What will India say to this? Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has said what the Kashmiri insurgents and other separatists in northeastern India have maintained all along.
India is not one nation, he said. "It's many nations."
"It has 320 different languages and 32 official languages," he said on the Charlie Rose show.
Can Singapore then be regarded as one nation? It, too, is a multiracial country with four official languages — Chinese, Malay, Tamil and English.
But there is one difference that gives Singapore perhaps a better claim to be a nation — almost everybody understands English.
India, on the contrary, as MM Lee said, has "320 different languages and 32 official languages.
"So no prime minister in Delhi can at any one time speak in a language and be understand throughout the country. You can do that in Beijing."
Ah, that was how he wandered into a political minefield.
Charlie Rose wanted his opinion on China and India.
"Will India have an advantage, some argue, because it’s a democracy and China is not?" asked Charlie Rose.
"Let me put it this way," replied MM Lee.
"If India were as well-organized as China, it will go at a different speed, but it’s going at the speed it is because it is India.It’s not one nation. It’s many nations. It has 320 different languages and 32 official languages.
"So no prime minister in Delhi can at any one time speak in a language and be understand throughout the country. You can do that in Beijing."
India, as it stands, is not regarded as one nation by China, too. It claims the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. That is part of Tibet, it says.
But that is a dispute Singapore will not be dragged into.
MM Lee told Charlie Rose: "We absolutely refuse to choose sides. We will not choose sides between America and China or between China and India."
He sees both India and China as world powers four or five decades from now.
"The 20th century was the American century," he said. "The first half of the 21st century, a large part of it will still be the American. But I believe the second half you’ll have to share top places with China and also with India, make space for them, too."
You can read the full transcript here and watch the interview on Charlie Rose.com.
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