The Elephant & The Tiny Dot: A week @ Singapore

The development story of Singapore is arguably a legend among the developmental economists because of reasons more than one. The first key feature about the growth is the speed and consistency with which it took place. Hardly could anyone have imagined that this “tiny little dot” of a city would become a thriving global financial powerhouse, once it unwillingly gained independence in 1965.

The second key feature that sets this story apart is the network of constraints within which Singapore has grown. It wasn’t ready for political independence- The idea of securing its borders and the maritime offshore interests from the world was a nightmare for its political leadership. It had a nearly fully migrant population that resided in closely packed squatter settlements, making a living out of the port operations. Singapore has handled these constraints in a spectacular way and even today while the global financial powerhouse shines to its strength, the potable water to be used by its residents finds its way from Malaysia. Hence, Singapore’s story of governance is not a “done and forgotten” type, rather a “continuous blossoming” type.

Amidst such continuous tweaking, it is important for the government to have a set of underlying principles that need to be mandatorily followed amidst all the policy experimentation. Singapore has been smart enough to define them thus -

  

1: “Leadership is the Key”- Singapore looks at leadership as both political and administrative. Efforts are actively taken to ensure that the best talents of the nation is recruited and retained in the public sector. This is done through fair and meritocratic selection process and pay parity with the best in the private sector.

The fact that this is the first principle enunciated by Singapore in its list also shows their perception of their political leaders. The fact that the same party has been in power in Singapore right since its independence and a single person has been at the helm for 35 continuous years and still remains overtly powerful as the Minister Mentor of Singapore, calls for an analysis.

Being a small state that started its journey by fending for its own survival, Singapore and its people have put the stability of government’s vision and policy as their topmost priority.

2. Anticipate Change and Stay Relevant- Given the strict and quick enforcement of its policies, Singapore has to be more cautious about making mistakes in its policies. Such course corrections require the governmental sector to be attuned to receiving feedback and acting on them positively.

A number of sessions that we attended in our stint at the Civil Services College showed how smoothly Singapore’s government has pro actively addressed the changing needs of its population. Eg. The design of public housing projects and the allotment policies were changed in the real time due to the changing needs of the clientele – Hence, increase in the car ownership led to constructive planning for inclusion of parking spaces and the change in the location preferences of the people led to restructuring of tariffs of the public housing projects.

3.  “Reward for work, and Work for Reward” - Singapore is the melting point of civilizations and financial business houses of the world. It naturally understands the concept of incentives and opportunity costs in human resource management. Young and talented people are recruited and retained in the public sector through competitive salaries and professional growth opportunities.

4. “Create a Stake for Everyone and Opportunities for All” - Singapore as a democracy maybe doing a devil’s job in curtailing civil liberties when it comes to protests and political demonstrations, but, inter-alia,  the involvement of the citizenry in governmental processed serves as real tool for democratization.

All the policy interventions in Singapore are oriented to include the relevant people as important stakeholders. It provides scope for participation in planning, enforcing, implementing and in course correction.The people we met in our visit also showed a keen understanding of their stakes and show how proud they felt in being included. This gave people a sense of “one country, one government” through their most routine interactions with the government.

Singapore has its turfs guarded very possessively. There are a number of blanket restrictions regarding ownership of private property and other associated rights for migrants. Similarly even the migrants, who obtain “Permanent Residency” of Singapore, receive fewer governmental privileges. However, when it comes to its citizens – Singapore offers them a number of opportunities in employment, ownership of property and education.

 “Leadership is the Key”: Messiah from the Indian Chaos?

Given the political stability in Singapore, a shared vision and policy outline that remained consistent through more than 5 decades was made possible. One can argue how much of the same is possible in India and how one can assist in that.

To my mind, it is a fact that the political system in Singapore has elements and traits of an autocracy in it. There is always a risk involved in such autocratic regimes – It is Singapore’s fate that its longest serving prime minister of the country had the abilities of a stalwart. Most importantly it is also Singapore’s fate that the focus on curbing of corruption was started from its inception by the political leadership and has continued since then. Systemic corruption can twist and turn any policy intervention in ways that are difficult to predict. The fact that the political establishment was highly motivated to curb corruption, helped Singapore in good stead – one could ask, what if it would have been otherwise – how and when would the people have revolted against it.

