Learning From Singapore To Realise Viksit Bharat

As India aims for Viksit Bharat by 2047, current emphasis is on infrastructure and manufacturing, but Singapore’s path since 1965 shows that sustained development also requires strong social cohesion and equal opportunity, alongside market-driven growth.

Background: India and Singapore, since 1965

• Starting Point at Independence (1965): At the time of Singapore’s independence, its GDP per capita was about four times that of India. Both India and Singapore were post-colonial and socially diverse.
• Present-Day Outcome (2024–25): Today, Singapore’s GDP per capita is nearly thirty times that of India. This indicates a sharp divergence in development trajectories.

Key Features of Singapore’s Development Model/Singapore’s Social Architecture

• Social Cohesion: Singapore did not treat social harmony as a moral ideal but as an economic and political necessity.
  • Leaders saw ethnic inequality as an existential threat to nation-building, not just a social issue.
• Housing as a Tool of Integration: Public housing policies enforced ethnic mixing within neighbourhoods. 
  • This prevented the formation of racial ghettos and reduced the spatial segregation of poverty.
  • Public housing created shared civic spaces, not just shelter.
  • Citizens saw themselves as part of a common national project.
• Strong Focus on Social Mobility: Universal education and skill development ensured access to productive employment. Public health investment improved workforce quality across communities.
• Equality of Opportunity, Not Guaranteed Outcomes: The State aimed to level the starting line, not equalise incomes by decree. 
  • The limited reliance on cash transfers prioritised Education, Health and Skill formation.
• Institutional Trust and Low Corruption: A credible escalator of mobility strengthened trust in institutions and reduced incentives for rent-seeking, corruption, and identity-based political mobilisation.
  • Absolute incomes rose across Chinese, Malay, and Indian communities.
  • Income gaps persist but are no longer rigidly tied to ethnicity.
  • Indian households today often perform at par or better on some income indicators.

Key Lessons For India

• Social Cohesion Is Infrastructure: India must treat social cohesion not merely as a social sentiment but as an economic asset that underpins productivity, investment, and institutional trust, and therefore design policies that actively protect and strengthen it.
• Housing for Social Integration: Mixed-income and mixed-community housing can reduce urban segregation and prevent spatial concentration of poverty.
  • Transit-oriented development improves access to jobs, schools, and public services, thereby enhancing social mobility and labour market participation.
• Credible Upward Mobility: India’s demographic dividend will yield growth only if education and skills translate into decent jobs and a good standard of living. 
  • Without visible mobility, inequality hardens, leading to social unrest, political populism, and loss of human capital.
• Sustained Public Health: Sustained investment in public health is essential to ensure that health outcomes do not track income, region, or social identity, and to minimise productivity losses due to illness and malnutrition. 
  • Strong primary healthcare systems improve workforce participation and prevent poverty from being transmitted across generations.

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Limitations of Replicating the Singapore Model

• Different Settings: Singapore’s small size, centralised governance, and unique geopolitical conditions differ from India.
  • However, policy priorities and sequencing — not institutional form — offer transferable lessons.

Conclusion

For Viksit Bharat to be more than a slogan, India must complement economic expansion with robust social architecture and inclusive institutions that translate growth into broad-based, sustainable national advancement.

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