SINGAPORE: Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew regarded as a world statesman has said the first Indian premier Jawaharlal Nehru failed to use his power to change India radically and achieve a permanent transformation when he was in a position to do in the 1940s and 50s.
“So now caste and religion are still very much in charge of Indian politics which is great pity”. Lee told a Japanese journalist who asked him to name five world statesman living or dead he favored the most. The interview was published here Thursday.
As a young man and idealistic in the 1940s he admired Nehru who had great humanity Lee nor a senior minister said.
“Now as an older man as I look back I think he should have y institutionalized more forcefully the ideals he stood for a secular India where religion is not such a major factor where caste is not such an influence on society and he believed in the ideals of a secular caste free society”.
Lee said “he had the power in the 1940s and in the 1950s to change India more radically and to institutionalize that change. He did not use his power to achieve a more permanent transformation when he was in a position to do so. So now caste and religion are still very much in charge of Indian politics which is a great pity”
Other leaders he admires are Charles De Gaulle of France Deng Xiaoping of China Helmut Schmidt of Germany and Richard Nixon of America.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 26, 1991
