Japan embraces India

An Indo-Japanese alliance can cause a subtle, but significant change in the balance of power in Asia was staged in November 1943 in Tokyo, with Bose representing a Free India.

By NOEL G DE SOUZA

On May 30, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India made a lightning visit to Japan, to meet the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was there that Abe made a very significant statement: he said that Japan would shift a large number of factories from China to India. This would obviously involve large-scale investments and technology the like of which India has never seen before.

Abe, in doing so, was not espousing a new concept but actually resurrecting an old one which lay at the basis of the Japanese southward push in Asia during the World War II.

The cultural links between Japan and India are not widely realised. The practical religion of Japan is Zen Buddhism, which can be best described as the distillate of Buddhist principles regarding meditation and concentration. When high level business executives get stressed with work, they often retire for a period into Zen monasteries so as to achieve tranquillity.

Japan today is on a sort of warpath because of the belligerency which China has shown in the seas of Southeast Asia

Japan today is on a sort of warpath because of the belligerency which China has shown in the seas of Southeast Asia. Having benefitted from large-scale investments and technology transfer from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the USA, China has now turned around and started dictating terms to its former benefactors.

While China gained from the technology transfer that Japan and the USA provided to setting up industries on Chinese soil, it developed an admirable range of military technology (including space and nuclear) on its own. The result is that China has emerged as a military superpower which rivals the world’s best, and which includes highly sophisticated weapons such as stealth bombers and drones.

During World War II, Japan created a string of puppet states under its hegemony. This included the Heads of State of several countries including Manchuria, China, Burma, The Philippines, Thailand and significantly, Azad Hind.

Subhash Chandra Bose was recognised as the Head of the Provisional Government of Free India called ‘Arzi Hukumat-e-Azad Hind,’ better known as simply ‘Azad Hind’.

Large numbers of Japanese pilgrims visit Buddhist shrines in India. When I lived in Madhya Pradesh in the 1960s, trains used to stop at Sanchi to enable groups of Japanese pilgrims to visit the famous complex of Buddhist temples and highly decorated gates; this included the Great Stupa built in solid stone by Emperor Ashoka. The stupa is said to contain relics of the Buddha. In recent decades, main Buddhist centres in India like Bodh Gaya which has the gigantic Mahabodhi temple, have been renovated and modernised to provide up-todate facilities for pilgrims.

India, within the last forty years, has proven itself to be an industrious country which has shown its mettle in science and manufacturing. Japan’s collaboration in Indian industry is exemplified by the Suzuki-Maruti range of cars which is India’s best-selling vehicle (ten million have already been sold). The transfer of more Japanese industries to India can render a win-win situation for both countries.

Take the case of the manufacture of steel. By locating steel plants in India, the cost of transporting coal and iron ore from Australia will be dramatically reduced, as currently those raw materials are transported to Japan. India will be able to provide much lower labour costs as well as proven technical personnel.

The transport costs for the finished product will also be greatly reduced to markets in the Middle East and Europe on the one hand, and to Southeast Asia and Australasia on the other. This could dramatically reduce the price of steel in the world.

The transfer of more Japanese industries to India can render a winwin situation for both countries

At the time, the Azad Hind concept was popular in India which was impatient for independence, and as its leader, Bose was glorified as a national hero. This adoration of the INA continues to this day. However, Mahatma Gandhi was not in favour of the idea of the military liberating India, stating that he could not favour exchanging one form of slavery for another.

Japan was then parading itself not as an aggressor, but as the liberator of Asian colonies from their European and American masters. The Greater East Asia Conference

Such steel plants could be the focus of other, particularly metallurgical, industries which would gain from both reduced labour costs and savings with regard to transport to the Middle East, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia.

The flowering of such ‘coprosperity’ between Japan and India is very tempting for both countries. India should however, tread carefully so that China is not antagonised. An Asian Peace Treaty is a possibility which must not be allowed to be missed because of the land and sea disputes which are casting clouds on several horizons. India must, in the meanwhile, increase its military strength with defence as its principal aim.