Speech by Minister for Defence, Dr Ng Eng Hen, at the Brookings India Institution Centre, on 28 Nov 2017, 2030 hrs

Let me thank the Brookings India Institution Centre, as well as the Government of India, especially my counterpart (Indian Defence) Minister (Nirmala) Sitharaman, whom I am meeting tomorrow. We bring greetings from Singapore. Let me begin this lecture tonight by saying that the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) has a unique relationship with its counterpart in India. It is the only military whose Air Force and Army trains with the India Armed Forces (IAF) in India and with bilateral agreements (BAs) for all its service arms. Minister Sitharaman and I will witness the exchange of the BA for our Navies tomorrow. And this Navy agreement is significant. It will result in mutual logistics support and more joint, multilateral and live-firing exercises, particularly in the Andaman Sea. This will be timely as we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Singapore-India Maritime Bilateral Exercise next year. 

Our Air Forces and Armies signed their BAs in 2007 and 2008 respectively, after many years of discussion. In fact, it was one of the longest to conclude for the SAF. But as your former Indian Minister of Defence, who subsequently became President, Pranab Mukherjee once quipped to me - "It takes a longer time to get agreements with us, but once you are in our system, it is almost impossible to get out." He was right. The Air Force agreement has been renewed twice in 2012 and this year. This morning I witnessed our Joint Military Training in Kalaikunda, and flew here via courtesy of the Indian Air Force. And of course, took a ride on the tejas. We continue our joint artillery and armour training in Devlali and Babina. And the trinity of BAs among all services is now complete and an abiding testament to the strong and comprehensive defence ties between our armed forces. 

I have been told that this is the most unique relationship that the IAF has with any country. And in fact, we are the only country which has three BAs with all the services. What explains this unique relationship between India and Singapore, which exists not only in the defence arena, but beyond? 

Strong Historical Links Between Founding and Successive Governments 

India was among the very first to recognise Singapore's independence. And it did so on 11 August 1965 -a mere two days after our declaration. In 2015, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Singapore-India diplomatic relations. This special bond has been reflected through successive Governments in Singapore since our independence.

Singapore's founding Prime Minister (PM) Lee Kuan Yew openly admired Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who guided India to independence.  Their lives and deeds influenced Mr Lee's thinking deeply on Singapore's own path to independence. To quote from Mr Lee's speech at the Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture in New Delhi, and this was in 2005: 

"...when I was a young student in Cambridge, I remember vividly the moving and unforgettable opening of Nehru's broadcast on the eve of independence: ‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.' … I shared intellectual and emotional roots with Nehru because I had also experienced discrimination and subjugation under the British Raj and admired Nehru for his vision of a secular multiracial India…when I was Prime Minister of Singapore, Nehru encouraged and supported my ideas." 
 
Singapore's second PM Goh Chok Tong, who succeeded Mr Lee, sparked off an "India fever" in Singapore in 1992 in tandem with India's economic reforms. Mr Goh had firm faith in India's enormous economic potential. Mr Goh used the following analogy in 2005:
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"I like to think of (a) new Asia as a mega jumbo jet that is being constructed. Northeast Asia, comprising China, Japan and South Korea, forms one wing with a powerful engine. India, the second wing, will also have a powerful engine. The Southeast Asian countries…will be lifted by the two wings."

Our current PMs - PM Lee Hsien Loong and PM (Narendra) Modi signed the India-Singapore Strategic Partnership in November 2015. This milestone agreement elevated Singapore-India relations to its highest level. It also laid out a roadmap for enhanced bilateral cooperation for the decades to come, in all-encompassing areas such as defence, finance, urban solutions, smart cities, and skills development.   

These expressions, these agreements by successive leaders of government in Singapore underscore the deep historical roots and empathy that exist between India and Singapore. Many of you will know that Sir Stamford Raffles was based in Kolkata as an emissary of the British East India Company when he travelled (to) and established Singapore as a trading port in 1819.  In 2019, we will commemorate the bicentennial of Singapore's founding. 

