A Japanese Nurse Talks of Two Wars

Ms.H.K.is an 88 year-old Japanese woman. In her younger days she experienced two wars of entirely different nature. She was even about to join in a third one, but was fortunately prevented from doing so. I have attended a public lecture she has given recently on her life.
She was born in 1924 in a farming family. She went to high school which was not very common at the time. As the war became intensified she went to a nurse-training school and got qualified as a nurse. She was drafted as a nurse and sent to an Army hospital near the Great Wall in the Northeast China in 1944. It was a two-year contract. But in reality she was in China for 14 years until her return to Japan in 1958.
She heard the news of Japan's defeat while working in the above hospital. She and the whole hospital were in the process of regrouping, when they were suddenly surrounded by the Eighth-Route Army of the Chinese Communists. There she and several others were attached to the Eighth Route.
From then on they kept marching(sometimes retreating from the Nationalist Army) almost day and night. One of the things she saw on the way was a people's court where landlords were being shouted at by their former tenants. With the Eighth Route she studied mutual criticism and self criticism. She noticed that the Communist Party members in the Army were taken into confidence, but casualties among them were also high. There were many severely injured anyway, and she used to nurse them for a month or so without changing her clothes.
They crossed the Wall into the mainland. She noticed that those soldiers who had been given a plot of land in the revolution now demanded that they be allowed to go home, as there is nobody to cultivate the newly acquired plot.
South of the Wall, she noticed the fertility of the Yellow River area which she did not see in the Northeast. The climate is different, and there were also different diseases like malaria. It was strange to see people keeping water in a big pot with fish in it. If the fish was swimming they say the water is fresh. The language is also different.
She and the troops have gone as far as Quilin, famous for its beautiful natural scenery, when the People's Republic was declared to be established. By this time she had also been qualified as a doctor.
Very soon the Korean War broke out. She with many other volunteers moved as fast as possible day and night to the North Korean border and changed into Korean uniforms. But at the very last moment the Japanese nationals were ordered not to cross the river. Bidding farewell to her associates of many years, she came back to the South again, where she continued to work as a doctor-cum-nurse till the time she returned home.

Which Way DPRK? Which Way Japan?

Kim Jong-il died, and Kim Jong-un has succeeded, if not in all the titles that his father used to monopolize, but very substantially.
Kim Jong-il has failed miserably, especially in the economic field. His people were starving. The disparity between DPRK(North Korea) and the South is expanding. The aerial photo taken at night showed that the southeren part of the Korean Peninsula was all bright and glittering, while the north was almost completely in darkness. It was so many years ago already.
Kim Jong-il tried to develop nuclear weapons and missiles to get economic dividend in the form of capital goods and energy in exchange for them, mainly from the US. But the strategy was too transparent to succeed. Why then did they not approach Japan instead?
Japan, as has been discussed in these columns, has been so tightly bound up with the US. Knowing this fully well, the US were not willing to offer too soon what the DPRK wanted.
In Japan's case, there is one peculiar problem. Some of her nationals have been kidnapped by the State organ of the DPRK, and have not returned yet. Kim Jong-il admitted this and apologized to Japan's Prime Minister when he visited Pyongyang in 2002. And he returned some of them. But the others were all proclaimed to be dead, and nothing has been heard of them though they promised reinvestigation. It is doubtful whether the new leader will admit that there is such an outstanding problem.
In the six-party talks consisting of China as Chairman, the US, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas, Japan has tended to insist on the solution of this problem. The six-party talks were set up primarily to discuss the DPRK's nuclear problem, and as such were not an ideal arena to discuss other issues. There should have been a different place. Was there any?
The Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, concluded at the 2002 summit, says that the two countries will recommence talks for the normalization of relations. Having diplomatic relations has been therefore agreed upon between the two a long time ago. It has been reconfirmed, together with the normalization of the US-DPRK relations, at the six-party talks in September 2005. No matter what may have happened, it is unthinkable not to recognize a country which the UN General Assembly unanimously welcomed in 1991.
If the two countries had been keen on having relations, there would have been Embassies in each other's capital by now. Even if it would have been short of full diplomatic relations, they could have had missions in each other as the first step, as Japan and the Philippines did before they had formal relations.
In order for the above process to be realized, it is necessary for DPRK to explain each and every case of the Japanese nationals missing. But once it is done the road to the normalization will be much smoother. The 2002 Declaration says that after the normalization Japan will provide economic cooperation to the DPRK. It will certainly help them not to continue the present nuclear approach. It will enormously ease military tensions in the whole of East Asia. A wiser policy on the part of Japan would have made them unnecessary to go nuclear in a double way, economic and military.
Out of the six parties, only Japan is in a position to do something to break the deadlock in East Asia, if she has got that courage. What she is doing is largely in the reverse, like deciding to buy F35 fighters from the US, as many as 42 in all, as if it will assure China, DPRK, or others.

Nanjing, 13 December 1937, and Seoul, 14 December 2011

13 December 1937 in Nanjing, China, and 14 December 2011 in Seoul, South Korea, are both unforgettable days in Japan's relations with Asia.
The Japanese army occupied Nanjing, China's capital at the time, on this day and immediately started a reign of terror. Even the Judgement by Justice Radha Vinod Pal, who had not been nominated by the newly-independent India, who denied the principle of war crime, and who declared all the defendants at the Tokyo Military Tribunal not guilty, talks of the weeks of disaster in the city. I would like to postpone the discussion of Nanjing till I have visited it, however, and move on to Seoul.
During the series of wars that Japan fought for half a century, the Japanese army kidnapped a large number of women from different places in Asia and Pacific, estimated to be around 200,000, attached them to different units, and made them 'comfort women'. The number of the South Koreans is said to be the largest among them.
On Wednesday 8 January 1992, some former South Korean 'comfort women' held a meeting in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul to protest against the Japanese Government's neglect of their duty to apologize and compensate to them. This was the beginning. Since that time onward, they and their supporters, not only South Korean, have been holding a Wednesday protest meeting each and every week at the same place for twenty years. It was 1000th on 14 December 2011. It was reported that a former South Korean Prime Minister addressed the meeting.
Among the 234 women who have identified themselves as former 'comfort women' in these two decades, only 63 are remaining.
Against this background, the Constitutional Court of South Korea declared in August 2011 that it was unconstitutional on the part of the Government not to negotiate with its Japanese counterpart on the claims of the 'comfort women'.
What is the attitude of the Japanese Government? They invariably refer to an article in the Japan South Korea Treaties of 1965, which says that all the claims by the South Koreans are hereby completely and finally solved. They seldom want to recall that the same Treaties also say that if there is a difference in the interpretation of them it will be dealt with diplomatically, and if it does not lead to a solution an arbitration committee will be formed whose decision will be binding on both parties.
It was on a sunny and pleasant morning that I went to observe one such Wednesday meeting at Seoul some years ago. There were ten such women, surrounded by many more supporters. They were holding placards, demanding apologies and reparations from the Japanese Government. The meeting was over in about an hour. Then quite unexpectedly I had the pleasure of being invited to a lunch with the women and the supporters.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay's View of the Second World War (2)

Kamaladevi wrote a letter to Gandhi dated 27 August 1939. Gandhi reproduced all or almost all of it in his Harijan of 9 October together with his reply. Probably she wrote it in Britain, probably it was shortly after the release by the bandits. But it was a remarkable letter and is worth quoting at length(CWMG vol.70, pp.235-6).
She first analyzed the nature of the impending conflict.
'The present conflict is mainly centred round the usual scramble for colonies, or spheres of influence...On this question the world thinks there are only two opinions, for it hears only two views: one which believes in the maintaining of the status quo; the other which wants a change but on the same basis, in other words, a redistribution of the loot and the right to exploit, which of course means war.'
So there seem to be only these two viewpoints in the world and the natural consequence is an armed conflict. But she says that actually there is still another stand which is not to be incorporated in neither of the above.
'That there is a third view the world hardly seems to think, for it rarely hears it. And it is so essential that it should find expression: the voice of the people who are mere pawns in the game. Neither Danzig nor the Polish corridor is the issue. The issue is the principle on which the whole of this present Western civilization is based; the right of the strong to rule and exploit the weak.
So this third path does not belong to either of the two imperialistic ways. It will be in clear conflict with them. She then defines India's position in this picture.
'We are against the status quo. We are fighting against it for we want a change in it. But our alternative is not war for we know that the real solution does not lie there. We have an alternative to offer which is the only solution of this horrible muddle and the key to future world peace...It may seem today like a cry in the wilderness; still we know that it is the voice which will ultimately prevail; and it is those hands which seem so feeble before these mailed fists that will finally reshape a battered humanity.'
In placing the Indians' and the like-minded peoples' stand she depends on the experience of the non-violent struggle of her own people. Finally she puts a request to Gandhi as the leader of that struggle.
'You are eminently fitted to give voice to it. India has, I think, a peculiar place today in the colonies of the world. It has both a moral prestige and organizational strength enjoyed by few colonies. The others look to it for a lead in many matters...India has therefore to tell a very distraught and maddened world that there is another path that humanity must tread if it would save itself from these periodical disasters and bring peace and harmony to a bleeding world.'
This is not a simple analysis. A new view, an innovating view of the ongoing conflict which was to become a full-scale war at any moment, and a fervent appeal, on that analysis, to her mother country to take notice of her position and her mission in such a world for the sake of the world peace. One may see even a forerunner of the Non-Aligned Movement of later years here, although her own country seems to be paying less and less attention to it nowadays.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay's View of the Second World War (1)

