Guided democracies got more value: Mahathir

When things fall apart, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed told an adoring audience at the packed FICCI auditorium today, he a...

When things fall apart, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed told an adoring audience at the packed FICCI auditorium today, he at the centre would continue to hold.

Calmly, he announced that democracy was not necessarily an underpinning for prosperity, that if people changed governments too often, it would be ‘the people’ who would suffer. ‘‘Guided democracies,’’ he pointed out, had much more value for nations who needed to invite foreign investment which would in turn raise the population’s standard of living.

‘‘If democracy means the right to demonstrate and strike, then that’s not democracy,’’ Mahathir

went on. Just before, though, he had pointed out with obvious sarcasm, ‘‘In some cases, though, democracy is more important than the rights of the people.’’

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Still, the Malaysian leader, who once threw out his favourite deputy on charges of sodomy, was in fine fettle. Asked whether governments should undertake shock therapy such as sacking their own Cabinet ministers, Mahathir insisted on the right of reply, despite the chiding the questioner received (‘‘that’s a loaded question’’) by deputy chairman of the Planning Commission K.C. Pant.

‘‘Even nice persons break the law, if you break the law, you face the consequences,’’ Mahathir said, to much applause.

Earlier, his very impressive and forthright speech, the piece de resistance of the Asean-India Business summit, organised by FICCI in conjunction with the MEA, spoke of the big need to get rid of illusions in nation-building.

‘‘I am sure I do not need to remind anyone in this room that the last few hundred years have been a period of shame for Asia,’’ Mahathir said, adding, ‘‘every nation in Asia, India included, has at one time or another over the last 50 years been given up as lost.’’

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But as the Malaysian leader, who has single-handedly rewritten the rules of prosperity in his nation gathered steam, he began to lay out a marvellous pragmatic vision where ‘‘we must not be history’s prisoners.’’ From there it was but a short step to lauding the virtues of loving thy neighbour.

‘‘In many parts of the world, beggar thy neighbour is a powerful reality…We can all choose our friends, but we cannot choose our neighbours. A basic question we face is this : is it better to have neighbours which are impoverished, which cannot provide for their people, which are a hotbed of instability and turmoil?’’ he said.

Clearly, the audience thought he was referring to Pakistan and the need for New Delhi to engage Islamabad. Asked to spell his mind, Mahathir shot back, with a ready smile, ‘‘Actually, I was thinking of the Asean and India.’’