BOOK REVIEWThe Elephant and The Samurai:
Why Japan Can Trust India?
by Dr. Rupakjyoti Borah(Kaveri Books, Delhi, 2017. 160 pp. Rs 450)

Author Aftab SethBy Aftab SethOverview of India-Japan Relations
This slim volume provides a comprehensive overview of thedevelopments in India’s relations with Japan from early times almost
1,500 years ago to the present time. The author traces ourrelationship to Bodhisena, the Indian monk who arrived in Japan in
752 AD for the eye-opening ceremony of the Diabutsu in Todaiji inNara. In modern times a Japanese consulate was established in
Bombay in 1893 and the NYK line began a service from Kobe toBombay. There was great interaction between scholars like Okakura
Tenshin and Rabindranath Tagore, and later between Rash Behari
Bose and Netaji Subhas Bose and the Japanese politicians of thosetimes. Swami Vivekananda who visited Japan in 1893 wrote: “Theworld has never seen such a patriotic and artistic race as theJapanese, and one special feature about them is this, that while inEurope and elsewhere Art goes with dirt, Japanese Art is Art plus
absolute cleanliness.”
Indian merchants mainly from the province of Sindh in India
settled in Yokohama and enjoyed good business. To promote
Japanese business interests in British India and British interests inJapan, the Japan-India Association was set up in 1903. It will berecalled that the Anglo-Japanese treaty was signed in 1902; this wasa real recognition by the world’s largest empire that Japan had, as it
were, “come of age” and was a country that could be admitted to thewhite man’s table. The defeat of Russia by Japan in 1905 led to theinflux of Indian nationalists into Japan, including men like RashBehari Bose. He married a lady from the Nakamura family and set up
the first Indian restaurant, called appropriately Nakamura-ya.
Subhash Chandra Bose came to Japan in 1943 during World War
II and gained the help of Japan to set up the Indian National Army,comprising Indian prisoners of war taken into custody by Japan,
when its armies conquered British territories in South East Asia.
After the war, the Indian judge Justice Radhabinod Pal at the Tokyo
War Crimes Tribunal was the only one to deliver a dissenting opinion
declaring that Japanese wartime leaders were “not guilty”. Theauthor mentions the museum attached to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine
where portraits of these three men — Rash Behari Bose, Subhas
Chandra Bose and Radhabinod Pal — adorn the walls. These men
48 Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 2017

are regarded as true friends of Japan.
India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru refused to sign theTreaty of San Francisco as it did not uphold the dignity of Japan.
Instead India signed a separate peace treaty with Japan at the end of
the American occupation and waived all rights to receive war
reparations from Japan. This act and the gift of a baby elephant toUeno Zoo were symbols of India’s feelings of friendship for Japanand influenced an entire generation of Japanese. But India’s policy of
non-alignment and Japan’s security treaty with the United States kept
the two countries apart during the Cold War years. India’s nuclear
test in 1974 was another reason for Japan’s aloofness towards India.
Yet bilateral ties took a dramatic turn for the better at the turn of the20th century and the early years of the 21st century.

India’s Relations with Other Nations Interwoven
with Japan’s
The special feature of this book is that the author interweaves
India’s relations with the US and ASEAN, as also Japan’s relations
with these countries, into the narrative on bilateral relations. This
provides an important perspective since the dramatic improvementin India’s relations with the US and with Japan have often followed asimilar course. For example, the March 2000 visit to India ofPresident Bill Clinton broke the ice which had set in after the May
1998 nuclear tests. Likewise Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori’s historic
visit to India in August 2000 five months after Clinton led to abreakthrough in India’s relations with Japan. This was the beginningof the “Global Partnership” and the start of military and defense
connections between the two countries.
In July 2005 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reached an
important agreement with President George W. Bush which led toenhanced military and strategic cooperation with the US, including
the question of civil nuclear energy. Before the end of his term aspresident, in fact on Oct. 2, 2008, Bush oversaw the passage of theenabling legislation for nuclear cooperation through Congress. Singhvisited Japan about a year after the US agreement and he and Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, in December 2006, elevated the GlobalPartnership to a “Strategic Partnership”. This saw the start of joint