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay(1903-88) was an Indian woman who lived a long and exceptionally fruitful life.
She was born in a South Indian city of Mangalore of well-to-do parents. The family atmosphere, particularly her mother, was very encouraging, so that she played tennis with boys, or did mountain trekking, not usually allowed under the prevailing circumstances.
Soon she was immersed in the freedom movement. She was the first woman to stand for a provincial(Madras) assembly, though losing it by a narrow margin. She became a member of the AICC as early as 1928. At the time of Gandhi's Salt March of 1930, she appealed to Gandhi and convinced him that women could be recruited in large number. So at the time Gandhi was picking salt at Dandi, she was boiling the sea water with a small stove at Bombay's Chowpatty beach, got salt, sold it in small packets, and was arrested. She spent five years in jail altogether.
Later on she became the President of the Congress Socialist Party, and a member of the Working Committee under Jawaharlal Nehru. But with the arrival of independence she refused all invitations to be in politics.
Instead, she became engaged in the rehabilitation work for the refugees, and built a large industrial township at Faridabad 'like magic'. Then she pursued the 'two passions of her life', handicrafts and theatre. The latter, including puppetry, was her 'first love', but in the former also she served as Chairman of the All India Handicrafts Board for 20 years. She said, 'We had been made to feel primitive by the British-that we had nothing of modern aesthetic values'.
She also fought for the rights of women. She served long for AIWC(All India Women's Conference). She worked to build the home science curriculum at the Lady Irwin College for Women, Delhi. She was a founder member of the Family Planning Association of India.
Very importantly, she 'disappoved very clearly of gender-based reservations'. She in fact opposed 'the principle of reservations, on any basis'. She also stood for a Uniform Civil Code for the Indians.
Toward the end of her life, she wrote, 'To accommodate minorities and weaker sections, the Constitution of India is mutilated from time to time...Every single citizen is forced to think of himself or herself as a member of a certain socio-economic group, and no more as an Indian, proud of being a citizen of a great country. Whole groups, under some social label or other, now strive to become 'backward''. On the same principle she was opposed to the formation of lingustic States as it destroys the idea of 'one country.
Shortly before the Second World War she travelled abroad, and was in Britain when the war broke out. She went to Eritrea to see the war graves and was caught by bandits, but was released with a comb as a present as she was from the country of Gandhi.
The above is a summary of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, The Romantic Rebel, her biography by Shakuntala Narasimhan, Sterling, 1999. The book is of much worth. Still I would like to add one thing.

Some Debates on 8 December

Eighth December(Japan time), 2011, was the 70th anniversary of Japan's Declaration of War on the US and the UK. This writer, then a primary school boy, still remembers the one-sentence announcement by Japan's Combined Army and Navy Command, broadcast over the radio, which was 'The Imperial Army and Navy(there was no independent Air Force) went into action with the US and British forces in the Western Pacific early today, 8 December'.
The Declaration of War was too difficult for him to comprehend. But gradually it became clear what it was saying. The Anglo-Americans were firm in backing the Chinese Nationalist Government in Chunkiang, were increasing their economic and military threat against Japan, and there is no other way for us to stick to our self-existence and self-defense than to go to war.
Since this was the 70th anniversary, there were more debates than usual on how the war was started, why, and so on. Here are two of them.
One was a TV discussion on 8 December itself on the circumstances of attacking the main US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. One of the Japanese Ambassadors at Washington(there were two at the time), as the last resort in his view to avoid the war, called an Embassy officer with an American wife, and ordered him to find ways and means to request President Roosevelt to send a wire directly to the Japanese Emperor asking him not to go to war. I do not know if this episode has been known before. FDR duly obliged, and the Japanese side received his telegram. But it was withheld by the military for the crucial ten days, and was shown to the Emperor only minutes before the attack. The majority opinion of the participants was that even if it had been shown to him in time, he could not have gone against the Cabinet and the two Chiefs of Staff he had himself appointed. The decision to go to war on 8th itself was taken at the Conference on 1st with him present.
Another was a newspaper article by Prof.Nemoto Kei of Sophia University on the way Japan started the war on 8th.
According to him, it is wrong to consider the attack on Pearl Harbour as the start of the war. The Japanese troops landed at Kota Bharu on the east coast of the British Malay 65 minutes before. It can be explained in two ways. First, this was a war intended to invade and occupy Southeast Asia. Second, in the case of Pearl Harbour, Japan at least tried to deliver some document, even if it was short of a formal declaration of war and not in time for the attack. But in the case of Southeast Asia there was no such attempt at all. This would show that it was an invasion.
If, he continues, therefore, we call the war the "Pacific War", it will give us a wrong idea that it was a war between Japan and the US, and we were defeated by the US material power. The fact is that it was an invasion and occupation of Southeast Asia, and to be called the "Asia-Pacific War". The war with China was also continuing. Only then we may realize that we were also defeated by the resistance and nationalism of the Southeast Asian people.
This writer agrees with Prof.Nemoto's view. He would also like to add that the whole series of the wars the modern Japan fought for fifty years can best be understood if we turn them chronologically upside down and start from examning why we fought with the Anglo-Americans. If we do so we will come to the conclusion that it was to win the on-going war with China which we were not able to win, and to obtain the resources in Southeast Asia for that purpose.
Next time we will talk about an Indian lady, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, who hinted at a very creative view of the Second World War.

From Cancun to Durban to a Catastrophe?

This writer was travelling around in India for three weeks. Hence this interval for nearly a month.
In the meantime COP 17 is over at Durban, South Africa. While fully appreciating the efforts on the part of the Chairwoman, and even agreeing when she said 'This will make a big, big difference', Durban was not a success in terms of what was decided at the previous Cancun Conference(see the column on 19 January 2011). It was decided then that the industrial countries will reduce their gas emission to the degree of 25 to 40% by 2020 against that of the standard year 1990, and the developing countries will start reducing theirs by then. Neither of them was agreed to this time. Needless to say those two are closely interrelated in the field of international negotiations, if not in the language of science.
The small island countries, and other low-lying ones, were desperate in pleading their cases. And they had many supporters, mostly in Europe. But where were the several countries which were really to reckon with as far as the gross emission was concerned, like China, the US, Russia, India, and Japan?
China and India, which prodeced 8% more and 6.2% more of warming gas in 2010, respectively, did not seem to be taking a positive stance in a discussion of world sustainability. As a humble Gandhi sholar I would have thought that Durban being the place where Gandhi landed almost 120 years ago to begin his twenty-odd-year long stay in South Africa, India might send out some message which would serve as the model of behaviour for the emerging countries, especially the BRICS. That was not to be.
The BRICS seem to be united that the emission should be measured not by the gross quantity but on the per capita basis. This is with a good reason. This, however, should not justify those countries consuming energy and emitting warming gas as much as they want. This apprehension would apply more to China than to India. And there is of course the US, which is not known for taking any remarkable initiative for global sustainability, particularly when they are expecting a Presidential election less than a year ahead. Moreover, China and the US are suspicious of each other lest the other would not outmaneuver her. COP is one of the theatres of their global rivalry.
In those circumstances, it may have been a great task indeed, 'a big, big difference' to keep the COP itself unbroken, and to extend the KP(Kyoto Protocol) after 2012 with the understanding that a new agreement applicable to all member nations will be reached by 2015 to be effective by 2020. It was reached in the informal discussion in the small hours of 11 December.
Russia, Canada, and Japan have turned their back to the extension of KP. This is in spite of the plea by the UN Secretary-General, Mr.Ban Kimun. Take Japan, for instance, whose then Prime Minister told the UN General Assembly two years ago that Japan will reduce the emission by 25% by 2020 if the other major emitters will cooperate. It would be politically immoral to go back on that pledge without taking any serious initiative to bring others into a positive discussion. Her chief negotiator, a Mnister, did not mention the above pledge in his speech this time. He was not to be seen in the informal discussion of the final morning.
It is a sure way that nobody will be going to take Japan seriously, sooner than later.

Japan's PM moves closer to TPP, but...

Japan's PM Noda Yoshihiko held a 20-minute Press Conference at 8 pm yesterday, 11 November, and said that Japan will enter into conferring with the interested parties with the aim of joining the negotiations for the TTP(Trans-Pacific Partnership). He did so in the teeth of deep split within the ruling Democratic Party, which advised the PM and the Government to be cautious about joining the negotiations.
Behind this caution is a strong apprehension as to the future of, first and foremost, agriculture and dairy in this country, as was discussed in the previous blog and even before. It is estimated that 90% of domestic rice production will be gone. Reflecting this, almost all the local newspapers are opposed to Japan's joining the TTP. Only a few pro-capital national papers are in support of it.
The PM, not unaware of this apprehension, told the Press that the Government will concentrate its effort on strenghening the competitiveness of large-scale farming. But it is not convincing, in view of the fact that even in Hokkaido, the northernmost major island, where the competitiveness is considered to be greater than elsewhere with its larger-sized farms, the farmers are strongly opposed to the TTP.
The PM said that, Japan being a trade-dependent country, the need of the time is to bring in the energy of the vibrant Asia to revitalize the Japanese economy. But neither China nor India have been or are likely to be a part of it. It will simply end up with importing more products from the US. It will be practically nothing more than the Japan-US FTA. We must watch Korea carefully now, which has just concluded FTA with the US, but there are dissatisfactions with the agreement. It is wrong to characterize Japan as a trade-dependent nation. We have relied to a far greater extent on the growth of the domestic purchasing power. It is this power that has been greatly damaged in the past two decades by the policies and are badly in need of reconstructing.
If so, when the PM told the Press that he is determined to rebuild a stable society supported by wide strata of the middle classes, but he is simply talking untruth, however beautiful his words may be. How to rebuild middle classes exposed to a strong northern wind called TTP, under the burden of heavy taxes, high cost of medical care, education, housing, etc., or with a considerable part of the industrial base transferred abroad, as is shown by the recent floods in Thailand affecting all the car manufacturers in Japan.
Finally TTP is not just agricultural, or industrial. It includes 24 different sectors. What are expected in those sectors are not known yet, or the Government is not kind enough to inform the people.

