Last week, a prominent Liberal Democratic Party member made waves by calling openly for an amendment to the nation's pacifist Constitution. Coincidentally, a quiet announcement in a distant country served to put the familiar debate over Japanese military affairs and ambitions in a longer perspective -- and to remind Japan of the usefulness of seeing itself through others' eyes.
According to a report from the Press Trust of India, a new museum commemorating the connection between Japan and India's Nobel Prize-winning poet and philosopher, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), is due to open in November at Rabindra Bharati University in Calcutta, West Bengal, Tagore's birthplace. Established with a grant from Mitsubishi Corp. India, the museum will house "rare memorabilia that chronicle [the poet's] many visits to Japan and its deep influence" on him.
That influence was mostly literary and spiritual, reflecting Tagore's personal bent, yet any chronicle of his relationship with Japan will surely also have to mention his discreetly expressed dismay at what he saw as signs of militant nationalism, especially during his visit of 1916. It reminded him of the unthinking, belligerent chauvinism that he, and others, felt had led to the outbreak of war in Europe two years earlier and did not, he believed, represent the best of Japan.
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