naval exercises between India and Japan which were later joined by
the US and ultimately by Singapore and Australia. Hesitations over
the reactions of China to this enhanced military and naval
cooperation led to a lull for a couple of years, but with the return ofAbe to power in December 2012 the naval cooperation resumed andthe Malabar exercises between the US, Japan and India have now
become an annual feature.
It is significant that since India’s independence in 1947, the USSR
had been the biggest supplier of weapons to India. But over the last
10 or more years the US has become the biggest defense partner ofIndia. From 2005 to 2015 India imported over $10 billion worth ofdefense equipment from the US. Among the weapons imported are
C-130 Super Hercules aircraft, P-81 long-range maritime patrolaircraft, C-17 Globemaster III giant strategic airlift aircraft, and othermilitary hardware. Japan, Singapore and Australia also import similarequipment from the US. This increases the interoperability of Indianarmed forces with these countries, which all have close military links
with the US. For India and Japan this similarity of equipment makes
it easier for our defense forces to work together at joint exercises
and at Peace Keeping Operations. The presence of Abe as chief guest
at the Republic Day military parade in January 2014 was the firsttime a Japanese leader had been witness to India’s strengths in thefield. Abe’s visit had been preceded by that of the emperor andempress of Japan from Nov. 30 to Dec. 5, 2013. The symbolic
significance of the imperial visit was not lost on observers of thedeveloping relationship between India and Japan. In 2014 September
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Abe be further elevated theStrategic Partnership to a “Special” Strategic Partnership.
Negotiations on a civil nuclear deal with Japan which had begun in2012 finally ended with an agreement in November 2016 when Modi
went to Japan for the annual meeting of the two prime ministers.

Why Have India & Japan Become
Closer Post-Cold War?
The author outlines the reasons why Japan and India have become
closer in the post-Cold War period. First among these is the strategic
convergence in the geopolitical environment of the present time.
India has expressed interest in a range of Japanese defense
products. Also India’s “Act East” policy converges with Japan’sinterest in connecting India via the land bridge of the northeasternstates of India with Myanmar and Southeast Asia.
Secondly, there have been difficulties with China trade such as theabrupt suspension of exports of rare earths to Japan in 2012,
impacting the electronics industry in Japan. This led Japan to seek
alternative sources such as India. Japan is consequently heavily
involved in building India’s infrastructure. Japan’s shrinking
population and India’s rising demographic graph makes collaboration
natural.
Thirdly, countries such as Australia, with which Japan has close
strategic and economic ties, have improved relations with India.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot was Modi’s first foreign guest
in 2014. With the largest uranium deposits in the world, Australia isa key country for civilian nuclear energy programs in both India andJapan.
Fourthly, both Japan and India have territorial issues with China.
The assertiveness of China, including sending ships and planes into
the territorial waters of Japan and troops across the land borders
with India, prompts Japan and India to seek balancing ties with othercountries similarly affected by Chinese aggression, such as Vietnam.
China’s attempts to use Pakistan to counterbalance India have led todifficult situations for India. The economic corridor linking Kashgarin China with the Arabian Sea at Gwadar, a port which has been built
by China on the Pakistani coast, has significance for both India andJapan as it directly affects the security interests of both countries.
Fifthly, the personal equations between leaders have helped. Abehad a close relationship with Singh, who was given Japan’s highest
decoration for his contribution to the growth of our ties. Abe has also
continued to enjoy a close relationship with Modi.
Sixthly, there is bipartisan support in India and Japan for increased
friendship. Mori of the LDP and the BJP leader and former prime
minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee established new equations between
India and Japan at the beginning of this century. Singh and Modi
have continued on the same path, while likewise the prime ministersof the now opposition Democratic Party of Japan — Yukio
Hatoyama, Naoto Kan and Yoshihiko Noda — did not make any
significant changes in the degree of closeness with India. All three
DPJ premiers essentially followed the policies of their LDP
predecessors Mori, Junichiro Koizumi, Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and TaroAso.
Japan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201749