Japanese Farmers and the TTP

The harvesting season is almost over in the rice fields around the country. But some of the farmers, especially in Fukushima Prefecture where the ill-fated nuclear plants are located, are working hard to protect their crops from radioactivity. Or to prepare the ground for the next year's planting.
Their originality is startling. They are determined to reduce the amount of the radioactivity their crops may absorb from the rice field to infinitely near the zero point. And by so doing to call back the consumers to them, some of them with many years' ties, who have left them because of the fear of the fallout. They say that the Government and the Prefectural Offices are moving too slowly with whatever research and experiments they are doing.
Thus some of the farmers themselves are trying to see how they should cultivate the land, especially how deeply they should do it, what is the proper way of mixing the surface with the deeper soil, and so on. The soil itself, the fertile soil, has been the product of their long years of labour.
Sometimes, the needle in their gauge suddenly goes up, pointing to the presence of the fallout near the small streams coming down from the side of the mountains facing the nuclear plants, and the farmers are up against the threat in collaboration with researchers from the universities etc.
The above has been taken from the NHK broadcasting of yesterday, 8 November. While admiring the efforts by the farmers to contain the fallout and to continue to produce safe and delicious rice as before, however, it is not my main point to summarize the broadcast. My point is that the TPP, into which the US and our own Government are trying to drag us, will simply take no notice of those voluntary, individual and creative efforts by the unassuming farmers. They think nothing of the almost probable damage our agriculture will be destined to suffer.
If Japan is to join the TPP, she will do it under the heavy US pressure. As it is the TPP will nothing much more than the US-Japan Free Trade Agreement. The readers will be surprised to know that, toward the end of October, a former high-ranking US official said in Tokyo in reference to the growing opposition in Japan to joining the TPP that agriculture accounts for only 1.2% of Japan's GDP, implying that the opposition from that quarter can be safely ignored. He also said that the agriculturalists' lobby is similarly being ignored in the US. Moreover he also said that Japan should increase her defense budget, loosen restrictions on the export of arms, and to revise the Article 9 of the Constitution so that the Self-Defense Forces of Japan should operate together with the US forces. Naked interference in our internal affairs, and only in the US interests.
It is true that our rice farming is facing heavy odds. But every rice field is a small dam, since every hectare of it holds 30 tons of water. Without it our land will go the way of desertification. We should defend them as they are.
One last thing. Way back in 1991, the Philippine Senate refused to ratify the treaty to keep the US bases in that country. The above official went round the opposition Senators to dissuade them from voting 'No'. He and others failed. What would be the ASEAN like today if there were US bases in one of its member countries? And how would we call people like him? Ambassadors of peace?

The Defense Secretary Came, Saw, but Did Not Conquer

The new US Defense Secretary, Mr.Leon Panetta, visited Japan on 24 October. The next day he saw the Prime Minister Noda for 35 minitues, and some other Ministers, too. Before taking the present office he was the Director of the CIA. As such he was one of the prominent personalities in Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, discussed before in these columns.
What was his mission this time? Every Japanese knows it by now. It is to make the Japanese, its government, and the prople of Okinawa, swallow a plan, a bitter plan, to construct an entirely new air base in Nago city, Okinawa, about two hours' drive from its capital, Naha city.
It is a plan to move a base existing at Futemma, as it is in the midst of a congested residential district and is called a most dangerous base in the world. The two governments came to an agreement that a new base be built at Nago so that the aircraft and facilities at Futemma should be shifted there. The agreement was reached five years ago. Not a single step has been taken toward that goal since then. Because the people are against the plan. Okinawa is already saturated with the US bases. Why should they have one more? And this one is not a usual one. They, for want of a land space, want to reclaim the sea, a beautiful coral sea, and build a V-shaped two runways. What a violence against the nature!
They have decided on it in the face of the bitter opposition. Why to have another base at a heavy cost, not only in money terms but also at the expense of the natural environment? And why at this time, when the US wars are hopefully coming to an end not only in Iraq but in Afghanistan? Okinawa has long been a stepping-stone for the forward deployment of the US forces, and that is why Japan has been regarded as their ally, not in peace but in war.
This anger has been expressed, for example, by an age-old writer from Okinawa, Mr.Ooshiro Tatsuhiro. It has been discussed here on 10 July.
This time Mr.Panetta came to push the Japanese authorities on some procedural matters. He certainly came, he saw the PM and others, but he didn't even try to talk to the Okinawan people, let alone conquer their heart and mind.

Narayan Desai on Japan's Nuclear Energy Utilization

Mr.Narayan Desai, 87, is a leading Gandhian thinker and activist in the world today. Through his father, Mr.Mahadev Desai, Gandhi's famous secretary, he was closely acquainted with Gandhi himself during his childhood.
He has recently given a reply in writing to a young lady from Japan, Kurihara Kaori, who is studying Gandhian thought at the Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, India, where Narayan is the Chancellor. It is a reply to the question, 'If Gandhi were alive today, what message would he give to the Japanese in view of the recent triple tragedies - earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear, in Japan?'. The reply was given in Gujarati. It has been translated by Kurihara into Japanese, and has just been published in the October issue of "Sarvodaya", a monthly journal of the Tokyo-based Japan-Bharat Sarvodaya Mitrata Sangha(Japan-India Sarvodaya Friendship Association).
Here let me give a summary of that portion of Narayan's reply which has impressed me most, i.e. the portion concerning Japan's nuclear policy.
He begins this portion by saying that it would be discourteous in view of such a disaster to claim that he has been pointing out to the danger of nucler energy in the past. We should instead straight and in all humility admit that this is the second warning. The first one was Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was not only to the people of Japan but to the whole of mankind. But the big powers of the world have not taken heed of the warning. We also have failed to notice the inseparable relationship between the nuclear weapons and the nuclear energy. The people of Japan who have been the victims of the nuclear weapons have unfortunately chosen the path toward the use of the nuclear energy.
Narayan then proceeds to analyze the specific conditions in Japan. The nuclear energy generates radioactivity. It is not economical. Also it has been proved to be not perfectly safe. It may be because of the following reasons that Japan has made use of it in spite of those factors. First, there were scarce energy resources. Second, the government has defined the meaning of development as the pursuit of the material affluence, and tried to achieve economic growth by competition, thereby forgetting that it is a wrong growth that victimizes others. Moreover, they have idealized Western values, Western way of life, Western culture, thereby forgetting their own identity. In so doing they have internalized the belief that science and technology are infallible. They have forgotton that man is fallible.
And he askes if those tragedies are not the opportunity to change such a way of thingking.
I will not go into the more general and philosophical portion of the reply. Let me, however, call your attention to the fact that, at the beginning of his reply, Narayan says that it is a difficult task to say what Gandhi would have said, because he wonders if he qualifies, and, more interestingly to this writer, Gandhi was always evolving, and therefore he could not be sure how Gandhi's ideas might have changed in the 64 years after his death. Very much like him!

"Occupying Tokyo"

It started in New York on 17 September. The slogan was 'Occupy the Wall Street'.
Thousands did so by going up and down the street. Their placards said 'Arrest the Bankers', 'No More Greed', and many such things. What was unheard-of was that they were unanimous in stressing the disparities between the 99% of the population and the remaining 1%.
From NY it spread to Washington. In the US the population below the poverty line swelled by 2.6 million last year to reach 46.2 million. It is 15-16% of the total, roughly the same as in Japan, though her jobless ratio of 9.1% is somewhat higher.
In less than a month the movement spread to about 1,000 cities all over the globe, including Tokyo. The remarkable thing here is that the ratio of those who are irregularly employed has kept on rising and it now reached 38%. And it is making the position of the rest of the working force that much unstable.
A week ago, in the midst of this phenomenon, a high official of the IMF in charge of the Asia and the Pacific has given an interview to a Japanese newspaper.
He said, among others, that in order to cut the budgetary deficit it would be desirable that Japan would raise the consumption tax from the present 5% to 15% by stages, as the hike of this tax would least affect the economic growth. He also suggested that there should be reforms in the social policy so that, for example, the people would get the pension at a later age.
When there was a change in the government in this country two years ago, the new Democratic Party government was telling the people that there would be no change in the consumption tax ratio for the full term of four years. At the Upper House elections a year ago, however, the former PM talked about a possible hike in this tax, and lost heavily. More recently the new PM and the FM are sending out signs of rasing it to 10%. The above interview may well be a part of a coordinated effort, both on the part of the official and the newspaper.
For, the interview does not take into consideration that there is a very keen feeling of inequality already existing among the people at large. Not only the income tax is unfair. Medical and educational expenditure are so heavy that there are many unable to pay the prescribed insurance fee, or unable to keep the children studying beyond the nine years' obligatory education. If the consumption tax trebles or even doubles over and above all this, it would mean a devastating blow to the purching power of the common people.
Nothing is further from the truth to say that it is the least harmless to the growth. It is the most retrogressive tax. A 10% rise will take away 5% of the annual GDP of the country. It will surely widen the gap between 1% and the rest.
The official also says that Japan should go ahead with trade liberalization through participating in the proposed TPP(Trans-Pacific Partnership). He seems to think that free trade will mean higher growth for Japan. That is not the way Japan's economy grew. It has not been an export-led economy. It has been based on domestic demand and full employment. The pattern has been eroded by making more and more of the working force unstable since 1980s.
Participating in the TTP would surely be another blow, may be a body blow, to the Janapese economy, especially agriculture, for how can our small-scale intensive agriculture compete with the US and Australia? Even the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries estimates that our food self-sufficiency ratio will come down from the present 39%, itself low enough, to a mere 13%. It is also probable that it will open up a number of social sectors to the foreign private capital, so that the already emerging tendency for the government to pull out from those sectors will get further momentum. Thus the dichotomy of one against 99 will reemerge on an international level, as it will help reduce the jobless in the US but increase it in Japan. As such it is part of Obama's election strategy. Most of Japan's 47 Prefectural Assemblies have expressed either opposition to or causion on the PPT participation.
The official said in the same interview that there are limits on the curtailment of the government expenditure. The same newspaper reported on the same day that the Self-Defense Forces of Japan is now selecting one out of the three candidates for their next fighters, and it will mean a purchase of $12 billion or so. Is such a purchase necessary?

