the world and [are] poised to be the No: 3.”
Underlining the need to encourage entrepreneurship, the Governor, who is also Chancellor of State-run universities, said Tamil Nadu produced about 1,500 Ph.Ds every year but “not even 2%” of them qualified for the National Eligibility Test (NET) / Junior Research Fellowship (JRF).
“Is Ph.D., is this a passing time? I have done my post graduation. I have no job. So, I will get a Ph.D.?” Mr. Ravi asked as to why the youth were not aspirational. He underlined the role of teachers and emphasised: “You have to inspire the students.”
