Editorial

Foreign quarter

 India must show maturity in response to

international criticism of internal matters

Close on the heels of the Government’s sharp sum-

mons to the South Korean Ambassador over so-

cial media posts by private companies, the MEA

summoned the Singapore High Commissioner, follow-

ing a speech earlier this week by the Singapore Prime

Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, where he had said there has

been a decline in political probity in India after Prime

Minister Nehru’s tenure. He warned that  Singapore

must stem any political corruption if it is to not “go

down that road”. The speech was an unexpected broad-

side, despite the high praise for Nehru, the Government

felt, and one which merited raising the issue of the “un-

called for” remarks with the Singaporean diplomat. As

the South Korean case suggested, South Block appears

to be making a pattern of its “zero tolerance” stand to-

wards any criticism of India. To begin with, PM Lee’s

comments, where he said that about half of all Indian

Lok Sabha MPs face criminal charges, are not baseless.

Mr. Lee even added the caveat that many of these cases

could be motivated by political rivalry — which indi-

cates some understanding of Indian politics. Second,

he spoke of a similar downslide in Israeli politics, and

the British “partygate” scandal (as of date, Israel and

the U.K. have not raised objections). Finally, the speech

was set in a grander context, as he invoked the Confu-

cian guidelines for social behaviour that unite a coun-

try: rituals, righteousness, probity and shame. His

5,000 word speech on the subject contained just one

Indian example where he had even praised the found-

ing fathers of the independence movement, and then

decried a slide in values since then. The comment,

while harsh, does not merit a strong­headed response.

It is possible to argue that Mr. Lee’s examples were

arbitrary, and contained unusual criticism for a country

that has otherwise friendly ties with Singapore. Given

that the issue at hand was a breach of privilege matter

in the Singaporean Parliament, where an Opposition

member had been found guilty of lying in the House,

the India mention was certainly not required. It is even

possible to argue that Singapore’s very controlled ver-

sion of democracy cannot be compared to India’s more

vibrant  democratic traditions. However, the strong

reaction New Delhi displayed evinces an insecurity

about just these traditions. The fact that it comes on the

back of a series of other summons, démarches and

statements reacting to other governments for speaking

about “India’s internal matters” adds to this impres-

sion, especially given that the Modi government fre-

quently comments on the internal issues of its own

neighbours. While this event is unlikely to cause more

than a ripple across the broader, historically deep bilat-

eral relationship with Singapore, the Government must

avoid an international reputation that lends itself to the

Shakespearean line — that it “doth protest too much”.