No democracy without opposition

What India could learn from Singapore's spirit of democracy

Forty-three-year-old ethnic Punjabi Pritam Singh, leader of Singapore’s Workers Party, has made history by becoming the island republic’s very first prime minister in waiting. In this respect, tiny Singapore, supposedly saddled with a controlled political system, has upstaged the world’s largest democracy. Not only is Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong democratic enough and confident enough to reject the notion of an opposition-free Singapore, but he is magnanimous enough formally to acknowledge Pritam as Leader of the Opposition.

I knew Pritam when we were both Fellows of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies when I was interviewing Lee’s father, creator of modern