Anshuman Rawat

What should the world expect from a leader who says ‘enough’ to the habit of Japan apologizing for its war crimes?

One can be forgiven for mistaking him for a mild and impeccably mannered Manager of a service or hospitality sector firm. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the first Japanese leader born after World War II, is passionately ruthless about his agenda. To begin with, he is committed to tearing up the legacies of defeat.

The 52-year-old, dubbed “the prince” for his elite pedigree, became Japan’s youngest prime minister in September this year, fulfilling at an early age the ambitions of his family which has advanced conservative causes for generations.
“The time has come for our generation, who did not experience the war, to take the responsibility” to lead Japan, Abe said during the campaign.

Known to prefer Machintosh systems over Microsoft Windows, Abe is known to speak in quiet and complete sentences.
But, as the world is finding out slowly, not all of his quiet statements are about peace of mind. At a campaign rally, Abe had reportedly declared, “I want to write the constitution with my own hand.” The very obvious target of his belligerence was the pacifist constitution, which was imposed on a defeated Japan by the United States in 1947, seven years before he was born into a leading political family.

But what had caused the most panic across Japan’s neighbourhood was Abe’s very public mulling of a theoretical pre-emptive strike on North Korea! But it was precisely such talk on North Korea that Abe had first become a household name in Japan. The fodder for his approach was provided by North Korea itself, with its acceptance of having abducted Japanese people in the 1960s and 70s. In fact, but for his wife, a 44 year-old daughter of a businessman who is known for her love for Korean culture, one could have safely believed that Abe has an old score to settle with the Koreans.

Korea alone it might not have been, but history seems to have played a big role in shaping his passion.
Abe’s maternal grandfather Nobusuke Kishi served in the wartime cabinet and helped supervise the industrialisation of Manchukuo, the puppet state Japan set up in northeastern China. After the war, Kishi was jailed by US forces as a top war criminal although he was not tried. Kishi later became prime minister, fighting leftists to build the new alliance with Washington.

Not surprisingly, Abe has always  backed his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi’s pilgrimages to the Yasukuni shrine, which honours war dead and war criminals. Koizumi’s visits have infuriated neighbouring countries haunted by Japan’s aggression.

What might be discomforting for the world, however, is that Abe’s views are a bit too further to the right than those of Koizumi. He has rejected the legitimacy of post-war trials of war criminals and hinted he feels Japan has apologised enough for its war past.

Desire and decisiveness both run in his family. His father was Shintaro Abe, a foreign minister. Shintaro wanted to be a prime minister, but could not because of, firstly a scandal and then cancer, to which he later succumbed. But within a decade of taking over his father’s parliament seat Abe has fulfilled his family’s desire.

Good ol’ Pluto is no longer a planet. It has been demoted to the status of being a ‘dwarf planet’. As expected, the decision is not without its critics.

A vote at the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) 10-day General Assembly in Prague this summer has demoted Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet. The IAU has been the official naming body for astronomy since 1919.

Raising consternation amongst the astronomers community is the fact that only 424 astronomers who remained in Prague for the last day of the meeting took part in the voting – thereby implying that the decision is far from universal.
An initial proposal by the IAU to add three new planets to the Solar System – the asteroid Ceres, Pluto’s moon Charon and the distant world known as 2003 UB313 – met with considerable opposition at the meeting. Days of heated debate followed during which four separate proposals were tabled.

Eventually, the scientists adopted historic guidelines that saw Pluto getting relegated to a secondary category of “dwarf planets”.

It would only be appropriate  to remind ourselves here that Pluto’s official status as a planet has been a constant subject of controversy, fueled by the past lack of a clear definition of planet, since at least as early as 1992, when the first Kuiper Belt Object, (15760) 1992 QB1, was discovered.

With betterment of telescope technology, further discoveries of trans-Neptunian objects, some of comparable size to that of Pluto, were made by scientists in US and Europe. In 2006 the matter came to a head with the need to categorize and name the recently-discovered trans-Neptunian object Eris, which, being larger than Pluto, was thought to be at least equally deserving of the status of ‘planet’.

“To most people the word “planet” is more cultural than scientific. It is part of the mental landscape that we use to organize our ideas of the universe around us. The best analogy I can come up with is with the word “continent.” The word sound like it should have some scientific definition, but clearly there is no way to construct a definition that somehow gets the 7 things we call continents to be singled out. Why is Europe called a separate continent? Only because of culture. You will never hear geologists engaged in a debate about the meaning of the word “continent” though.

