Prepared for the IIPS Symposium onJapan’s Role in the Forthcoming World Order
Tuesday, 1 November 2005
Tokyo

Session 2

Strengthening Cooperation in Asia: Japan and India

Brij Tankha
Professor of Modern Japanese History
Department of East Asian Studies
University of Delhi

Strengthening Cooperation in Asia: Japan and India
Dr. Brij Tankha
Professor of Modern Japanese History
Department of East Asian Studies
University of Delhi
Introduction
The dramatic political realignments at the end of the twentieth century signalled the
beginning of political and economic changes but equally important are thetechnological and economic changes that have driven and helped to alter our world invery significant ways. Subsumed under the rubric of globalisation are diverse andoften conflicting visions that seek to understand and give meaning to these changes. It
is important to note that realignment in global politics has been accompanied by a verysignificant shift within national politics that gives strength to local forces and allows
them to become part of and further global agendas. This was made possible by the
emergence of new communication technologies that not only increased the speed of
our interaction but also in fact, have profoundly affected the nature of this interaction.
New forms of mobility have emerged as now it became possible not just to relocate
industry but to utilise skills from different parts of the globe.
This integrative movement of globalisation has been accompanied by another ofopposition to the forces of globalisation and a strengthening of national or religious
identities. The questioning of a market driven and U.S. dominated globalisation has
brought diverse groups to resist the global by re-asserting the local and the national.
The world of jihad and the world of the World Social Forum represent two important
faces of this resistance. How we understand this new global context and its impact on
Asia and the way Asian countries are responding will determine ways of visualising
Japan’s role. It is my argument that the history of an emerging Asianness can sustain
cooperative regional associations and networks and that Japan and India, given theirdemocratic systems can play a role in shaping these associations. It is, I feel,
imperative to strengthen cooperative networks to counter rising nationalism that canbecome aggressive. I take the example of development NGO’s in Japan as one way ofactively helping to create the right environment for cooperation. In the case of India I
take the example of how law can be used to strengthen grass-roots democracy. I will
look at civil society to show that a new sense of regional and global identity has thepossibilities of shaping a more democratic world.
Gloabalisation and increased mobility have also sharpened the need to integrate
environmental, health and other so-called soft issues into our consideration. It has
become imperative that we make these concerns an integral part of any analysis.
Perhaps even more than national boundaries intellectual and cultural boundaries are
hardening and religious and cultural ideas are being used in a variety of ways tounderline difference and exacerbate tensions and these issues need to be addressed.
Central to any analysis of Asia is the emergence of China and India as countries
with an effective global agenda. Japan’s role in this interaction is a vital element for1

