Friday, August 24, 2007
Abe praises Indians who backed Japan in WWII
by Elizabeth Roche Thu Aug 23, 2007
KOLKATA, India (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced admiration Thursday for two controversial Indians who stood up to colonial ruler Britain during World War II and sided with Tokyo.
Abe visited the eastern city of Kolkata to meet relatives of nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose, who advocated violent resistance, and Radhabinod Pal, the sole judge who dissented at the Allied tribunal that condemned to death war-time Japanese leaders.
"Many Japanese have been moved deeply by such persons of strong will and action of the independence of India like Subhash Chandra Bose," Abe said in a speech at the opening of the Indo-Japan Cultural Centre.
"Even to this day, many Japanese revere Radhabinod Pal."
The premier, wrapping up a three-day official visit to India, met the son of the judge Prashanto Pal, 81.
Abe has dismissed suggestions back home that meeting Pal's son would anger other Asian nations resentful over Japan's wartime atrocities.
In a dissenting opinion, Pal questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal, sealing a friendship between Pal and Abe's grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was charged but never tried as a war criminal.
Prashanto Pal told AFP he was "very, very happy to see" Abe.
"I feel proud of the fact that my father is still remembered for his contribution that was only correct and just. How can you blame only one side for war crimes and not the others?"
Abe's stop in Kolkata came at the end of a high-profile visit during which India and Japan vowed to seal an economic partnership deal by December.
The premier who later left for Kuala Lumpur held talks with West Bengal state's Marxist chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and toured a museum dedicated to Bose.
After WWII broke out, Bose escaped his British watchers, sought help from Nazi Germany and later went to Tokyo, where he organised an army.
Abe spent time looking at black-and-white photos of Bose as a young boy, his May 1942 meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin and a picture of his German wife, Emilie Schenkl, holding their baby girl.
He was shown around the museum by Krishna Bose, a niece of the nationalist leader by marriage and her son, Sugata, a Harvard University history professor.
"I was very impressed to see so many memorabilia" related to Bose "who had a strong bond with Japan," Abe told reporters.
"I expressed strong determination to strengthen our bilateral relations that Subhash Chandra Bose had wanted."
Other pictures capture Bose's 90-day journey from Germany to Japan aboard a submarine between February and May 1943. And the last known photo of Bose shows him stepping off a plane in Saigon on August 17, 1945, a day before his widely disputed death in an aircrash in Taipei.
Abe "was very interested to see all the pictures, he was able to identify many of the Japanese in them. He was particularly thrilled to see the submarine photo and to see Bose with the Japanese crew," Sugata Bose told AFP.
The exhibits include swords, coats, caps and footwear as well as furniture and scores of books owned by Bose until he fled Kolkata in 1941.
"This is the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to Kolkata and to the museum so it is an occasion for a double celebration," said 76-year-old Krishna who heads a trust that has preserved the three-storey residence as a museum.
Sugata Bose said she had presented Abe with a DVD containing the nationalist leader's speeches on Asian solidarity and a picture that showed him on his way to see the Japanese emperor in Tokyo in 1943. ¶ 1:22 AM
KOLKATA, India (AFP) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe voiced admiration Thursday for two controversial Indians who stood up to colonial ruler Britain during World War II and sided with Tokyo.
Abe visited the eastern city of Kolkata to meet relatives of nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose, who advocated violent resistance, and Radhabinod Pal, the sole judge who dissented at the Allied tribunal that condemned to death war-time Japanese leaders.
"Many Japanese have been moved deeply by such persons of strong will and action of the independence of India like Subhash Chandra Bose," Abe said in a speech at the opening of the Indo-Japan Cultural Centre.
"Even to this day, many Japanese revere Radhabinod Pal."
The premier, wrapping up a three-day official visit to India, met the son of the judge Prashanto Pal, 81.
Abe has dismissed suggestions back home that meeting Pal's son would anger other Asian nations resentful over Japan's wartime atrocities.
In a dissenting opinion, Pal questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal, sealing a friendship between Pal and Abe's grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was charged but never tried as a war criminal.
Prashanto Pal told AFP he was "very, very happy to see" Abe.
"I feel proud of the fact that my father is still remembered for his contribution that was only correct and just. How can you blame only one side for war crimes and not the others?"
Abe's stop in Kolkata came at the end of a high-profile visit during which India and Japan vowed to seal an economic partnership deal by December.
The premier who later left for Kuala Lumpur held talks with West Bengal state's Marxist chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and toured a museum dedicated to Bose.
After WWII broke out, Bose escaped his British watchers, sought help from Nazi Germany and later went to Tokyo, where he organised an army.
Abe spent time looking at black-and-white photos of Bose as a young boy, his May 1942 meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin and a picture of his German wife, Emilie Schenkl, holding their baby girl.
He was shown around the museum by Krishna Bose, a niece of the nationalist leader by marriage and her son, Sugata, a Harvard University history professor.
"I was very impressed to see so many memorabilia" related to Bose "who had a strong bond with Japan," Abe told reporters.
"I expressed strong determination to strengthen our bilateral relations that Subhash Chandra Bose had wanted."
Other pictures capture Bose's 90-day journey from Germany to Japan aboard a submarine between February and May 1943. And the last known photo of Bose shows him stepping off a plane in Saigon on August 17, 1945, a day before his widely disputed death in an aircrash in Taipei.
Abe "was very interested to see all the pictures, he was able to identify many of the Japanese in them. He was particularly thrilled to see the submarine photo and to see Bose with the Japanese crew," Sugata Bose told AFP.
The exhibits include swords, coats, caps and footwear as well as furniture and scores of books owned by Bose until he fled Kolkata in 1941.
"This is the first visit by a Japanese prime minister to Kolkata and to the museum so it is an occasion for a double celebration," said 76-year-old Krishna who heads a trust that has preserved the three-storey residence as a museum.
Sugata Bose said she had presented Abe with a DVD containing the nationalist leader's speeches on Asian solidarity and a picture that showed him on his way to see the Japanese emperor in Tokyo in 1943. ¶ 1:22 AM