So even though “autocratic democracy” worked for Singapore in ways that could have been best possible, it cannot, to my mind, be prescribed as the panacea for all developmental ills.  

In India, the nature of polity and politics gives room for change of parties with every election. It brings in fresh ideas and views, in line with the ever changing demands of the multi-colored society. Politically, India can come on broad terms of agreement for governance of the nation and if that is done and agreed to by all the parties like the “Model Code of Conduct” is, in case of elections conducted by the ECI.

Such a broad framework can give the country’s governance a sense of continuity. Similar framework can be evolved for the state’s administrative setup.

We cannot dream of a messiah to emerge from our crowds, it’s better we start with what we can do in the existing milieu of mortals.

 “Anticipate Change and Stay Relevant”: Dancing Elephant?

Based on the exposure I received during the Singapore stint, this is the single most important principle for India to learn from.Singapore’s “manageable” population (it was lesser than the population of my sub division of Raigarh in Chhattisgarh), makes it easy for the government to proactively assess and address the changing needs of its population.

The “manageable population” might have made it possible for Singapore to be a perfectionist in its service delivery to the people, however as a state, India can start with adopting an attitude that allows it to introspect and self-correct.

When a semi-autocratic public system can go back on its harshly implemented policies and make regular course corrections to allow for achievement of results, why the public sector of India doesn’t adopt the humility to receive and process feedback objectively and tweak the policies based on such real time feedback.

The way I see it, adoption of this principle in India is not impractical. Visualizing our system as an elephant that moves at a glacial pace will not help our levels of public service delivery. For a wise man would have once said, with enough political will and administrative acumen, even elephants can be made to dance!

 “Reward for Work and Work for Reward”: If You Pay Peanuts, You’ll Get Monkeys!

A senior administrative officer of Singapore, on getting candid in an interaction, said “If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys.” The simple line summed up the Indian bureaucracy’s state of affairs beautifully.

 Singapore trainers were not proud of paying their civil servants high salaries. They didn't look at the salaries as “high”. It was very clear to them that if you want a world class bureaucracy, you need to give world class incentives. And the salary, they defined, to be “apt and respectable”. Such a change in attitude is required in the Indian setup to enable the civil servants from getting de-motivated by seeing their peers in the private sector.

The Cosmopolitan Commonality

The one striking similarity between the two countries is their fundamentally diverse population. The manner in which Singapore has addressed the issues brought by a fundamentally diverse type of population is noteworthy. It has given a sense of inclusion to all the citizenry by including all the major communities’ languages as the official language. Moreover, the country celebrates its diversity in population – while little india is scintilla-tingly decorated for Diwali, the Malay population area shines during the month of Ramzan.

The way the country is run, it makes it clear that Rule of Law is paramount and no mercy can be expected based on anything that is politically accepted. It’s what leads to what people call “Curtailing of civil liberties to protest and demonstrate”, while others find it enabling to have a stable environment to do business.

It is very easy to dismiss the entire Singaporean experience as a “chance incident” with the right mix of political leadership and size.

It is easier enough to belittle their achievement by smirking on its geographical and population size.

However, the future of our country lies in us challenging ourselves to think of ways in which we can learn from Singapore’s experience. The fact that good policies, if implemented ruthlessly with eyes and ears open for feedback, can bring about miracles – is shown by Singapore in more ways than one.

I hope the exposure offered to us through this short foreign stint will serve us well in dreaming and creating visions for our own jurisdictions. It also shows how important a role international exposures play in the minds of young officers; Any attempt to reduce or abolish them citing that India’s unique problems leave  nothing to be learnt from others, is short-sighted, in the least. 

PS: All views expressed here are purely personal and have no connection with those of the Government. This post has been carefully modified to fit into the ambit of freedom of speech permitted to officers under the Rule 6 and Rule 7 of All India Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968.