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Singapore. Toh Chin Chye was of a generation of leaders who were both “warriors and builders,” said Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday.

Not only did they fight for and achieve independence for Singapore, but they also then governed and developed the country — a successful transition that few other independence heroes from that era achieved.

“It is important for us to reflect on the values and contributions of that generation of leaders,” noted Goh. “We can use these sad moments to reflect on our own future.”

While current challenges — an aging population, higher housing prices and transportation woes — may not be as “compelling” as the existential battles the Old Guard fought, they are key to Singapore’s survival and prosperity, he added.

Goh turned up at Greenview Crescent yesterday afternoon to pay his final respects to the founding chairman of the People’s Action Party (PAP), who died on Friday at the age of 90.

Speaking to reporters, he remembered Toh as “one of the ministers who would dare challenge (then) Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew whenever they disagreed.”

But their many differences did not cause Toh to “campaign publicly against the party,” said Goh. “Although his comments were critical, they were, from his point of view, for the good of the party and the country.”

That Toh was not one to shy from a battle — whether against the prime minister in Cabinet or student activists when he was vice-chancellor of the University of Singapore from 1968 to 1975 — was recalled with admiration by many others at the wake yesterday.

“He was courageous enough to have different views at the top (of government),” said founding Nanyang Technological University president Cham Tao Soon. “There were many things that he and Lee Kuan Yew didn’t see eye-to-eye on. But you have somebody who’s able to offer alternatives. That is something that Singapore will miss — somebody who can challenge the PM at that level.”

After Toh left the Cabinet and became a backbench MP in 1981, he was a harsh critic of several government policies, including Medisave, a policy introduced by Goh, who had taken over the health portfolio from Toh.

Recalling those years, Goh said Toh was a “socialist till his dying day,” who believed that the Health Ministry should bear the cost of treating all Singaporeans.

Goh’s approach, and the philosophy which underlined Medisave, was that the individual should bear some of the cost as the Government had budget limitations.

Despite such clashes, Goh emphasized that Toh’s boldness in stating an opposing view is a “very important quality.”

“It’s not the PM’s show. Ministers must be prepared to debate,” he said. “If not, the Cabinet system would not work. It would become a presidential system. One man says something, the rest follow. That’s not healthy.”

Toh’s warrior instincts were at hand in his confrontations with student activists in the 1970s, when he was known as the “Iron Chancellor.”

Against staunch opposition from some students and lecturers in a politically-charged university atmosphere, he pushed through changes he believed in, including university fee hikes and the merging of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Former deputy prime minister Wong Kan Seng, a university student at the time, said yesterday that Toh “knew in those days that student activism was a problem on campus and he was able to manage that.”

“In the old days, they were seen as tough, but sometimes you need to make tough decisions and stand by them,” said Speaker of Parliament Michael Palmer, who attended the wake with a few grassroots leaders from his Punggol East ward. “Their decisions were for Singapore, and that decisiveness and drive is not to be forgotten.”

Toh the warrior was not above offering an olive branch when the occasion called for building, not fighting.

Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob was also a student when he was vice-chancellor.

At a welcome ceremony for first-year students, she watched then student union president Tan Wah Piow tell the university administration that the difference between them was that he was not wearing a jacket — implying that the administrators were in a lofty and elite world of their own.

“So when Toh made a speech later, he said, ‘If that’s the only thing that stands between my knowing you better and you feeling that we understand your concerns, then I will take off my jacket,’ she recalled yesterday at the wake. “And he actually did.”

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.