Modi: Love in Tokyo

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

There is hardly anything unusual about an Indian Prime Minister visiting Japan, and Japanese dignitaries visiting India. In fact, former prime minister Manmohan Singh visited Japan as late as May last year while, in a somewhat unusual gesture, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko were both in India, the first visit by a Japanese Emperor after 1960. So the two countries are neither long lost friends nor strangers, apart from Buddhism and many cultural ties that they share, Japan has left its signature on two items that are so prominently visible on the Indian cityscape: the Maruti car, and the Delhi Metro.

But there is a difference in Prime Minister Narendra Modi"s five-day visit to Japan that concluded last week. The resonance it stirred globally is not confined to the strong chemistry between the two leaders, Shinzo Abe and Modi, who met and tweeted to each other long since, when Modi resided in Gandhinagar and Abe was out of the prime minister"s office. The importance of Modi"s visit also goes beyond the bonanza he got from Tokyo - which is the pledge of a US$33 billion Japanese investment and financing over the next five years. Arching across financial assistance packages, the warmth between Abe and Modi promises a brand new architecture of alliances across Asia. Accordingly, the Tokyo deal has crossed the previous orbit of benign but casual assistance. It is now a "special strategic and global partnership". India is used to being offered assistance by multilateral agencies in such fields as primary education and health. But the Tokyo agreement treads tougher grounds, like next generation infrastructure, connectivity, transport systems, manufacturing, clean energy and skill development. It gives India an opportunity to jump-start into what many perceptive writers have been calling the Asian century.

What has indeed made it possible is that the two leaders wave-length of thinking is astonishingly similar. Both are staunch nationalists. Modi"s India First faith turns on its head the current Western liberal thought process that liberalism must take priority over national interests, an organisation like the European Union being its gigantic laboratory. In his first 100 days in South Block, Modi has demonstrated his nationalistic predilection with his government showing it doesn"t mind torpedoing WTO agreement if it involves compromising on India"s food security. Abe cannot but be his admirer. He is pushing Japan towards moving away from the pacifism pledged in its post-War constitution. In other words, he wants Japan to take on China if it continues to make tall claims on the former"s territorial waters and islands. He has a samurai streak in him. His grandfather from mother"s side, apart from being a former prime minister of Japan, was a member of Tojo"s wartime cabinet. Both Abe and Modi are not the type to kowtow to anyone, be it a superpower or an aspiring superpower.

However, quick to get a scent of opportunity, Modi turned the Japan visit into an event. Prior to the visit, he got his tweets to Japan translated into idiomatic Japanese through three layers of translation, including a translation software focused on social usages. Abe responded to him by coming to Kyoto to receive him. They visited the temple together, and went to the lake where, following Japanese custom, Modi fed the fishes. But work came first. Following dinner with the Emperor at Akasaka Palace, the Indian Prime Minister summoned the accompanying 20 businessmen to his suite and heard their views on which are the facilities or terms he should ask for in his meeting with trade, industry and economic ministers of Japan in his meetings with them the next day. The post-dinner continued beyond midnight, a rare interaction and experience for Indian industrialists who are always part of such delegations.

Modi is proving himself as a change agent and a man of action. In the post-dinner meeting with business leaders, the chief of a large private bank mentioned that Indo-Japanese trade is not growing fast enough - at US$15.8 billion it is a fourth of Sino-Indian trade - partly because of the Yen"s volatility and the consequent high cost of hedging. Modi took special note of the point. The next day, Maruti Suzuki, where Japanese automaker Suzuki is the majority stakeholder, announced that it would from now on pay dividend to its parent company in Indian rupee, not in Yen.

Will the visit show result anytime soon in the sectors specified in the wording of the "strategic partnership"? It is unlikely. Japan is in principle willing to go with a 2008 decision of the Nuclear Suppliers" Group (NSG) to allow supply of civil nuclear materials and fuel to India despite its refusal to sign the anti-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. In fact it drew very little response from NSG members during UPA rule in India. But with the rise of Modi the change in season is felt. Timing with his return from Japan, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott was in India to sign an agreement for supply of uranium, the basic raw material for nuclear power.

But one should also remember

Abe is a samurai at

heart while Modi is a Bania

There are many other areas in which Japan, after showing initial interest, was slow to follow up. One of such projects, on which some early work has taken place, is the Delhi-Mumbai freight corridor. If the project now gathers speed, it alone can kick-start growth across several sectors- construction, manufacturing, transportation, upgrading port infrastructure, food processing, etc. Abe has also promised the Bullet Train which can indeed revolutionise the way Indians commute to work. Also on the table is a freight corridor from Bengaluru to Chennai, giving a new fillip to the export of minerals, including iron ore to Japan & South Korea. The freight corridors have lifted South East Asia from abject poverty to the status of ‘miracle economies’ in three decades. Maybe it is India’s moment to take off.

Also there is one significant difference between Abe and Modi. Abe is a samurai at heart, and, given a chance, will probably go back to the era of Japan’s military glory to which his grandfather was a witness. But Modi is a Bania, not a warlord. As he put it “money is in my blood, commerce is in my blood.”

I have no doubt that Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, who is visiting India this week, will find Modi’s charm captivating. He wants India to rise without treading on anyone’s toe-be it in China or the US.

(The Author is

national editor of

 Lokmat Group)