Seventh is the fact that both countries collaborate closely inmultilateral forums such as the G20, East Asia Summit and otherfora. And eighth, at present only 2% of India’s energy is generated bynuclear power. India is woefully short of power and this has a directimpact on levels of growth. Hydroelectric dams are environmentallyhazardous, as they displace millions of people and cause changes inlevels of seismic activity. This is one of the reasons for the emphasisthat India and Japan have put on expanding cooperation in the fieldof nuclear energy.
The author does not shy away from referring to divergences in ourapproaches. One of the differences mentioned is the degree to which
Japan and India wish to be close to the US. While Japan has asecurity treaty with the US, India has been wary of being excessivelyclose. India has apprehensions based on past history of losing“strategic autonomy” and believes that the interests of bothcountries are better served by “being friends rather than allies”. Thisexplains India’s reluctance to join the US-led “Proliferation Security
Initiative” and the reluctance with which India agreed to US demands
to cut oil imports from Iran during the years when strict economic
sanctions had been imposed on Iran by the US and other Westerncountries.
Another divergence of opinion is within India, with one groupbelieving firmly in strengthening ties with Japan in order to balance
the preponderance of China, while another set of opinion leadersbelieve that excessive closeness to Japan may antagonize China,
with which India has important economic links. Another problem
perceived by Japanese business is the red tape in India which slows
down the decision-making process. In September 2014 the twosides agreed to set up a special group to speed up the clearance ofJapanese projects in India.
The author outlines all these developments in lucid prose which iseasy to understand. On the economic front he mentions that since2003 India has been the largest recipient of Japanese ODA. Also,
over the last 15 years, over $20 billion in Japanese FDI has been
invested in India. Abe pledged in September 2014 to makeinvestments in India’s infrastructure of the order of $35 billion overthe five-year period beginning in 2014. The flagship projects
undertaken by Japan are the Shinkansen line between Bombay andAhmedabad, the Madras and Bangalore metro systems and theBangalore-Madras industrial corridors. The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial
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Corridor first mooted in April 2005, during Koizumi’s visit, was finally
signed by Abe and Singh in August 2007 in Delhi. A huge territory aslarge as Honshu has been reserved for Japanese investment.
As mentioned earlier, the author highlights the common interests
of India and Japan in developing closer relations with ASEAN in
general, and with Myanmar and Vietnam in particular. Both Abe andModi have visited ASEAN countries, and India and Japan have agreed
to develop together the northeastern states of India in order toimprove connectivity with Myanmar and onwards through Thailand
to Vietnam. The fact the Chinese had also offered to develop theseareas but that India preferred Japan is symbolic of the high level oftrust that exists between our two countries. Similarly thedevelopment of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with Japanesehelp has great strategic significance, since the southernmost
Andaman island is a mere 90 kilometres from Aceh in Sumatra; theimportance of these islands therefore, for both India and Japan, forprotection of shipping in the Malacca Straits, is obvious. Similarly
Japan and India have agreed to jointly develop Chabahar port in Iran,to provide an alternate access to the sea for land-locked Afghanistan,which is otherwise dependent on Pakistan for access to the sea.
The Strait of Hormuz, not far from the port of Chabahar, is vital forthe oil imports from the Middle East of Japan and India. Further,because of the Chinese presence at the port of Gwadar, on the coastof Pakistan, which is near the strait, Japanese and Indian
cooperation in the development of Chabahar is of great significancefor the defense of both countries.

