The irony that the man who transformed India’s economy at a key moment in its history, reversing years of socialism, should pay tribute to India’s founding father who first powered the Indian economy, albeit in another time and another place was lost on no one as the covers came off the Jawaharlal Nehru bronze and marker on the Singapore River in this lush garden city on Sunday.
The bronze was vetted, some say, by none less than Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
Watching Prime Minister Manmohan Singh do the honours was former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Judith Prakash, whose father had helped Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose launch the Indian National Army.
This rare honour extended to Pandit Nehru comes 61 years after his last visit to Singapore in June 1950.