Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

3 ways India-Japan relations can go beyond familiar adjectives of ‘natural’ and ‘special’

The changing landscape has produced an uncomfortable realisation for Japan and India that their natural partnership has remained underutilised.

What more could be done for India-Japan relations?’ I asked Professor Tomohiko Taniguchi during the Delphi Economic Forum in Greece earlier this year. Known affectionately as Taniguchi Sensei, he is among Japan’s foremost strategic scholars who wrote former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s landmark address to the Indian Parliament in August 2007—The Confluence of the Two Seas—that would later become the intellectual foundation of what subsequently evolved into the Indo-Pacific.

Looking through his thick-rimmed glasses, Taniguchi replied after a pause: “There is a lot to be done, and it must start with Takaichi San’s visit to Delhi.”

I asked whether such a visit was already in the offing and he smiled in quiet acquiescence.

Three months later, PM Sanae Takaichi—late Shinzo Abe’s protégé—has concluded her first state visit to India. Much has already been written about it and the natural partnership between Japan and India.

Japan has, after all, entered a new phase. Takaichi became the country’s first woman prime minister in a deeply patriarchal political system and, more remarkably, has begun to bring a degree of stability to a country that has cycled through a revolving door of prime ministers for much of the past few years. Stability itself is a political achievement in contemporary Japan; the fact that it is embodied by a woman makes the moment all the more historic.

And yet, when one thinks of India-Japan relations today, an unmistakable sense of complacency lingers. The relationship is described as “natural”, “special”, “trusted” and “indispensable”. Every summit reiterates these familiar adjectives and every joint statement checks the expected boxes. The goodwill is genuine and the political comfort undeniable, but the relationship will plateau unless the timing and development of its critical drivers are kept at the centre. There are three such drivers, to which this column will shortly return.

Also read: Rashtrapati Bhavan rolls out red carpet for Japan’s Takaichi—glimpses from ceremonial reception

My own memories of Japan remain inseparable from the Abe years.

The land of soft cherry blossoms fluffing spring skies remains my favourite image. Cycling through a picturesque university campus, I remember attending seminars where Abe’s evolving strategic vision was discussed with enthusiasm. Those were the years when ‘The Confluence of the Two Seas’ was evolving into a framework for understanding a changing Asia.

As an Indian graduate student working on the Indo-Pacific between 2010-2015, I felt the optimism surrounding India. Being Indian was invariably greeted with a cheerful sugoi (“nice”). Working on India-Japan relations was considered subbarashii—an excellent academic pursuit.

In hindsight, though, much of that rested less on contemporary realities than on imagined and romanticised notions of the other—rooted in centuries of civilisational goodwill, shared democratic values outside the West and comforting histories. There was surprisingly little to study beyond cultural exchanges, India’s status as Japan’s largest recipient of Official Development Assistance, JICA-led infrastructure projects, and the remarkable success stories of Maruti Suzuki, followed by Toyota and Honda.

The potential remained largely untapped as the world around us started to change. The assumptions that had guided Japanese foreign policy for decades gradually eroded. Simultaneously, Trumperica made........

© ThePrint