People's China on the 1911 Revolution

The October issue of the Japanese edition of the People's China is a special number on the 1911 Revolution. I am not sure if the other language editions are also a special. The Japanese editon well focuses on Japan's involvement in the Revolution. An article by a Chinese woman professor is of particular interest for me. It highlights the role of one University in Japan at a specific period of the Revolution.
It is Hosei University, and the author is a professor of this university. Hosei was the first private law school, later turned to a university, built in the Meiji period. For five years from 1904 to 08, while the Chinese dynasty went into its last period, it set up a one-year course, as against the usual three-year ones, for the benefit of the Chinese students who wanted to study in Japan hurriedly the legal system of a modern state. It was done at the request of the Chinese Minister to Japan in view of mounting demand of the sort among the Chinese youth.
Hosei was not necessarily at the top in terms of the number of Chinese students who studied there. Still as many as 2,117 students were enrolled in this course altogether, and they included some who later became well-known in China's history, including Dong Bi-wu, Wang Zhao-Ming, Song Jiao-ren, Hu Han-min, and Liao Zhong-kai.
When Sun Yat-sen founded the forerunner of the Nationalist Party in Japan in 1905, this course was in existence. Out of its 963 founder-members as many as 860 were either the students or other residents in Japan. In this year the Chinese students at Hosei numbered 295, and most of them are presumed to have joined the party.
In order to make it easy for the Chinese students to be enrolled in the course, the examination was done away with. A letter from the Minister was enough. Most of the teaching was of the legal subjects, and there were interpreters in the classrooms.
Incidentally 1905 was also the year when the Chinese dynasty abolished the traditional, and very prestigious, Civil Service examination.
Unfortunately the one-year course was abolished in 1908. Other sources suggest that it was because the Chinese government did not like the liberal and revolurionary mood among the students and put a request to Japan to wind it up. Japan herself had her own reason to do so and tried to restrain their activities. So much so that many of the students went home in protest.
Very soon Japan would place Korea under her rule. The parting of the ways with China also was at this period.

China's 1911 Revolution - 2

Sun Yat-sen, finding more political freedom for his activities in Japan than in his own China, founded an organization that later developed into the Nationalist Party in Japan in 1905. In 1924, one year before his death, however, he gave a lecture at Kobe asking the Japanese if they were going to be the tools of Western hegemonism or to walk in the Eastern Royal Road. What has brought about this change in his attitude towards Japan?
Sun had gradually got disappointed with Japan in a matter of two to three decades. In so doing he was not at all alone among the leaders of Asian nations. What was crucial in understanding Japan was that she annexed Korea in 1910. From that time onwards Japan's Asian policies were based on the need to protect Korea as a Japanese territory. Also it was on this basis that Japan became on a par with the Western imperialist powers in Asia and the Pacific.
The Chinese Revolution took place the very next year. It did not immediately pose a threat to the Japanese rule over Korea. A much greater threat came somewhat later, towards the end of 1920s when, after Sun's death, the Chinese Nationalists' move to integrate the whole of China under one government was getting momentum, and was proceeding northward. The warlord over the Chinese Northeast, Zhang Xue-liang, made it clear that he would hoist the Nationalists' flag in the area. In this sense Zhang was an important successor to Sun. Later in 1936, he went against the order of Jiang Jie-shi, the then head of the government and the army, to fight the civil war against the Communists, and arrested him. He then surrendered to Jiang, remained his prisoner for a long time, and breathed his last in Taiwan.
It was in order to thwart such a move as Zhang's that Japan went into military action to cut off the Northeast from China proper in 1931. It was a move ultimately to secure Korea.
What was of more immediate threat to Japan was that of republicanism in China, as the Revolution established the first republican government in the whole of Asia, while Japan was under a monarchical rule cementad by myth and legend. It was being shaken as a dozen socialists had been put to death under the pretext of plotting to assasinate the Emperor in 1911, the year of the Revolution. So Japan was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the revolutionary movement. It was more so when the Chinese Communists put up a common front with the Nationalists for the unification of the country.
When at his death-bed Sun said that the Revolution was not yet completed, he was keenly aware that it was facing powerful adversaries both within the country and without. After 1931, when Japan established a puppet state in the Northeast, many of her educated people expressed the view that it should be a kingdom as republicanism would not suit the Chinese. Japan also exploited it in many ways. Those factors were both in order to secure korea for Japan, and to prepare an all-out conquest of China. The planned conquest of China became a failure because of the Chinese resistance, which made Japan plunge into one more and final war.
Has Sun's and the Revolution's hope been realized? Not yet. China herself should get democratized. If that is done, Taiwan will be willing to be a part of China.
What about Japan? We will talk about it before long.

China's 1911 Revolution - 1

Today, 10 October, a hundred years ago, a revolution which originated in Wuhan city pulled down the Ch'ing dynasty in China. Not only this dynasty, but the imperial rule in general was put an end to in China. The revolution changed the course of history in East Asia, and in the world. Sun Yat-sen was the undisputed leader of the revolution, though he was not there on the spot on that day.
China does not usually talk much of this revolution on its anniversaries. This year, however, they celebrated it officially in a big way. Mr.Hu spoke before a large audience, including all the nine members of the Politburo Standing Committee, that the Communist Party is the sucessor to this revolution.
Here in Japan, the China town in Yokohama, the largest of the sort in the country, though we have only two others worth the name, Kobe and Nagasaki, celebrated it with a music festival yesterday, and a more formal ceremony to be followed by a parade today. Thousands came for the music festival, presumably many more from Taiwan than from China, especially in view of the fact that the tourists from China declined sharply after the nuclear accident in March. That could also be guessed from the flags, as they were Sun's Nationalist flags. Or the Chinese characters, as they were not simplified ones which are in use in China. The festival started with a very skillful dance by a pair of lions, not real ones but a couple of men each in an envelope of cloth with a lion's mask.
The festival was held in a Chinese school. Just next door is a mausoleum of General Guan Yu, red-faced with a long beard, who died in the third century and has been elevated to the rank of the Emperor later on. He is much respected in this country, too. One of his ledends is that when he was injured in his arm in a battle with a poizoned arrow, he called a doctor and had it operated on while drinking wine and enjoying board games with his staff member. Its premises are usually crowded. I have seen another at Kobe.
There was a close association of Sun and Yokohama, and for that matter Kobe, as both cities were the major ports of Japan in his time. It is said that he came to Yokohama and lived there twelve times.
We in Japan like to think that Japan helped him with his revolutionary activities. True, many Japanese tried to be helpful. Some of them, at least, did so without any personal consideration, probably because they saw in Sun a light of hope which they were unable to realize in this country. But not all of them were like that. Moreover, the government was not taking kindly to him as they thought the Ch'ing dynasty was easier to handle. We will discuss some of these matters in the next blog.
Sun was survived by his wife, Song Qing-ling, who was much younger than he and who did a lot for the Revolution of 1949. Her younger sister, Song Mei-ling, on the other hand, married Jiang Jie-shi. They were exiled in Taiwan when defeated in the civil war. There was also the eldest sister who married a business tycoon. All the three studied at the Wellesley Women's College and became known as the three Song sisters.
At the music festival yesterday there was practically no photograph of Jiang. It was all Sun's. Do the people of Taiwan consider themselves as Sun's successors? Or are they even independent of Sun?

Will the US Veto the Palestinian State?

The Palestinian government is going to submit their application for a full statehood in the UN tomorrow, 23 September, US time. It is a historic proposal. It is hoped that the UN will accept it in an equally historic decision. Already more than half of the UN members have recognized Palestine as a state. In a recently announced opinion polls the majority of the respondents in all the countries surveyed, even in the US, have supported the expected application. If the US will veto the move in the Security Council, she will disregard all those writings on the wall. It will also greatly damage her own national interests.
Mr.Obama's General Assembly speech yesterday, 21 September, naturally gave some portion of it(7 minites out of 40) to this question. But it was all on a trodden path. He said peace should be worked out in the direct talk of Israel and Palestine. But the US have heavily supported Israel, and have been arming her from the head to the foot for many years. When certain elements in Palestine were duly elected by the people, the US and Israel refused to recognize them as the legitimate partner to talk to.
Mr.Obama referred to the recent history of the persecution of the Jewish people and said 'Those are the facts'. Nobody is disputing those facts. It is irrelevant to talk about them here. It is irrelevant also in the sense that the current issue is not the Jewish people versus the Palestinians, but between the present state of Israel versus the Palestinians.
Moreover those are by no means all the facts. The Israelis, no matter how they might have been persecuted, have come to a land already inhabited by the Arabs. Some may say that it is their ancient home. If that claim is to be accepted, the whole of North America, for example, could be claimed by their original inhabitants, their own indigenous peoples.
Obama said 'there are no short-cuts'. He is not even offering a one year's time for the negotiations to be over, as he did last year. Few speeches can be so welcome to one side and so unwelcome to the other. It must have been for pure home consumption. If so it will speak a lot of the anti-Muslim feelings in the US.
Just before he turned to this issue he was talking of the Arab Spring, and specially of the rights of the Syrian people. It seems that the Arab Spring and the Palestinian issue are totally compartmentalized, and there seems to be very little to learn from one in order to enrich the thinking on the other. So there was nothing new in the speech, which would have been more befitting to an Israeli president. This is not the way to enthuse the world with the hope for change, of which Obama once spoke so often.
Palestinian question is not the only one about which the US may very well change their policy so that the existing tensions can be blown off--Iran, DPRK, Cuba, and so on. It is still within the US' power to do this. The fully-packed audience at the General Assembly may have expected something more conducive to peace, and change, while hoping against hope, and have been disappointed. The 'fact' that there was hardly any applause would testify to this.

