An Indian minister has claimed that India would not develop as fast as Singapore and China due to its allowance of public protests.

And this has triggered backlash online, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Jan. 23.

The comments were made by Indian Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Giriraj Singh, on Jan. 19 at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, Times of India (TOI) reported.

It was in response to a speech by the Vice-Chairman of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce, Prasoon Mukherjee, on Singapore's growth domestic product (GDP).

Singapore does not have public spaces for protests

Mukherjee had compared Singapore's GDP of US$70,000 per capita with that of India, which stood at US$2,000 per capita, SCMP and the Indian Express (IE) further reported.

This drew the following response from Singh, according to IE, who said that neither Singapore or China has a public space for protesting:

"Prasoon Mukherjee was talking about Singapore’s GDP, and I thought in my mind that Singapore does not have Delhi and a Jantar Mantar, where people might go to protest against the policies made. China also does not have a Jantar Mantar."

Jantar Mantar refers to a site in India which is a popular site for protests.

It is the permitted public space for protests in New Delhi, according to India-based media outlet Scroll.in.

This essentially makes Jantar Mantar similar to Hong Lim Park in Singapore.

Backlash supposedly triggered

SCMP highlighted that this drew a backlash from Indians on social media, by citing the following two angry comments on TOI's website:

Some Indians who commented on TOI's article on Facebook also echoed the comments that SCMP had cited, although it is debatable whether the comments were sufficient enough to be called a backlash.

One thing that stands out from the critical comments is that Singh has supposedly missed the point of why there are even protests in the first place, due to his political affiliation.

Member of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)

This is largely due to Singh's status as a member of the ruling right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and his tendency to indulge in stoking religious sentiments.

In 2018, Singh courted controversy over his visit to members of Hindu organisations who had been jailed on charges of inciting communal tensions in the Indian state of Bihar, during the Hindu festival of Ram Navani.

India Today reported Singh defending the jailed members and blaming the state government of India instead:

"The action taken by the state government will only provoke the Hindu community. Does the government think that only if the Hindus are suppressed and humiliated that communal harmony can prevail in the state?"

Singh has also been adamant in his view that a majority Hindu population is key to social harmony.

Over the course of 2018, Singh was recorded as stating that social harmony suffers in areas that see a drop in the Hindu population twice -- the first time in February 2018, according to TOI, and the second time in December 2018, according to Scroll.in.

On both occasions, Singh had made his remarks in the context of the need for population control in India due to concerns about long-term resource sustainability.

Top image from Giriraj Singh Facebook