Concrete Suggestions for Future India-Japan
Relations
The author also provides a set of concrete suggestions in the lastchapter of the book for the relationship between India and Japan to
be raised to further heights in the strategic and economic spheresand indeed in the area of people-to-people contacts. Among thesuggestions is for both countries to pursue the US-2 amphibious
aircraft negotiations. India should also try to acquire the Soryu classsubmarines from Japan; it will be recalled that Australia had
expressed an interest in buying these submarines from Japan but
subsequently changed its plans. The Soryu is the largest non-nuclear submarine with the capacity to go to greater depths thanother submarines of that class. It is essential for the Indian Navy toacquire these excellent vessels.
The fact that the first country Modi chose to visit outside theimmediate neighborhood of India was Japan is an indication of thepriority that India attaches to its relations with Japan. The clear
majorities that both prime ministers enjoy in their respective
legislatures enable both governments to pursue energetically thestrengthening of relations. In the November 2016 joint statement
issued during Modi’s visit to Japan, the threat faced by Japan fromthe North Korean missile and nuclear programs was clearlymentioned. Similarly, the problems faced by India on account of thesupport given by Pakistan to terrorist activities directed against India
was also mentioned in the joint statement. This is an indication of theincreasing levels of trust between both countries since they do not
shy away from highlighting their respective security problems which
lie at the core of their strategic concerns.
The author recommends a vigorous pursuit by both countries of a
nuclear agreement. In India there is awareness of the strong antinuclear sentiment in Japan and the courage with which Abe has
pushed this deal through the Diet. India’s critical shortage of energy
makes it incumbent on the government to pursue all possible
alternative sources of energy. The author also envisages an increasein trade which fell from $18 billion in 2012 to $14 billion in 2014.
The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed byboth countries in February 2011 should be expanded to include awider range of goods and services. A target of $30 billion in bilateral
trade by 2030 should be set up.
Japan should also encourage the long-term stay of caregivers
from India, in view of Japan’s aging population. Indian nurses have
proven their worth in many parts of the world and would doubtless
be of great value to the elderly Japanese, of whom there is now anincreasing number. The Indian diaspora in Japan should be used toincrease awareness about India. The strong roles played by Indiansin the US, the United Kingdom and in other European countries in theprocess of strengthening bilateral relations between India and thosecountries needs to be emulated by the Indians living in Japan. Visason arrival for Japanese in India is a step in the right direction, andthe author recommends a similar easing of visa restrictions onIndians visiting Japan.
Africa is another area where the two countries could collaborate.

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD)
has been functioning since the time of Koizumi in 2001. Japan has abase in Djibouti to help contain piracy and has sent peacekeepers toSouth Sudan. India has been involved in Africa for many years andtook a leading role in the independence movements of many Africancountries. In the joint statement issued at the end of the summit
meeting between Modi and Abe in November 2016, Africa wasmentioned as an area where the two countries could collaborate.
China has already made huge investments in Africa in order to gain
access to the natural resources of that continent. It is essential for
Japan and India to move together to counterbalance the Chinesepresence in Africa. There is also a recommendation that India andJapan sign a “specific maritime cooperation treaty” and work withcountries like Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia and the US to form an“Indo-Pacific Maritime Concert”.
The author makes a valuable point that Bollywood, as Bombay’s
film center is called, should make more films in Japan, as that would
attract more Indians to go for tourism to Japan. He cites the case ofan Indian film shot in Spain which led to a dramatic rise in Indian
tourist visitors to Spain. In this context, the proposed shooting inJapan of a new film titled “Love in Tokyo” by a well-known Indian
director Imtiaz Ali is a step in the right direction.
The author is fully qualified to write a book of this type since hehas had several important teaching and research assignments invarious countries. Apart from working at universities in India, he hasdone work at Cambridge in the UK, at the Japan Institute ofInternational Affairs in Tokyo, at the Australian National University inCanberra, and at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies in Tokyo. At
present he is working at the Institute of South Asian Studies at theNational University of Singapore.

Aftab Seth is Indian ambassador to Japan, and has served in nine othercountries around the world. Educated at St. Stephen’s College and as a Rhodes
Scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, he has also been both a student and professorat Keio University, and is a leader of several educational and culturalorganizations in Japan. In recognition of his outstanding contributions tobilateral relations for more than half a century, he received Japan’s highest
decoration, The Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, from the emperor
in November 2015.

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