When Singapore gained independence, many Indians who worked under British rule stayed, sank roots and contributed to its diverse racial melting pot. Long before this, Indian traders carried both religious and cultural influences to Southeast Asia. Singapore included. Multi-racial and multi-cultural Singapore today incorporates that ancestry and that of subsequent migrants. These links with the Indian subcontinent explain the varied manifestations both in our past and in the daily lives of Singaporeans today.

A plaque stands today at our Esplanade Park. This is a park which borders the harbour that Indian ships once sailed into. And it marks the former Indian National Army (INA) Monument. The INA's co-founder Subhas Chandra Bose himself had resided in Singapore in 1944 and laid the foundation stone for the monument on 8 July 1945 to remember India's nationalist heroes. India's first PM, Jawaharlal Nehru, made two visits to Singapore in 1937 and 1946 when he was still a freedom fighter for India's independence. On his second visit in 1947, Nehru visited this former INA Monument, and also succeeded in persuading Lord Mountbatten, then-Supreme Allied Commander of Southeast Asia to repatriate INA members under British internment back to India. 

Singaporean Indians today, as with the progeny of other migrant forebears from China, the Malay Archipelago and other distant lands, form an essential part of the leadership and the workforce that together have made Singapore successful. It is no coincidence that many of our top lawyers and media chiefs are Indians, including our Law and Home Affairs Minister Mr K Shanmugam and former Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) Prof Jayakumar. In Singapore, as elsewhere, they are known for their prodigious verbal and literary skills.

On a more personal note, I was a cancer surgeon prior to politics. For two decades, I studied and worked at Singapore's oldest hospital, the Singapore General Hospital. But the Singapore General Hospital was not known as the Singapore General Hospital. If you told a taxi driver, "bring me to Singapore General Hospital", he will say "where is that?" You have to tell him, use the vernacular, "bring me to Si Pai Por." "Si Pai Por" was a Hokkien word, a dialect of Mandarin. Its derivation "Si Pai Por" was "Sepoy" because this was an area that had been used to house Sepoy soldiers. Indeed, many of Singapore's iconic buildings today were built with the hands of Indian labourers, including the Istana, which is the official residence and office of our President, which also has a plaque acknowledging their contributions. 

Many of my professors were of Indian descent, including a much respected "father of pathology" - Professor Shanmugaratnam, a Sri Lankan Tamil, father of Singapore's DPM Tharman. My surgical mentor was Professor Raj Nambiar who facilitated my postgraduate training in the US, at the New York Hospital and the MD Anderson Cancer Center. The MD Anderson Cancer Center is assessed to be the top cancer center in the United States and the world, and there were only two international fellows each year. And in that year that I went, (they were) myself, from small Singapore, and a Dutchman. I would not have been accepted without Professor Nambiar's help and contacts.

Different races live cheek by jowl in tiny Singapore, barely 700 square kilometres in size but we treasure and guard jealously our multiracial harmony and meritocracy. Founding PM Lee Kuan Yew's poignant words on 9 August 1965, as Singapore gained independence were, and I quote: "This is not a Malay nation; this is not a Chinese nation; this is not an Indian nation. Everyone will have his place, equal: language, culture, religion." Those words that Mr Lee articulated on our independence day, were not only of a vision, but a steely determination to set a new nation on that path. Of the eight Presidents since, two have been Indian, two Malays, one Eurasian and three Chinese. 

Co-invested in Each Other Through This Strategic Partnership

The strategic partnership which India and Singapore share is therefore a natural evolution of our shared past, and we are mutually invested in each other's future. The Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, which we concluded in June of 2005, remains the bedrock of our economic partnership. Again, not coincidentally, this was the first comprehensive trade agreement ever signed by India with any trading partner. Annual bilateral trade has since doubled, from about S$11 billion in 2004 to S$22 billion in 2016. Singapore was the second largest foreign direct investor in India, after Mauritius, in 2016. Between 2000 and 2015, the total value of India's investment stock in Singapore grew nearly a hundred-fold, from S$264 million to S$26 billion now. Today, there are more than 7,000 Indian companies registered in Singapore, the largest foreign corporate contingent here.

