Singapore Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam knows his history.

While praising the "uniqueness" of Indian democracy, he defended the East Asian model by pointing out that democracy used to be limited in Britain and America too.

"It was not until 1930 that Britain got Universal Suffrage. The US did not get Universal Suffrage until 1965," he said.

He was referring to the 1965 Voting Rights Act which made it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote after the 1964 Civil Rights Act ended racial discrimination.

Britain gave the vote to women from the age of 21 only in 1928. Only older women, from the age of 30, had been allowed to vote in Britain since 1918. 

Mr Tharman recalled: "In Britain, before the Reform Act of 1832, only 1.8 per cent of the adults had the vote. After that Act, 2.7 per cent got the vote. After the Second Reform Act of 1884, 12.1 per cent got the vote."

But while democracy was limited, there was stability, economic growth and the middle class grew, he said.

Neatly, from there, he segued to the East Asian model. "A group of men (usually men) centralised power, planned in the long term interests of the country and executed those plans quite smoothly. Some of these countries did not hold elections…

"But, on the whole, the countries progressed. People received education, were empowered, the infrastructure developed, the economies grew steadily."

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