Ten Years On, Are We Any Wiser?

Tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been marked by an attack on the Israeli Embassy at Cairo. It might have looked a second 9/11 to many Israeli-backing Americans. But they should try to find out why Israel has become such a target, just as the Americans should have tried to think about why it was they who were attacked ten years ago? If the Americans had done it, ten years on, we would find ourselves in a different world.
The US have not done so because President Bush gave the war-cry, 'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists'. A sheer dichotomy, where neutrality is impossible, persuasion has no place, all the Muslims of the Middle East origin have been looked at with suspicion, the dictators like the Musharraffs and the Mubaraks have come under the US umbrella in the name of anti-terrorism so that they can reinforce their position vis-a-vis their own people. No reasonable and less violent alternative to the Afghan and the Iraqi invasion has been seriously examined. As the consequence, while mourning over the death of thousands of 9/11 victims, we have to face the fact that more than 200,000 have lost their lives in these two and related operations, with all the wrath and desperation aroused by it.
The weapons of mass destruction, which should have been the only excuse for invading Iraq at all, have been nowhere to be seen, and one is naturally tempted to the conclusion that the US and Britain wanted to destroy Saddam Hussein, to 'regime change', to acclaim themselves to be the defenders of democracy, to lessen the threat to Israel, and to incorporate Iraq into the global market economy.
Still why was it that there was very little of critical attitude in the US journalism at the time. I vividly remember that a newspaper of New York Times' calibre, while invasion was unfolding, put the names and photos of more than a dozen of its correspondents and indicated where each of them was located every morning. Some were proudly marching in Army tanks. Have they had any serious reflection upon it?
Not only the issues of terrorism, invasion, democratization and dictatorship were not discussed. Those of poverty, corruption, joblessness, drawbacks of globalization were not, either. The recent Anna Hazare's fast in India is one answer to such questions. Already at the time of the Atlanta Olympics, it was said that the tourists' visit to the fashionable quarters of the city did little to spill the benefits over to the back streets.
It is said that there are 14 million jobless in the US, and President Obama's recent Job Speech said the US would 'win the race to the top'. She may very well do so. But the point is she cannot do it apart from simultaneous efforts to make the world less armed, less violent, less military alliance-bound, less poor and less jobless.
Here we have to come back to the beginning, and ask again why Israeli Embassy has been attacked, and that by a people who so courageously and persistently stuck to the non-violent means in their anti-Mubarak struggle. Here I would only say this much. If the US vetoes the expected Palestinian application to a UN membership, it would be another historic mistake in the US Middle East policy, showing that, a decade on, she has hardly learnt anything.

Anna Hazare Ends Fast (3)

I have discussed Anna Hazare's movement in the past two pieces. Here I want to check what I wrote by the Outlook magazine Special Number of 5 September on "The People versus Parliament".
Historian Ramachandra Guha, we will recall, said that corruption is one of the three more recent challenges to the idea of India(see 18 February column). In the Special also, one writes 'The issue is common people across the country asking why they must bribe, when they pay taxes and follow the law'(p.52), and another says '...corruption is not a half-, but the absolute, truth in our lives now'(p.54).
So it is a universal phenomenon.
Some people are quite critical of the media in connction with the movement. Look at this. 'Television's lack of objectivity has meant that really important questions are also not being discussed: like the dictatorial tendencies of Team Hazare, the flaws in the Jan Lokpal Bill...'(p.24). Another wonders if the media want to project the movement as 'focused on the solitary issue of corruption'(p.34).
The ruling Congress has been trying to 'describe Anna Hazare as part of an RSS conspiracy'(p.26), and 'The crowds, it is said, comprise reactionary Hindu communalists virulently opposed to Muslims, OBCS and Dalits'(p.33).
Quite naturally the JP movement is discussed as a possible historical parallel, and P.N.Dhar is quoted as saying that 'Nobody shed a tear for the demise of the rule of law and constitutional means of changing governments'(p.44). Meant to be a warning on the present?
It is a very significant observation that 'For a movement to succeed, it must be based on truth, public support, and religious harmony'(p.34). This could very well be a standard for judging any movement, including those in the past.
Opinions are bound to differ. Between the two Bollywood men who are friends, one thinks that 'It is a rare moment when India has come together as a nation', while to the other, 'Democracy is about bestowing power to the people, but this(Anna's Jan Lokpal)creates a superstructure that has absolute power'(p.54).
But the Special Number talks of 'the open school of democracy at the Ramlila Maidan'(p.32) where 'the Anna movement has opened wide the shrinking space for protesting against the state'(p.33), and Medha Patkar, the Narmada activist, was 'linking corruption to land, forest and Dalit rights'(p.33). Yogendra Yadav, political scientist, who 'joined the movement after an intense argument with himself about its ideological nature' referred to 'the movement's potential to encompass issues other than corruption'(p.34).
Almost summing up, it says 'the Ramlila Maidan is now a site where thousands of wounds demand succour; it is where a million mutinies dotting the country have found expression; it is the vent through which the free-floating anger of India seeks release; it is the new seminary of politics where the new Indian is being defined and refined'(p.35). This is in spite of the fact that in the rural India the impact of the movement is yet to be felt.
What about the corporate sector? India is being seen as a country where it is 'difficult...to do business here. And to do so honestly, virtually impossible', and therefore 'big business could find to its discomfort that it is seen as part of the problem-and not a victim'(p.52).
In view of the fact that there are three Lokpal Bills at present, including one by the government, what is the practical solution? The Editor-in-Chief suggests that Anna Hazare's and Aruna Roy's groups should 'hammer out a single draft'. If it can be done, it would wipe out the misgivings that the present movement, by shaking the 'structure', would reinforce the neo-liberal thinking in India's economic management. 'Seize the moment', as Vinod Mehtaji says.

Anna Hazare Ends Fast (2)

During these two weeks or so Mahatma Gandhi's name was as much on people's lips as, I think, never before since independence. Many, if not all, regard Anna Hazare as 'aaj ka (today's) Mahatma Gandhi'. Gandhi is very much alive, not dead. Whether he is really today's Gandhi depends on the definition of Gandhiism. As for me I would say 'yes', although not completely without doubt.
People watching him on the stage at the Ramlila Maidan, Delhi, may have noticed that he was almost alone, not in the sense that he has no followers, who were millions, but in the sense that he is the sole leader, and everybody else, including the now fearless members of the "Team Anna", has to consult him. True, Gandhi may have been in a similar position on a number of occasions. But he was backed by legitimate resolutions by the AICC, CWC or the whole Congress Sessions as the case may be, though many of them were drafted by himself. In other words here was no organization to speak of whereas there was one there. Is it democratic?
Aruna Roy, the social activist, goes further. She questions the way Anna is forcing a deadline to the Parliament for passing his Jan Lokpal Bill, and fears that the 'structure' would be shaken by this method. She says that the Parliamentary Standing Committee(on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice) instead should be trusted to draft a Bill, adding that, in the case of the Right to Information Act of 2005, the original Government Bill left much to be desired, but as many as 153 amendments were written into it in the Committee. The Government, by the way, had submitted its Lokpal Bill to the said Committee on 8 August 'for examination and report within three months'.
What Aruna Roy and many others are seriously worried about, though they are agreeable to the people's grievances, is a question of satyagraha vs.parliamentary legislation. Here comes an opportunity to listen to what Gandhi himself said on the subject, in his interview to N.G.Ranga on 29 October 1944.
He said, 'Civil disobedience and non-co-operation are designed for use when people, i.e., the tillers of the soil, have no political power. But immediately they have political power, naturally their grievances, whatever their character, will be ameliorated through legislative channels...If the legislature proves itself to be incapable of safeguarding kisans' interests they will of course always have the sovereign remedy of civil disobedience and non-co-operation. But...ultimately, it is not paper legislation nor brave words or fiery speeches, but the power of non-violent organization, discipline and sacrifice that constitutes the real bulwark of the people against injustice or oppression'.
So Gandhi was clearly saying that ordinarily satyagraha will not be the legitimate means of political struggle once democratic institutions have been installed, but there are occasions when they will have to be resorted to. This writer is of the view that the past two weeks have been one such occasion which has been proved by the tremendous response on the part of the people. Anna has, at least to that extent, acted as a Gandhian.
Anna decided to break his fast in the evening of 27 August, his Day 12, on receiving a letter from the Prime Minister accepting some of his demands, broke the fast the next morning, and was hospitalized at Gurgaon.
It is yet to be seen if the past two weeks have been enough to effect changes with the Passport Office, traffic and border police, etc., or if a single Bill, let alone a 'paper legislation', is going to be enough to take on larger public crimes.