But our strategic partnership goes beyond finance and the economy. Fundamentally, Singapore believes in India's pivotal place and role in Asia. Accordingly, we have been India's steadfast advocate, actively promoting and facilitating India's participation in regional multilateral mechanisms. In the 1994 ASEAN Summit, Singapore's then-PM Goh Chok Tong proposed granting India full Dialogue Partner, which she received the year following. Then-India's Foreign Secretary Krishnan Srinivasan acknowledged Singapore's role, noting that "Singapore was the first and, at the time, the only ASEAN country to take India seriously." 

Similarly, India's membership in the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1996 was a product of concerted lobbying by Singapore. Singapore likewise supported India's inclusion as a founding member of the East Asia Summit in 2005. As then-Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee commented in 2006, Singapore had become "the hub of [India's] political, economic and security strategy in the whole of East Asia".  Singapore's Ministry of Defence then helmed by the present DPM Teo Chee Hean, was a strong advocate for India's eventual membership in the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus), the highest-level defence forum in ASEAN.

This year, I am proud to say that ASEAN and India celebrate 25 years of dialogue relations, 15 years of summit-level interactions, and five years of strategic partnership.

Singapore believes that India's inclusion strengthens the regional security architecture, as a stabilising force within the region. India adds a wider perspective and more robust balance beyond the US-China strategic rivalry at play. 

India's history shapes its own world view in international affairs. As a pioneering member of the Non-Aligned Movement, India is also culturally distinct from the other ADMM-Plus countries. India is neither dominantly Western nor Eastern-orientated. India is India, its past as well as its future inextricably linked to the fortunes of Asia. It crafts its own trajectory for its interests and 1.3 billion people.

India's Unique Proposition to Asia

With its extensive linkages both past and present, India is also a natural partner to other ASEAN and Australasian countries. Many of the motifs on the walls of Southeast Asia's greatest cultural treasures, such as the Borobudur in Indonesia and the Angkor Wat in Cambodia, were credited to Indian artisans that travelled to our region during the 6th to 14th century. Major religions in Southeast Asia today originated from or through India, including Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam.

India will become the world's most populous country within a decade and by some projections among the world's top three economies by the middle of this century.  India was the world's fifth largest military spender last year. Today, it not only has the fifth-largest navy in the world, but also the second-largest standing army in the world.
 
PM Modi's Act East policy is taking effect. ASEAN is now India's fourth largest trading partner, with two-way trade standing at about US$76 billion. ASEAN also accounts for approximately 12.5 percent of investment flows into India since 2000. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which India is working to conclude with ASEAN countries and other regional partners, will account for about 45 percent of the world's population and over US$21 trillion in GDP.

Singapore and India share similar strategic perspectives and interests for a peaceful and progressive future. We are both maritime nations that sit astride key trade and energy routes that link Europe to Asia. India has the Indian Ocean and we have the Malacca and Singapore Straits. For trade to flourish, not only is guarantee of freedom of navigation and overflight essential, but the absence of conflicts and tensions which can potentially disrupt trade. This is why both countries strongly advocate adherence to international law and norms, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. 

India wants to do more to promote regional security.  During the Defence Ministers' Dialogue tomorrow, we will be discussing key security challenges including counter-terrorism and maritime security - issues which Singapore as chair of ASEAN will push to the fore.  We will flesh out the details of Minister Sitharaman's proposal for increased multilateral interactions between India and other Southeast Asian nations in the Andaman Sea.  Singapore strongly welcomes this proposal and we will facilitate it as the ASEAN Chair. 

Singapore's founding PM Lee Kuan Yew ended his 2005 Nehru lecture thus. He borrowed from Nehru's famous clarion cry at India's independence, which he quoted, and Mr Lee said this: "The time has come for India's next tryst with destiny". Indeed, the time is now. Both militarily and economically, India has risen to become a leading regional power in the Indo-Pacific, and is expected to play an increasing role in the decades to come to maintain stability in Asia. 

I am also heartened that PM Modi has accepted the invitation to deliver the keynote address at next year's Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. This is another strong affirmation of PM Modi's "Act East" initiative and I look forward to hearing his vision for India's role in our region then. 

Let me reiterate my thanks to Brookings India, and I look very much forward to hearing your views and to an exchange of perspectives that I am sure will both add wisdom and clarity to the challenges that confront us in this age. Thank you very much.