Japan had, till the 1980’s, been expected to be the dominant state in the twenty-first
century. While now it has to contend with China and India it is still the dominanteconomic power in the region but the question is, can it play a political role to shape
the new configuration. At the core of the reconfiguration of Asia is the relationshipbetween China-Japan and India. Japan has been a firm ally of the U.S. while China has
been the enemy for much of the postwar period but since the 1970’s the relationshiphas changed to a mixture of cooperation and conflict. India has been a core member of
the Non-Aligned Movement but from the mid1970’s it has moved to more pragmatic
policies and has taken a greater interest in strengthening its relationship with Japanand East Asia.
Defining Asia
The premise of a regional identity is based on a conception of Asia that is debatable.
What is Asia? I would argue that while Asia was in many ways a creation ofcolonialism, the “Other” of Europe, since the early twentieth century the movement ofpeople and ideas, the search quest for independence and development have forgedbonds that have laid the basis for a possible regional identity. It has not yet developed
and we can only conjecture what form this identity will take but it is being forged in
the process of increased interaction..
Asian nations have, during their long and complex histories, forged a sense of self
and territory that cannot be homogenised. These evolving identities have changed anddeveloped passing through three broad periods, the pre-modern period when Asian
nations came into contact with European powers and their knowledge of the world
increased and began to alter under the growing hegemony of the Western powers. The
second period was marked by the colonisation of large parts of Asia but even the
countries that were not fully colonised or independent, such as Japan, worked within acolonial environment where the superiority of Western civilisation, and power, was a
widely acknowledged fact. Japan, within this structure, created its own colonial
empire, and therefore had to redefine its relations with its neighbours, as well as its
own sense of being Japanese.
In the third phase, after World War II, as the process of de-colonisation
strengthened, the old verities of Asia and Asianness were questioned and discarded as
new principles, such as Marxism or Non-alignment, bound nations together in theirsearch for equity and dreams of progress. The last two decades have seen a growing
expression of Asianness and an assertion of difference based on values, cultures andreligions that replay the colonial denigration with pride. This notional place has
become embodied.
India and the Idea of Asia
India relationship with its neighbours has a long and complex history but its modern
sense of Asia is perhaps best indicated by Jawaharlal Nehru’s statement to the Asian
Relations Conference, he convened in Delhi in 1947 where he said, “Apart from thefact that India herself is emerging into freedom and independence, she is the natural
centre and focal point of the many forces at work in Asia. Geography is a compelling
factor, and geographically she is situated as to be the meeting point of Western andNorthern, Eastern and South-east Asia. …Streams of culture have come to India from2the West and the east and been absorbed in India…..At the same time, streams ofculture have flowed from India to distant parts of Asia. If you would know India you
have to go to Afghanistan and Western Asia, to Central Asia, to China and Japan andto the countries of South-East Asia. There you will find magnificent evidence of thevitality of India’s culture which spread out and influenced vast numbers of people.” 1
Here, as in the writings of earlier leaders India is the natural centre of Asia because itis the influence of Indian civilisation that has shaped and formed the other parts ofAsia. There is never any sense of how these beliefs and ideas changed and transformedin their travels, and what entered India is seen to be absorbed without changing theessential elements that form India. It is not how these inward flows have re-shaped theSouth Asian region nor how ideas emanating from here have, in turn, been reshaped asthey were taken up by people in other parts of the world.
The Asian Relations Conference (March-April, 1947) held in New Delhi
sought to chart a course for the newly emerging nations and idealistically hoped tobuild new bonds of Asian brotherhood. One strand in the conception of a newly
independent India was that just as India had been the key of the British empire so its
independence would be the fulcrum around which the independence of the othercountries in the region would be achieved. A nation founded on the ideals of a secular
democracy putting its faith in science and modern rationality sought to create theideological infrastructure of factories and large scale projects –power generation, steel
plants –ally with those still caught in the colonial embrace, and chart a free andindependent future; dreams that would sour, as the very conceptual basis of these ideas
were threatened by ghosts from the past.
The fading of this vision of a modern Asia lies in the questioning of the modernist
conception that underlay this conception and in the Cold War politics that divided theworld into camps. Alternative paths to national and regional security were sought:
India found its future in non-alignment, China in Marxism, as interpreted by Mao, andJapan within the U.S. military alliance. These positions generated their own
compulsions and rivalry for leadership within the region. The U.S. presence in Asiaand its war in Vietnam further polarised the region and shaped social and political
agenda’s. The collapse of the USSR has helped to attenuate some of thesecompulsions but the emergence of the United States as a preponderant power and the
combination of economic and military policies that seek to define new rules ofsubjugation have generated a variety of responses. The spread of a global cultural
practice that subsumes differences within the dominant Euro-American system createsthe context within which assertions of Asian or other cultural /civilisational identities
must be understood.
Japan: An Asian Agenda
The end of WWII with the defeat of Japan and its occupation by a U.S. led allied force
marked a new chapter ushering in dramatic changes that rewove Japan’s social andpolitical fabric transfiguring a former enemy nation into an integral military ally of theUnited Sates. These close ties helped Japan to rebuild its economy and surpass prewar
levels but it suppressed or attenuated attempts to come to terms with its prewar past.
1 Quoted in Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of

East and West Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China and India,(Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.,1970), Ibid. p.294.