Anna Hazare Ends Fast (1)

Kisan Baburao(Anna) Hazare, 74, comes from a village in Maharashtra State, Western India. He went to school for only seven years. For years he served the Indian Army as a driver. After coming back to his village, he worked a lot for its improvement by prohibition, irrigation, introduction of new crops, increasing milk production, spreading education, curtailing social cost of marriages and so on.
He is almost landless and gets his pension from the Indian Army. As a social activist he contributed to the enacting of the State Right to Information Act, which became a base for the national act of the same name in 2005. I had the pleasure of meeting him once, when the Indian Society of Gandhian Studies met at another place in his State in 2007.
Anna Hazare as a social activist led a Lokpal(Ombudsman) movement, demanding the setting up of a strong Lokpal both at the Centre and the States(to be called Lokayuktas) to fight corruption widely permeated in the Indian society. He fasted in this connection in April 2011, his 12th, many of which were against corruption.
The Government of India made its own Lokpal Bill in July, but it did not satisfy some of Anna's crucial points, leading his second fast demanding his more strict Jan Lokpal(People's Ombudsman) Bill to be passed by the Parliament. It suddenly created an atmosphere of a peaceful revolution all over the country, especially in big cities, for the first time after independence, for about two weeks, with hundreds of thousands of people gathering and marching together.
We must consider the meaning of corruption. The innumerable number of people who gathered had got grievances some way or another against the bureaucracy. Passport Office, traffic police, water and electricity bills, admission to schools etc., birth and death certificates(really?). Those offices all wanted bribery, people said. I have my own small experience. When I crossed from one State to another by a taxi a few years ago, after I paid the legitimate tax at the border, I saw my driver approaching the policeman and paid him Rs.20. I asked him what would happen if he did not pay the money. The answer was that we would have been detained there for one hour. He further told me of his having to pay huge sum of money if he tries to get a job, a lower one, in the government offices.
Those gathered could be broadly called the middle class people, the ordinary citizens, not ones fetched from the villages for political mobilization, and not one or two but almost everybody has got such a story of paying bribery to tell, or too common to tell. In the early evenings in the weekend they were marching hand in hand, strangers to each other, just like a human chain, something unheard-of in this country. Today's urban aam admi maybe a bit different from seven years ago when it was first said by the Prime Minister. The anti-corruption is thus a demand for a just distribution in the society.
The movement was compared to the "Quit India" of 1942. Slogans like "Corruption, quit India" have appeared. Some called it "the Second Freedom Struggle". Anna Hazare repeated, like Gandhi then, "Karenge ya Marenge(Do or die)". He further said that this government is looting the country. Strong words. But it is a great credit to Anna and his 'Team Anna', and to the people at large, that it has been non-violent throughout. In this it is not comparable to the JP Movement of 1970s, which not only led to much destruction but also was snatched away by the Hindu communal forces.(to be concluded)

Arab Spring, Gene Sharp, Mahatma Gandhi

Prof.Gene Sharp's a little old book, Gandhi as a Political Strategist, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1979, is an important contribution to the Gandhian literature even today, especially in view of the movement for "Arab Spring". The second chapter is particularly significant. This is where the author refers to 'Gandhi's acquaintance with various cases of nonviolent action, and his first contact with the theory of power upon which it is based.'(p.27).
On the one hand the author says that Gandhi was not the initiator of non-violent action, and he knew it himself. Gandhi, for instance, seeing the overwhelmingly non-violent nature of the 1905 Russian Revolution, wrote that 'The present unrest in Russia has a great lesson for us...We, too, can resort to the Russian remedy against tyranny'. On the other hand, 'The view of the power of rulers as being dependent on the ruled continued throughout his life to be the fundamental political insight upon which Gandhi's struggle rested'(p.39). We will have to grasp this aspect of Gandhi's political thought by re-reading his Hind Swaraj, which is well-known at least partly by its submission that the British rule over India has been made possible by the subservience on the part of the Indians, particularly the educated class.
Gene Sharp's grasp of Gandhi here is wholly from the point of peace and democratization. As such, it, together with several instances of more recent non-violent movement against Nazi or communist regimes discussed in the first chapter, must have encouraged the Arab Spring, or any other movement similar in nature.
The anti-dictatorship alone, however, is not entirely Gandhian. The latter should include some schemes for the just distribution in the society, whether Gandhi himself succeeded in doing so or not. The ongoing 'Anna Hazare Phenomenon' in India is such an example. It is a movement against universally permeated bribery, and as such demanding a more just distribution. But we will look at today's Gene Sharp effect more closely, putting off Anna Hazare to our next column.
From Dictatorship to Democracy:A Conceptual Framework for Liberation, The Albert Einstein Institution, Boston, 4th US Edition, 2010, is one of Sharp's more recent works. It is a booklet of only 93 pages, but of great significance. He initially wrote it in Thailand in 1993 at the request of a Burmese in exile. It is 'a generic analysis', a 'brief examination of how a dictatorship can be disintegrated'. Even without referring Gandhi or Martin Luther King it is from the beginning to the end on nonviolent defiance vs.dictatorship. When the author says 'Contrary to popular opinion, even totalitarian dictatorships are dependent on the population and the societies they rule'(p.20), the link with the earlier one is immediately apparent.
When the BBC reporters reached the Tahrir Square, Cairo, earlier this year, they saw that the booklet had been widely distributed in its Arabic translation. Some of the readers had been detained, but some others were reading it with a torch by the side of the tank. Gandhi's contemporary significance has extended this much.
Have the courageous fighters in Libya, Syria and others also read this booklet?

T.R.Sareen's New Book on the Making of Pakistan

There were not a few surprises in the new book by my respected friend T.R.Sareen entitled Jinnah, Linlithgow and the Making of Pakistan-A Documentary Study-, Uppal, New Delhi, 2010. The title is quite appropriate, as the book, and the real process of creating Pakistan seventy years ago, evolved around these two personalities, the President of the All-India Muslim League and the British Governor-General and Viceroy.
Shortly after the Second World War broke out, and Jinnah promised his support to the British war effort, Linlithgow gradually began to look at the League as representing the Muslims in India. To Jinnah's demands of 5 November 1939 that the British should look at all the problems of the future Indian constitution de novo, and there should be no declaration or constitution which were not supported by the two major religious communities in India, Linlithgow replied "yes" on 23December. 'The leaders of the Congress were not aware that Jinnah was working in close confidence of the Viceroy and had given an understanding that he had no wish to come to any agreement with the Congress'(p.37).
And finally the British Secretary of State for India spoke in the House of Lords on 18 April 1940 that 'I cannot believe that any Government or Parliament in this country would attempt to impose by force upon, for example, the 80 million Muslim subjects of His Majesty in India a form of Constitution under which they would not live peacefully and contentedly'(p.244).
So far, in my understanding, Linlithgow's 'August Offer' of the same year, written under the direct guidance of Winston Churchill, the new Prime Minister, and handing over a virtual veto on the constitutional question to the Muslims, tended to be viewed as the climax of the triangular British-Congress-League negotiations. But no, the Secretary's Lords speech was the real climax, which was made within a month of the League's Lahore Resolution demanding Pakistan, and as such almost rubber-stamping the Resolution. It is the reason why the 'August Offer' is included in this book not among the documents but as Appendix I.
My greatest surprise, however, was the Appendix II(pp.251-267).
It is the Report of the (League)Foreign Committee on Pakistan Scheme, 23 December 1940. It plans to establish a federal sovereign state in the northwest of India and another in the northeast. So far it is according to the Lahore Resolution. It, however, goes beyond, and sometimes far beyond, it. The Northwest state includes Delhi as part of the Punjab and a part of UP up to Aligarh. The Northeast gives up Bankura and Midnapur Districts of Bengal from the territory of Pakistan, but includes Purnea of Bihar into it. It claims that all the Princely states under the Muslim rulers will be considered to be sovereign, and especially Hyderabad, the largest of them, should form together with the above two the triangular Muslim powers. The plan, moreover, indicates the possibility of federating the neighbouring Princely states, whether under Muslim rulers or otherwise, with Pakistan. Kashmir, Patiala, and even non-adjoining Bikaner and Jaisalmer in the northwest and Coach Behar, Tripura, Manipur and Khasi Hills in the northeast are mentioned in this context. The fact that the League made such an aggressive plan fairly early and kept it to itself would show that they were serious about Pakistan, which was far from a bargaining counter. It was also jealously kept from the Congress, and not even hinted at even during the 18-day long Gandhi-Jinnah talks in 1944. Much of the plan was not realized, but we may conclude that Pakistan was as much a creation of the Pakistan elite as of the British.
At the same time we regret to see that there was no consideration of what would happen to the Muslim minority in the Hindu majority areas and the Hindu minority in the Muslim majority areas. As such it was based on the exclusive interests of the elite classes.

No Bhopal, No Hiroshima, No Fukushima

Today 6 August is the Hiroshima Day. At 8.15am, when the bomb exploded, thousands who assembled at the ceremony ground stood up for a minute's silence. They were joined by millions across the country. The Mayor's speech, called the 'Hiroshima Declaration of Peace', is the main item. This year he again called for a nuclear-free peaceful world, and also wanted the nuclear power policy, which is generating so much damage and confusion because of the severe accident at Fukushima, be revised. He added that the extent of the radioactive 'black rain', which showered on the city soon after the explosion but which has been minimized by the government so far, should be properly delineated scientifically so that we could reach a more accurate figure of the victims.
This year a list of 5,785 who had passed away during the last year out of the survivors was prepared, making the total number of dead at Hiroshima 275,230. The number of survivors all over the country has come down to about 220,000 by now. The corresponding figure for Nagasaki of the number of dead in the past year will come out in a day or two. The fateful time for Nagasaki is 11.02am.
The Prime Minister spoke after the Mayor. He referred to the 'ultimate abolition of the nuclear weapons', their preferred phrase to mean that they are not going to be bound, and bind others, by any time-bound arrangement.
Kan, however, added that the existing myth of safety about the nuclear power plants would be looked into, and we will aim at a society not dependent on nuclear energy. Hope he will be as good as his words. I may add here that the nuclear power plants have originally come out of President Eisenhower's famous UN speech on 'Atoms for Peace' in December 1953. It is essentially a part of a plan to make nuclear weapons acceptable. No wonder that the safety element of the plants has not been looked into carefully enough.
Bhopal is the capital city of a major Indian state of Madhya Pradesh(central state). In December 1984, the Union Carbide factory in its suburbs leaked insecticide gas in the thick of the night, causing several thousand of casualties. I had a chance to take a look at the cite in 1988. The factory had been closed, but I saw a statue of a mother embracing a little child crying(written in words) 'No Bhopal, no Hiroshima, we want to live'. This was not a nuclear-related factory. But I was impressed to find 'Hiroshima' there. It was unexpected. But there can be no barrier between nuclear or non-nuclear when it comes to inhuman disasters.

