Writing on the wall - Ashok V. Desai
The prime minister had a good time in Japan. Kyoto is one of its most beautiful cities. I recall sitting around in its gardens and wooden temples, such havens of peace and quiet charm; it was difficult to tear oneself away from them. The city itself is small and friendly; an itinerant tourist like me can walk everywhere. Narendra Modi perhaps saw more in it than I did: he may have been more interested in its Buddhist heritage, and may have connected it with its Indian roots.
Modi and Shinzo Abe are old friends. As prime ministers, they would have to make small, innocuous talk; and nothing can be more innocuous than talking about culture and roots. Modi even learnt to eat in the Japanese fashion. The English eat soup; the Japanese drink it. They pick up the bowl, raise it to their lips and empty it. It is not too difficult; one only has to be careful that the soup does not dribble down one’s beard. But Modi mastered an even more difficult art: that of eating with chopsticks. Many Indians faint at the thought of it; most ask their Japanese hosts for knife and fork. It is not too difficult. It involves holding one chopstick like a pen — a task that all literate Indians have had to master. The art lies in holding the other chopstick in the two little fingers in such a way that it acts as an anvil for the premier chopstick. Things get really slippery when one has to pick up noodles: they are apt to slip off, and even if they do not, it is hard work to direct the slippery snails into one’s little mouth. Perhaps the most difficult eating experience I have had has been eating jumping prawns with chopsticks. They are live prawns made drunk by pouring liquor on them; then one has to pick them up with chopsticks and bite off the body. But enough of this lesson in eating Japanese-style; no one can learn it out of a Telegraph article.
Cuisine was not all that the tête-à-tête between Abe and Modi was about; they also talked business. Modi went through some difficult times when he was under attack in the West for his lack of sympathy towards Muslim victims of the Gujarat riots. The leaders of China and Japan were silent then; so it is not surprising that Modi first went East. He could have combined a visit to China with the one to Japan; it would have saved travel time, and avoided appearance of favouring one against the other. He reached out to Xi Jinping in Fortaleza at the time of the BRICS meeting, and suggested an amicable settlement of the border dispute. Xi Jinping then engineered an invitation for Modi to the next meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group next November. Thus, Modi has looked for a rapprochement with China and got a positive response; a stopover in China would have been a good opportunity to follow it up. But Japan and China have some tension over Senkaku islands; so maybe Modi decided not to mix them up. The decision could be taken to imply a certain tilt towards Japan; it may be deliberate, for his criticism of 18th-century ways of thinking seemed to be directed at China.
Anyway, it implied giving priority to Japan — which could be based on the likelihood of Japanese aid, investment and collaboration. Japan has promised a lot — 3.5 trillion yen for infrastructure projects including the cleaning of Ganga and smart cities (whatever that might mean). It has also shown some willingness to soften its disapproval of India’s nuclear ways, and to help it with military aircraft.
This was in continuation of Abe’s promises made during his visit to India last January. At that time, Manmohan Singh’s government supported Japan in its opposition to the Air Defence Identification Zone declared by China; both the prime ministers had agreed to extend the scope of India-Japan Global and Strategic Partnership, and had decided on military cooperation. In these respects, there is continuity between the UPA and NDA governments in their policies vis-à-vis Japan.
This is not surprising, for Japan’s sympathies towards India go back to early 1990s at least. When India had a prolonged balance of payments crisis between 1989 and 1991, Japan had given it consistent support; it had also helped India get successive loans from Asian Development Bank. When Manmohan Singh became finance minister in 1991, he was so appreciative of what Japan had done for India that before going anywhere else, he went to Japan to thank its government. I went with him; we held a number of meetings with the Japanese finance minister, other government functionaries and businessmen to convey our appreciation. There is a fund of Japanese sympathy that Modi is building upon.
This continuity in foreign policy is desirable. It is also important that policy should build upon history and on facts on the ground. There is much talk that Japanese investors will be encouraged to invest in Gujarat. They find Gujarat attractive, and are going there anyway. But there is a good deal of Japanese investment in India already. It is largely concentrated in two regions — along the Delhi-Jaipur road, and in Tamil Nadu. Brownfield investment is always quicker and often more efficient than greenfield investment. Japanese companies will continue to invest in these areas, and should be encouraged to do so.
It is reported that Shinzo Abe will go to Gujarat on his next trip. He certainly should if he wants to. But it would be far more valuable if he visited Japanese companies in the south and in Rajasthan before he gets to Delhi. There, they will talk to him in Japanese, they will open up to him in a way they never will to any Indian, and they will disclose all their problems and complaints to him. If he visits them first, he can carry what they tell him to Narendra Modi; that way, Modi will get a far better idea of what needs to be done to make Japanese business more comfortable. It is well known that Japanese companies find Indian bureaucracy insufferable, and Indian passion for rules and regulations incomprehensible. If Abe goes and meets them, he will bring back concrete suggestions about how Modi can make our government more business friendly.
After that, it is all right if Modi takes Abe to the Ganga. But it would not be a good idea to take him to Benares; holy as it may be, it is not a pleasant place to visit. If Modi wants to show the Ganga to Abe, he should take him upstream to Hardwar; it is difficult to imagine how beautiful the fresh little Ganga, descending from the Himalayas, is there. And for prime ministers, the best way to appreciate it would be from the Glasshouse on the Ganges. Abe is much used to scenic beauty, coming as he does from Japan. But he will remember the frolicking blue Ganga flowing through white pebbles. And Modi will see that it is not enough to worship Ganga; it can also be beautified.
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