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The single-minded concentration on economic development did lead to a remarkable
improvement in the lives of Japanese and made Japan a global economic power.
However, it continued to remain quiescent in the diplomatic arena, or in the words of
the Asahi journalist Yoichi Funabashi, ‘smiling, silent and sleeping’. The policies of
Yoshida Shigeru, the so-called Yoshida doctrine, which laid the basis of post-war
development was based on the idea that by situating Japan within the United Statesalliance would allow Japan to concentrate its energies on re-building its economy andnot waste its resources in building its military capabilities. Yoshida had long felt thatmilitary expansion in the continent had been a grave mistake.
The growth of regional trading blocs and their transformation into more closely
linked groupings has also spurred the Japanese to cement their ties within the Asian
region. As trade and investments increased in the post-war years Japanese industry
and business came to establish a greater presence in east and southeast Asia and fromthe nineties in south Asia as well. The importance of oil supplies from west Asia also
made the region particularly important for Japan. Japanese economic interests, as well
as a growing need to build a more independent foreign policy that was not reactive or
dependent provided the basis for a gradual shift in Japan’s dealings with the world.
The sudden change in United States policies when it recognised China, after the secretdiplomacy of Nixon made Japan painfully aware that its interests could be put on theback burner. The so-called “oil shock” jolted Japan into realising both the finiteness ofnatural resources and the need to reduce energy consumption and the need to articulate
it’s own national interests. These multiple objectives lay behind the attempts to buildties with the Asian region.
The crucial adjustments to foreign policy were made under the Fukuda Takeocabinet (December, 1976-December, 1978) when Asia became the focus of Japan’s
diplomacy and to sustain and develop this Japan launched an ambitious Overseas
Development Programme (ODA). Japan was also forced because of the U.S.-China
rapprochement, as well as the anti-Japanese riots in Southeast Asia, to conclude apeace treaty with China after Tanaka Kakuei visited Beijing in 1972 that was finally
signed in August 1978. This trajectory has developed so that today Japan has played adecisive role through trade, investments and aid to help develop countries in the region.
It has been a major donor to China and its economic assistance during the balance of
payments crisis in India in the early nineties was of crucial importance. Its role
through multilateral agencies such as the Asian development bank and through the UN
in peacekeeping operations has given form to its emerging political voice.
In some ways even more important has been the fact, in the last two decades or
so, of the enormous influence that Japanese culture has begun to exert on the world.
As Brian Moeran argues, Japanese influences on Asian popular culture are pervasive
and need to be understood in the context of transnational flows.2 He adapts Arjun
Appadorai`s classification of four scapes: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, finanscapes,
mediascapes and ideoscapes to ask how deterritorialised are Japanese people,
technologies, capital, information, images and ideologies in the Asian context. Hisarguments are that Japan by defeating the colonial powers showed Asia that it waspossible to stand up against the West and today’s flow of labour, as well as students,
has created a group of cultural brokers who influence the socioscapes in their own
2 Brian Moeran, “Commodities, Culture and Japan’s Corollanization of Asia” in Ibid.,pp.25-50

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countries. In the field of popular culture the Japanization of Asian culture has become
evident. The popularity of Japanese popular music, anime films, film stars, fashion as
well as commodities is amply visible. The media is dominated by advertising images
from Japan and Japanese food has become very popular. This enormous influence
plays a vital role in defining perceptions as well as creates constituencies on which
Japan can build the basis to further cooperation.
Reinscribing Japan into Asia is not a simple process and is being debated. Many
scholars see the arguments for an Asian community as an extension or a natural
growth of the Japan as unique or Nihonjinron genre. Writings with the Nihonjinron
genre have been predicated on the insurmountable differences arising out a different
history, culture, and even genetic make-up between Japan and the rest of the world.
These writings, immensely popular, were as much about explanation as they wereways of creating the basis for an ideological community. Kobayashi Yotaro wrote in1991 that it is vital for Japan to return to Asia, to re-Asianise to meet the challenge ofa West that has unified. Similarly, Ogura Kazuo, a diplomat and major figure in
redefining Japanese identity within an Asian community argues that despite changes
Japan still maintains universal values such as diligence, strong family ties, respect for
the elderly, the individuals submission to larger group interests and spirituality. These
values have been lost in the West and it is the mission of Japan and Asia to reAsianise the West.3
Civil Society and Shaping a Regional Identity
One of the ways that the region is being reconfigured is through the changing
relationship between the people and the State. In China after the reforms a greater
openness in the political system has created a climate where different voices can beheard. In Japan the postwar period saw the dominance of the Liberal-Democratic Party
from 1955 to 1993. The social consensus that seemed unshakeable was brought into
question. In India the movement away from a planned economy has unshackled theenergies of the people and allowed for a higher rate of growth but it has also brought
into question the problem of an excessive reliance on the market and need to provide asafety net for those adversely affected. For many globalisation has come to represent
the dominance of Western nations and culture and resistance to this has taken many
forms giving rise to movements based on essentialist notions of identity often linked
to wider regional and global movements.
In the interaction between global forces and the nation often more than outrightresistance change is negotiated in complex ways. This is not a question ofundermining national sovereignty but of redefining global norms. The state –civilsociety relationship offers a good example of how global influences have helped toshape and alter the relationship between governments and civil society groups. The
question of civil society often revolves around the degree of autonomy, or the levels of
restrictions placed on it that determine its health. Its appearance as a widely debatedintellectual construct was, it should be noted, within the rise of dissident movements
in Eastern Europe and Latin America in the 1970’s