A Proposal Bona Fide, Serious but Unacceptable

Dr.Hinohara Shigeaki is the most popular physician in Japan at present. He is 99 years old, but his diaries are said to be filled up with appointments for the next at least several years. He has an innumerable number of works to his credit which have significant social meaning apart from purely clinical. For example he was among the first to introduce the idea of hospice here. He also incorporated music as a means of therapy. He is the Chairman of the renowned St.Luke's Hospital, Tokyo. Even in the car he is always writing or dictating. But when out of the car he walks without a stick, and runs up the stairs by two steps at a time.
Hinohara is also a great lover of peace, and says that the Article 9 of our Constitution should not be revised or deleted. Recently he wrote in his weekly newspaper column that when he visited Okinawa earlier this year he revealed a plan of his own designed to solve the question of the US military bases there.
He says that the Okinawans should put up with the present state of the bases for ten years, and the US should return them at the end of the period. Freezing. As simple as that. And he adds that when he put the idea to the 1,000-strong audience they all applauded and said 'yes'.
I have been thinking about it for a few weeks. With all my respect and good wishes to him, however, I am not able to bring myself to accept it. Why?
First, we can abolish the Security Treaty after one year once we notify the US. This is the right prescribed in Article 10 of the Treaty. Are we going to abandon it, together with the possibility that we will mobilize ourselves in that direction?
Second, at the moment we are simply watching the bases as the US use them as they please, with all the accompanying noises, dangers, and so on. Are we to ask the Okinawans to wait for ten years more, on and above the several decades already past?
Third, its not simply freezing, as new developments are bound to occur. The bases are not simply there. They are for transmitting the troops and equipment where ever they are needed. They will not therefore give them up automatically. The idea Hinohara has put to us is not designed to put enough pressure on the US to leave. It is not likely to put any pressure at all.
What puzzles me, after all is said, is why the audience has all agreed, though most of them must be locals. May I suggest, without any cynicism, that it is Hinohara magic?

Whaling and Japan

The pressure on Japan to stop whaling has been persistent. Does she have to conform to it? This writer does not think so.
If you use the term 'culture' it is likely to give you the impression that something is immovable from the time immemorial. I do not like to say culture or civilization for this reason. However, whaling is, if anything, definitely a part of Japanese culture. There have been several hundred whaling villages in different parts of the country. The industry has created employment and developed skills. There have been customs and ceremonies associated with it. Many novels have been written, and are written even now, in which the whales are always treated with respect.
Whaling was once prospering in the US and European countries also. When they were putting pressure on Japan to open up in the middle of 19th Century, whaling interests were a very important factor. Those were the peak years of whaling in the Northern Pacific. The first US submarine was named 'the Intelligent Whale'. One Japanese historian dedicated his book on the modern Japanese diplomatic history to 'Captain Ahab of the Pequod'.
Why were they catching whales at that time? It was mostly for obtaining lubricating oil. Even now the whaling countries in Europe use only a small part of the meat for pet food and dispose of all the rest.
In Japan, to the contrary, the whale meat has been much appreciated. There are many ways of eating it. In a country where people did not take to beef or pork until fairly recently, whale has provided the main source of meat, and as such has been looked at as something of a fish. Not only the meat but almost every part of the whale is utilized in one way or other, with practically nothing to throw away.
Has the Japanese caught too many whales to make it an unsustainable industry? Many indicators seem to point to the opposite direction. C.W.Nicol, a writer with marine biological background, of Welsh origin now a naturalized Japanese, once spent a whole whaling season in the Antarctic with the Japanese whalers. He reported, among others, that out of the 728 whales marked in the previous season only 5 were caught in that season. This was in 1979/80. A bit too old? But there is no reason to believe that the tendency has changed.
Should the whaling be stopped at any cost? Let us agree to disagree for the moment. May I, however, ask the extremist group who have dared to attack whaling ships if they are equally against the killing of man by man in the name of a war?

Tragedies in Norway and China

Two tragedies have shaken the world last week.
In one of them, on 22 July, a man detonated a bomb at a building in the centre of Oslo city, and then shot a number of young and unarmed men and women in the near-by island. He is currently under arrest.
When the first report of the incident came, the media reported that the Islamic connection might be suspected, as Norway is a NATO member and as such has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, and also participated in the bombing of Libya. It seems nothing is further from the truth.
The arrested man, who is a white and is said to belong to an extremist right wing, has said that he has been reading Nazi literature, and is against the immigration policy of the country which is, to him, tolerant of the Muslims. He wanted to start a revolution by his terrorist action.
The media should have known, and we should have known, that Oslo is a city which is known for the Oslo Agreement of 1993 reached by the PLO and the Israeli Government. It was a time when the Middle East peace seemed to be nearer than at any other time till now. It came to a stalemate with the assassination of the Israeli Prime Minister Rabin in 1995. He was shot by a law student at Tel Aviv, an Israeli himself.
Then there was a clash of high-speed trains in China on 23 July. They were the pride of the country. The high-speed trains' network began to be laid down in 2007, in the year before the Beijing Olympics, just as the first Japanese Shinkansen(new trunk line) was first put to use in 1964, the same year as the Tokyo Olympics. But China's network has been widening at an amazing speed. It is now approaching 10,000 kms and is planned to reach twice that length in the near future.
I have often thought of travelling in this high-speed train in China as a tourist. So I am interested to know, for example, if the train is not able to run under a torrential rain with thunders, if there is no mechanical equippment to prevent a second train from nearing in the same tracks, and so on. Above all, how is one going to make out when it is reported, with photographs, that the four carriages of the second train which have clashed into the standing one from its rear on a bridge have been cut into pieces and buried in the ground, including the 'cockpit' itself. Have they searched for the survivors? Are they in a better position to examine the cause of the tragedy this way?
Looking at the network of thses high-speed trains, I also wonder if they are mostly for the purpose of linking more closely the areas already developed, rather than linking the underdeveloped interior ones to them. If so, though I may be wrong, the network will widen the gap which is already existing.

Japan Women's Soccer Team Wins the World Title

The whole of Japan nearly exploded when Japan Women's national soccer team won the 2011 World Cup final by beating the US team 2-2, PK 3-1. It was in the small hours of 18 July, Japan time, at Frankfurt, Germany. The US team was ranked at the top of the world against Japan's 4th. They were so powerful that, in the past 24 matches between the two, Japan drew three times and lost all the other 21 games. This time also as the score would show it was a close fight. One of the factors mentioned is that the average age of the players was three years younger on the Japanese side. Anyway Japan exploded because this was, with all my respect to the 21 Japanese women players, a miracle, something unprecedented, something too fantastic to believe.
It was too good to believe as, the readers may guess, Japan is currently not in a good shape, and that is so nearly all around. Therefore the New China News Agency is quite right when it reportedly commented on the victory that it will give a nation suffering from earthquake, tsunami and radioactive fallout an unparallelled confidence. The News Agency deserves to be congratulated for such a generous comment.
The national team must have come a hard way in finally capturing the world cup trophy. Not only in women's soccer, but in other women's sports, and also in almost all the major areas of public activities, the Japanese women are handicapped, still now. So much so that in the past year or two we have been startled by the resounding come-back of a forty-year old woman tennis player K. Date Kimiko in most of the major tennis tournaments of the world.
May not be only in Japan. If we see the eight national teams which fought their way into the tournament for the women's soccer championship this time, we notice that with the exception of Japan and Brazil all the others are from the countries with predominantly white population, with many of the usual names of soccer countries lacking. Judging from the newspaper photographs, moreover, few, if any, of the US players are African Americans. It will speak a lot for the existing disabilities along the racial and ethnic lines.
A reader sent a joke to the editor. In Japanese "shushou" means a captain. The captain of the soccer team, Ms Sawa Homare, a great player and a leader, has been selected the MVP this time. But "shushou" also means a Prime Minister. The joke said, under a different shushou the circumstances would change so much.
That apart, let us share the words with which the players went around the stadium after everything was over. "To Our Friends Around the World--Thank You for Your Support."

An Okinawan Writer Speaks His Mind

A few days ago, 85-year old Mr.Ooshiro Tatsuhiro, a prominent writer from Okinawa itself, has given a long interview to the Asahi newspaper, frankly discussing the US bases there and related subjects. Here I will summarize his main points.
Ooshiro says that as long as there are US bases in Okinawa the war(the Pacific War)is not over for him and also to Okinawa as a whole. Why? He bitterly recalls the history in which the Meiji government forcefully broke up the local dynasty to integrate Okinawa into the late-19th century Japan, thus to complete the Restoration. Okinawans began to be discriminated within Japan itself. During the war years, in the newly fortified Okinawa islands the inhabitants fought fiercely in order to get recognition as the Japanese citizens. After the war the exposure to the violence by the US military personnel.
As of 1951 more than 70% of the Okinawans wanted the islands to be returned to Japan. But contrary to their wishes the then PM Yoshida Shigeru chose to keep the islands in the US hands in return for gaining independence for the rest of Japan. He intensely hates Yoshida because of this. Probably he did not consider Okinawans as Japanese.
When Okinawa was returned to Japan(in 1972, with all the US bases in tact), he supported the move because the basic human rights which were in the habit of being violated would be respected by the application of the Japanese Constitution to Okinawa. But his expectation was betrayed. The US extra-territoriality is still rigidly in place.
The core of the US bases question is the strong Okinawan identity to get back the land lost to the bases. He has recently written a short story focused on the Hutemma base question with the determination that they will recover the identity that they are living there. At the end of the story a dancer dances the Ryukyu dance which he calls the soul of Okinawa. The music becomes inaudible because of the helicopter flying overhead. When the war machine is gone, however, the music comes back, and the dance and the music come to the end right at the same moment.
During the four decades after the return of Okinawa, the policy of the Japanese government has always been that of the stick and carrot. The government has no intention whatsoever to persuade the US to mitigate the situation and to move the bases out of the islands. The Wikileaks have shown that our diplomats have got only the maintenance of the US-Japan alliance in mind. Why so afraid of the US? It is as if Japan is their protectorate. As the consequence the structure of political discrimination for the keeping of the alliance at the expense of Okinawa has been established.
Very uniquely Ooshiro has pointed out the similarities of Okinawa and the nuclear-threatened Fukushima, two of the 47 Prefectures into which Japan has administratively divided. The nuclear plants have been concentrated in less densely populated places with all the dangers involved, and the energy generated there has been put to the use in big cities, the same as the way the bases have been concentrated in Okinawa. The way many had to leave their native places in Fukushima is again the same as in Okinawa where many have been deprived of their land by the bases.