Astronomers might be wise to learn from the geologists. Let culture define “planet” and let astronomers get back to the more important business of actually doing science.“

Michael E. Brown (Discoverer of dwarf planet Eris)

In the wake of increasing debates within the IAU, Julio Fernández and Gonzalo Tancredi of Uruguay proposed of a redefining of the term ‘planet’; so that other objects beyond the traditional nine planets could also be included in the planetary family.

Eventually, on August 24, 2006 in Prague, Czech Republic, the vote removed Pluto’s status as a planet and reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

However, almost immediately after and since  the adoption of the new definition, there has been criticism of both the substance and the process of arriving at the decision.

Within five days of the new IAU Planet Definition over 300 scientists signed a petition that opposed the new definition. Interestingly, the petition too has been criticized; because unlike the wide national identities of the voters at the IAU assembly,  nearly all of its signatories are Americans. The petitioners also failed to propose an alternative definition, so their signatures are no indication that they are all of similar views.

Among the general public, reception is mixed amidst widespread media coverage. Some have accepted the reclassification, while some are seeking to overturn the decision, with online petitions urging the IAU to consider reinstatement.

Within five days of the new IAU Planet Definition, over 300 scientists signed a petition that opposed the new definition. The full text of the petition says: “We, as planetary scientists and astronomers, do not agree with the IAU’s definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed.”

The decision has its cultural and societal implications too. It will affect the astronomical artifacts and toys industry. Educational books need to be revised. Something that prompted the editors of the 2007 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia to hold off printing until a final result had been reached.

Portuguese traveler Barbosa, who visited Gujarat in A.D. 1511 and 1514, had described Ahmedabad as “very rich and well embellished with good streets and squares supplied with houses of stone and cement.” In Sir Thomas Roe’s time, A.D. 1615, it was said to be “a goodly city as large as London”.

How things have changed!

Or have they? According to a recent report, Ahmedabad’s population is slated to touch the 1 Crore mark in 2030! That would, irrespective of the difference between the two populations of the time, still make Ahmedabad  ‘as large as London’.

But that would be missing tree for wood. For, the embellishment of the description of Ahmedabad was provided not as much by the word ‘large’, as it was by the entirety of the  phrase ‘goodly city’ viz. good, big and handsome.
So, what is a ‘goodly city’ in its entirety?

Depends on where one comes from! But a part of it is carried in Babosa’s description viz. “well embellished with good streets and squares”. While it is, as already mentioned, only a part of the big picture, it speaks of the nature of the populace. It talks of a society that is not only organized but also encourages room for togetherness via public squares. It talks of a society that is not only progressing with the times but also preserving the early-life goodness like community huddle, for sharing those anecdotes that make life such a good story.

Ahmedabad today has innumerable malls, multiplexes, high-rises and an increasing number of flyovers. But name one great public square  a la Trafalgar Square of London  that the modern day town planners have gifted the City with. In fact, today’s children might well say that the only squares they see are the various cross-roads; and those too are basically reserved for cows!

We have various chic cafes, but do not have the coffee-house culture. We have close to 40 movie halls, including about a dozen multiplexes, but do not have a cinema culture. Our theatre is basically imported from Mumbai. We have timers on crossroads, but we think that the traffic should zoom when there are 6 seconds to go! We have some of India’s finest educational and research institutes, but do not have healthy public conversation on anything. We have some of biggest home-grown business houses, but do not have professionalism at most levels. We have continental restaurants, but we think that the place is meant to shout trans-continent while having our mouth full. We have the latest mobile phones, but we believe that they work the best during a movie or inside an ICU.

It is tiring for me and must be boring for you to read the aforementioned. Moreover, one may argue that most of the aforementioned is applicable to most Indian Cities.

Maybe; but how does your neighbour’s diarrhea cure your tummy ache?

This is not a malicious diatribe against the City. All of the aforementioned is stated merely to illustrate the various factors that are contributing to our size but not to our character. Ahmedabad is today a ‘goodly city as large as most European cities’, but it does not have good enough reasons to attract travelers anymore.

Don’t worry about some of the new-age ‘happening cities’ of India. Let them fool themselves with hyperboles. The truth of the matter is that no Indian city is good enough. The fight for prestige amongst Indian cities is basically about being crowned the one-eyed amongst blind!

We have the heterogeneity and we definitely have the means. Now if we get it right, we might start moving towards becoming a really “goodly City”. But for that to happen, we will have to refrain from scoring inconsequential brownie points over the nearest rival and set the benchmark right. 1615 A.D.  should be a good one to begin with.

You are encouraged to share your views on the city and its people.

Come, let’s spend some time together.