3 Kenn Nakata Steffensen, “Post Cold War Changes in Japanese International Identity Implications forJapan’s Influence in Asia” in Ibid. p.149-150

5In Japan the International Development Non-Governmental organisations (IDNGO)
movement is of relatively recent origins, most of the boom starting in the 1980’s andthese groups also offer a contrast to Indian organisations, and reflect the symbiotic
relationship between state and civil society. How have state policies provided anenabling environment both in terms of institutional structures as well as in subsidies
and grants.4 Earlier legal and tax requirements made it very difficult to establish legalorganisations and collect contributions. From 1989 ministerial budgets began toinclude funds for IDNGO projects. Similarly Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)
programmes also expanded to increase projects for relief aid, Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) launched the Development Partnership Programme which
provides funding to implement JICA technical assistance projects.
There has been a greater focus on how international norms and structures influence
the way states define their national interests. For instance, NGO’s found legitimacy inpushing for the rights of immigrant workers and environmental legislation received aboost because of international opinion in the 1990’s. The international trend ofincluding IDNGO’s in overseas aid projects, as well as the greater involvement in
multilateral agencies has also become widespread. Japan came under pressure to build
up it’s NGO and IDNGO sector from the international community but also fromsections within its owns society. These pressures from within the country combinedwith global expectations that Japan should make greater contributions to internationalsociety provided the push to Japanese efforts.
The MOFA NGO Project Subsidies Program and Grassroots Grants Program rosein the mid-1980’s when Japan decided to include NGO’s in their international aid
projects largely because of the international climate where this had become widelypracticed. There was also criticism that Japan’s aid policies were too narrowly linked
to commercial and trade interests and were environmentally destructive In 1987 prime
minister Nakasone Yasuhiro established an advisory council to examine this issue andthis led to the stated goal of ‘economic cooperation with public participation’.
The US also actively helped to promote Japanese IDGNO’s in the 1990’s throughthe so-called Common Agenda started in 1993 which tried to coordinate US-Japan
policies on global projects and foreign policy. Projects promoted under this include
health and environmental projects such as in 1992 a biodiversity project was promotedin Indonesia. Similarly the Global Fund for the Environment came because of theeffect of the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro
in 1992.
The IDNGO’s do not fall into any ideological category as most of them focus ondelivery rather than advocacy but there are advocacy groups such as Japan
International Volunteer Centre (JVC) and Shanti Volunteer Association (SVA). These
groups while receiving state funds have been critical of ODA programmes. Similarly
the strategic use of IDNGO’s seems also to be minimal. In this case, Kim Reimanargues that international pressure that led to the formation of IDNGO’s had a

4 Kim Raiman, “Building Global Society from the Outside In? Japanese International Development

NGOs the State, and International Norms” in Frank J. Schwartz and Susan J.Pharr (Ed.), The State of Civil
Society in Japan, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp.298-315.

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transformative effect on state policies and state-society relations and this represents astep in the evolution of a global civil society.
India: Ways of Empowering the People
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the cold war structures also influenced India in avariety of ways leading to an intense debate about future directions. One of the areas
where change was visible was in the increasing importance of non-party groups. A
variety of social associations spanning the ideological range were formed. These
worked in providing social services where the state was deficient, as advocacy groups
to counter state policies and some with the state to reinforce and support state policies.
The legal requirements made it relatively easy to form such associations but two
significant developments that have given a great boost to the effectiveness of public
interest action and in increasing widespread participation extending across social
boundaries. One is the right to information act and the other the concept of public
interest litigation (PIL).
The right to information was first enunciated by the Supreme Court in 1975 but ademand for it gained momentum with the movement led by a group called the unitedforce of workers and peasants, the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sanghathan (MKSS). This
group in the early 1990’s used an innovative method to demonstrate the importance of
information for the people through "public hearings". Such grassroots movements
spread in various parts of the country and a National Campaign for People’s Right toInformation (NCPRI) was formed, and this broad based platform helped to bring awide range of groups together to realise their demand. After much struggle the Indian
Freedom of Information Act was enacted in 2002 and subsequently modified in 2003
and 2005.
The Act defines the right to information rather than just records and documents topermit the inspection of public works including taking samples of materials and also
includes "information relating to a private body which can be accessed by a publicauthority under any law". This places the onus on the government to collectinformation from private bodies, rather than requiring the public to chase privatebodies themselves. It requires the government to actively publish and disseminate
information such as the budget allocated to each agency, including plans, proposed
expenditure and reports on disbursements, the manner of execution of subsidy
programmes, including the amounts allocated and beneficiaries, recipients ofconcessions, permits, licenses, and relevant facts while formulating policies orannouncing decisions. The Act requires that Public Information Officers (PIO’s) haveto be appointed in local bodies so that applicants for information do not have to travelto the city. There are time limits within which the information has to be given,processing fees are kept low, and there is a mechanism for appeal if there is a dispute.
While the Act has problems, in the limits it places on information that cannot be
disclosed it has introduced a great measure of transparency and given power to theordinary people.
Since it is a central government law, given India’s federal structure, it is up to thestates to enact similar legislation but while the campaign for national legislation wasgoing on Tamil Nadu became the first state to enact a right to information law, in 1997,7