Why the US Forces Should Withdraw from Japan?

So the US forces will be departing from Iraq and Afghanistan. It is because they have found that there are no enemies to fight any more in these countries(there were none in Iraq from the start). Hopefully it will create an atmosphere conducive to the cut in the size of the US forces in and around Japan also? They must have understood by now that there are so many US bases in Japan, and the people are suffering from the training exercises, breaking of the rules, accident, crime and so on? The common people of the US may not be aware of them, as yet, but surely the military must know them, and must be of the view that it's time that at least some of their forces should be withdrawn from Japan also, at least from Okinawa, with so much concentration of bases, unconditionally? That would surely be of great help in bringing about more peaceful atmosphere around Japan and the whole of Western Pacific? After all have not the US forces stationed in Japan much too long?
On 21 June, two days before Obama's withdrawal speech, and also two days before the bloody fighting in Okinawa finally came to an end sixty-six years ago, hence 23 June being a very memorable day particularly in Okinawa, the Foreign and Defense Ministers of Japan and the US met in Washington. This so-called two plus two is an institutionalized meeting between the two countries. They met for the first time in four years. They agreed that, contrary to the above expectation, the presence of the US forces in Japan has increased in importance in order to keep the deterrent capability based on the military alliance. There is not only nothing new here, but it is putting a cart before the horse.
The US forces have been using Japan and particularly Okinawa as a stepping-stone to be deployed further in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why is it that, when they are being withdrawn from those places, the two must talk about the increased importance of their presence? Deterrence is an age-old Cold War theory identifying an enemy and justifying more armament. Is it possible to find a new enemy for the war-weary world? A Colonel in Libya? And neither of the two are economically strong enough to talk of deterrence. The US should mind the next Presidential election which is almost round the corner, and Japan, needless to say, the recent disaster.
Even more startling is the agreement, which must have been reached with the full knowledge that the Okinawan people are almost unanimous in opposing it, that the Hutenma airbase should be moved to another place where a couple of runways, each 1,800 metre long, should be built in a V-shape by reclaiming from the sea rich in coral reef. It is 15 years that the decision was taken to move Hutenma elsewhere, an airbase most dangerous in the eye of the local inhabitants, but it is absolutely impossible to find an alternative. Together with the announcement that the notorious MV22 "Osprey" transport plane-cum-helicopters will come to Hutenma later in 2012, the withdrawal from Afghanistan is, for want of a strong will for peace, not going to make a positive impact on the atmosphere in East Asia.

US Withdrawal Will Begin Soon, But Is Everything OK?

This writer was at Mashhad, Northeastern Iran, waiting for a bus taking us to the Afghan border. It was way back in August 1979. We, myself and two boys in their early teens, my son and his good friend, had started from Athens, travelled through Greece, Turkey and Iran, and were hoping to go through Afghanistan and Pakistan, and finally to reach India. We were, however, persuaded by the Iranians at the bus terminal not to proceed to Afghanistan as it would be a perilous journey and was becoming more so day by day. We followed their advice, no other alternative, took another bus for Zahedan, Southeastern Iran, thus bypassing Afghanistan, and came into Pakistan Baloochistan via its southwestern check-post. This was shortly before the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan at the end of that year.
Then it was at Calcutta(Kolkata), India, shortly after the Soviet invasion. One evening I switched on the Radio to find myself listening to the voice of a well-known Indian historian discussing the Soviet move. He was normally considered to be a leftist as to the method of his research, and maybe that is why he talked about how the British attempt to conquer Afghanistan in the previous century ended in failure, instead of outrightly criticizing the invasion. But the message to the Soviets was clear. Looking back it was even prophetic, and the Red Army withdrew in 1989. The US should have learned the lesson of history when it went to war in 2001. The Twin Tower tragedy was one thing, how to deal with it was another. The US also should have carefully studied why she had so much alienated the Muslim world. This was a political question not capable of being solved militarily.
And now it is the turn of President Obama to preside over another withdrawal from Afghanistan. He announced on 23 June that 'We have turned the corner', the withdrawal would begin in July, the next month, and by the end of September 2012 33,000 forces would withdraw.
It is said that the decision came after a month-long strategy review. One would be reminded of the previous 2009 review at the White House which took a much longer time and which I have described in these columns on 23 May. On this occasion also, as on the previous one, the military were not satisfied with the President's decision, saying that the size was more than expected and it would involve 'more risk'. They usually want to use both manpower and firepower in their possession.
In terms of the previous decision, and particularly after the removal of the Al-Qaeda leader, the withdrawal is welcome. Particularly so for the American people whom Obama promised to divert the military expenditure, or a part of it, for the 'nation-building' in the US.
But for us the Japanese the withdrawal will solve nothing. We will see it the next time.

A Classic War-time Cinema of Japan

A movie, still black and white, called "Rikugun", The Army, was made in Japan toward the end of 1944, when the decisive tide of the war had already been turned against Japan in the Second World War. This writer had a chance to see it on 15 June. The story was based on a provincial city of Kokura, now a part of Kita-kyushuu, on Kyushuu Island.
It had been made at the request of the Ministry of the Army(there was also the Ministry of the Navy, but the Air Force had been divided between the two services), to commemorate the third anniversary of the opening of the "Great East Asian War" against the US and Britain. One would naturally have expected to see a film full of chauvinism, or hatred of the enemy nations.
But that expectation could not be met. True, one-sided story was told throughout of Japan's overseas expansion without which the movie could not have survived censorship, but it was told in a moderate way by the young Director Kinoshita Keisuke. The proprietor of a prosperous pawnshop at Kokura got very excited, and got a heart attack, to hear that after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5 Japan had to return some of the spoils to China at the instance of three European countries. He told his son to be a good soldier to best serve the Emperor and the country. The son succeeded in entering the Military Academy, was appointed an army officer, but could not participate in actual fighting because of illness. This may have been a tactical device to avoid scenes of battles in the movie. He together with his wife abandoned the old pawnshop, opened a vegetable shop and began to bring up their son in such a way that he would be a good soldier.
Unable to go to the Military Academy because of the changed economic status of the family, the son joined the army under the obligatory military duty. But the father insisted that the son should strongly volunteer to be sent to whichever place where a battle was going on.
Finally that day has come. The son was not alone, but was among hundreds marching to the station in uniform and with a gun on the right shoulder. The mother, Tanaka Kinuyo by name, one of the unforgettable actresses in the cinema history of Japan, arrived rather late on the scene where thousands of citizens got assembled on both sides of the main street to see off the soldiers, soon found the son, and the son also saw the mother. The son had to move on in columns. But the mother, though a frail woman, taking notice of nothing except the marching son, kept walking, almost running, not always in tears but also smiling, because she must have been happy with the son like this, quite unexpectedly, both of them almost in full view of each other. The son's safety must have been her only concern at the time.
It is as if the son's orderly marching and the mother's hustling and jostling and colliding with others continued endlessly. So impressive, so moving. But actually it continued for a matter of just several minutes, and right there ended the 87-minute film itself.
Kinoshita lived a long and active life after the war, but he made no other film on war. He made this one probably with a determination that he would not make it a war-praising one.

A Special Number on "Pakistan:The Osama Nightmare"

When Osama bin-Laden was killed, this writer immediately scribbled down his impressions in these columns(3 May 2011). Later the Outlook, a weekly magazine from India, published a special number on his death dated 16 May. Most of the articles there are, surprisingly, from Pakistan. Let us look at some of them which are of greater interest.
A Pakistan intellectual says that 'We must repudiate the current policy of verbally condemning jehadism-and actually fighting it in some places-but secretly supporting it in other places...Pakistan will remain in interminable conflict both with itself and the world'(p.41). This is a common sense understanding in tune with what is felt all around.
Rather contrary to the commonly held idea, Pakistan gave the information of that house to the US, and even discussed among themselves the possible consequences of an US action. Skipping why the Pakistanis did not act themselves, this was because 'say sources, Islamabad wanted Obama to be provided sufficient reason and justification to pull back American forces from Afghanistan'(p.48). So Pakistan is planning to set up a second Taliban government under its supervision there?
But the whole wide Arab world was not impressed by the death. '...the people seemed more keen on their campaign for democracy...'(p.54). Moreover, to our great and pleasant surprise, 'Imams have been turning the youth to the precepts of Islam that preach non-violence, objecting to the idea of terrorism. The politics on the ground in much of the Muslim world is moving towards opposition, not just of regimes but opposition to terrorism too...this is becoming an era of non-violent protest...The youth in Egypt did in 18 days what Al Qaeda couldn't do in 18 years'(p.57). One would hope that 'the Muslim world' would come to embrace Pakistan as well.
And we are told that even in Afghanistan 'Many of them(Taliban commanders) are not convinced of the wisdom of carrying on an armed struggle in Afghanistan and would like to see a political solution'(p.57). Wonderful. So the problem seems to go back to the above-quoted two-faced policy of Pakistan. But actually it goes beyond that to India-Pakistan, and further, India-Pakistan-China relations.