it was followed by Goa and then Rajasthan (2000), Karnataka (2000) Delhi (2001),
Maharastra (2002), Assam (2002) and so far a total of eight states have similar acts.
The history of public interest legislation (PIL) began in the 1980’s in the post
Emergency period when the Supreme Court under Justice P.N. Bhagwati and Justice
V.K.Iyer moved away from the concept of locus standi (standing in law) in litigation,
which meant that only the aggrieved party in a case could move the court. As a resultof the changes any citizen of India or any consumer group or social action group can
now approach the apex court of the country seeking legal remedies in all cases where
the interests of the general public or a section of the public is at stake. Further, public
interest cases can be filed without investment of heavy court fees as required in private
civil litigation. The PIL opened the way to a host of court cases that sought redress ofwrongs in a range of issues: environmental problems, conservation of heritagebuildings, re-location of industries from residential areas, introduction of CNG in
public transport in the capital Delhi and so on.
While allowing for individuals or groups to intervene for the public good it also
opened the door to frivolous litigation. However, any constraints on PIL need to becarefully considered so that it does not restrict or hamper the intent of PIL. Supreme
Court Justice Sujata Manohar, in a landmark case (Raunaq International Limited v/s
IVR Construction Ltd) ruled that when a stay order is obtained at the instance of a
private party or even at the instance of a body litigating in the public interest, anyinterim order which stops the project from proceeding further must provide for the
reimbursement of costs to the public in case ultimately the litigation started by such anindividual or body fails. This right to compensation will act as a check on frivolous
cases as does the amendment to the Consumers Protection Act, 1986 to compensation
to opposite parties in cases of frivolous complaints made by consumers.
The Indian case shows the strength of private associations backed by a legal systemthat allows them to intervene in public life. The state also plays a role in building
strong civic institutions and is proactive in removing inequalities. People who aredefined as suffering from social injustice because of their caste or those who are frommarginalized groups such as tribal people or economically backward are given
benefits by law in education and government employment. Tribal people’s property
rights are protected from exploitation by developers. The last few decades as
globalisation and liberalisation have changed the regulatory regime. These measures
have been strongly debated and there are opposing views on the need for such
legislation but there is a strong body of opinion that feels it is necessary to retain astrong role for the state to build social capital whether through education, orpreservation of the environment or provide a safety net for workers and peasants andwhich sees the need to protect public goods from being turned into privatecommodities.
Concluding Remarks
The emergence of the idea of Asia and a sense of regional identity is shaped both bydevelopments predating this period of globalisation as well as the different historicalexperiences of the countries. Therefore to understand the basis of this change it isnecessary to understand that this process of globalisation carries with it thepossibilities of strengthening the emergence of a global civil society as well as its

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opposite that of hardening intellectual and political boundaries. To further democracy
and cooperation it is necessary to craft a common agenda based on building multiple
networks.
Multilateral cooperation can take many forms. One is the various conferences andgroups that have been established to remove trade barriers and integrate the region
economically. These include the East Asian Economic Community These proposals
for expanded free trade agreements and tariff reduction are grounded in a belief that
economic integration will lay the basis for a regional community. They haveundoubted benefits but it is also imperative to recognise the need, as some have, tobuild a multi-ethnic and multi-regional community defined by “civic categories“ rather than race and religion to build a common bond on the basis of shared values.
Such networks that sustain and expand the space for democratic participation willencourage cooperative regional forums and allow us to think of an Asia conceived as
not only a geographical region but also as offering a credible alternative to prevailingsystems in the social, political and cultural sphere. We need what Arlif Dirlik has
called a “critical regionalism”.
[Not for Citation. Draft Paper written for the Conference on Japan’s Role in theForthcoming World Order, Institute for International Policy Studies, Tokyo,
November 1-2, 2005] October 30, 2005.

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