Today at Tokyo International Airport I boarded the Air India aircraft that would aid my flight from this charming country. On board all copies of the English language newspapers were already taken so I tucked into ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’, the largest daily of Japan. On the front page there was a heartwarming news story. The mayors of cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had expressed their desire to join the race for hosting the 2020 Olympics. After Tokyo lost its bid for hosting the games in 2016, the Governor of Tokyo had shown some appetite to bid again for 2020. But Japan Olympics Committee was already aflutter and though it maintained guarded silence with reverence to the city of Tokyo, it could be assumed that the candidature of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had the greatest possibility for getting the support of all Japanese citizens.

The mayors had made a very touching appeal to be given this opportunity for delivering a powerful message of nuclear disarmament and non-violence to the global community. The possibility of an Olympics in Hiroshima and Nagasaki presented a rare potential for permanently changing the tone of Olympics. In recent decades this festival of sports has increasingly become a solely commercial venture in which the American capitalism extracts a dominant share of the spoils. The members of Olympics Committee have a strong distaste for the same, which went against Chicago’s bid for 2016 winning much favor with the selectors. This announcement of a possible Olympics in Hiroshima and Nagasaki came on the heels of President Obama’s call for global nuclear disarmament and of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize for the same. If this Olympics bid becomes a reality then it could go even further in unifying the human kind in its sympathy for survivors of nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and in strengthening the world’s commitment towards stigmatizing senseless violence and the disarmament of nuclear arsenal. It is a necessity since this technology of mass destruction has already fallen into the hands of rogue regimes such as North Korea and the terrorist state of Pakistan that are proliferating it further for profits. So World Peace obviously demands that the democratic and states unify, have stronger regimes and do more policing. Japan has pledged not to participate in any war directly and so has restricted itself to providing only logistical support to allied forces fighting the war on terror. Japan can afford that sort of luxury only because its National Security and protection from China and N. Korea is a concern of the US Forces. However World Peace and Nuclear disarmament cannot be achieved by Japan taking ice candies to the soldiers fighting the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan or by staging the Olympics in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That purpose could be fulfilled only if Obama cracks his whip supported by the world community including India, which has been a perpetual sitting duck for Islamist Terrorism. It is sad but true that World Peace needs policing and not singing of Peace Bhajans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

But this Olympics will go a long way in sending a strong and unique message for stigmatizing violence and one can assume that such a bid is almost a foregone conclusion. The cities fell victim to the most unpardonable act in the human history and the survivors continue to meekly suffer deep scars that cease to heal in spite of a complete resurrection of the twin cities. The dysfunctional global family has to take this rare opportunity to come together for paying a sincere homage to the victims of nuclear bombings and also as an ovation to the resilience of these two cities that rose from the ashes. As the only victims of nuclear bombings the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have the moral right and a moral duty to sound a clarion call for peace and for an end to war. But ironically the same does not automatically apply to the Japanese State also unless Japan displays the courage of honestly bringing a few skeletons out of the cupboard of history. Every country has a few of those tucked away and India also has more than a fair share. But the best policy seems to be to come completely clean and for some reasons various states shy away from the responsibility for false excuses, vanity and national pride. State propaganda of every nation is full of such duplicity.

In the Tokyo Tribunal, constituted after the World War II along the lines of Nuremburg Trials, Japan and Japanese Military faced a very biased panel of judges from the allied forces. The victors were determined to impart the most humiliating treatment to the conquered and extracting the fullest measure of pain terms in monetary and other punitive measures. Out of the forty judges who were present on the panel there were only two who were recognized as the experts of International Law and one of them was Justice Radha Binod Pal. Justice Pal was the sole voice of reason who protested against the prejudiced proceedings and insisted that Japan and Japanese Military must receive a fair trial according to the international law of the time. Those hearing and the speeches of Justice Pal are a part of Japanese lore. The people of Japan were incredulous to witness this uncharacteristic show of bravery by a single man who represented a country that was still crushed under the heels of a foreign rule. Tagore visited Japan after winning the Nobel Prize in literature but the students of a University had refused to listen to his speech stating that a representative of a slave nation had nothing to offer to them. To the same Japanese people, Justice Pal appeared like what they termed as ‘The Second Buddha’ and their subsequent treatment of India and Indians is based on that as a benchmark. It is this incident that makes those of us who have been living in Japan feel extremely proud of our origin of ‘World as a single family’ India and also feel the burden of the expectations set by Justice Pal.

I do not understand why the Embassy of India in Japan even bothers to publicly celebrate Gandhi Jayanti while choosing to omit the great Indians like Justice Pal, Tagore and Netaji who left a bigger impact on Japan. And what about Gautam Buddha who has been worshipped all over Japan for more than ten centuries? Why this preferential treatment of Gandhi to the exclusion of all other sons of India. We have made a huge mess of choosing Gandhi and Nehru as our mascots and role models. What is even more laughable is that the invitations for the celebration were sent out on 1st October, only one day prior to the G-Day, and at 6 P.M. that is after the office hours. People in Tokyo, Japanese as well as Indians usually fix their public engagements two to three weeks ahead. No one is free to turn up on a weekday for some stupid sarkari ceremony at half a day’s notice. Are we even being serious about Gandhiji? At the Indian School in Tokyo, I went beyond paying mere lip service to Gandhiji and all of us, the students and the staff together washed and cleaned the whole school building including the toilets. But this whole Gandhi-Nehru business run by the Indian State and its First Family has become one big joke and is an insult of the self-respecting Indians.

Every country has its state authorized heroes and any criticism of those by the poor subjects is treated as blasphemy, which is not tolerated. In China it is Mao, in India it is Gandhi and in Japan it is the late Emperor Hirohito or the ‘Showa Emperor’ as Japanese refer to Hirohito after his era known as Showa Period. With his allies, Hitler and Mussolini, this supreme commander of Imperialist Japan completed the axis of evil against which the war was fought. But for the people of Japan Hirohito is above suspicion and above all criticism of his role and responsibility in the Second World War. When the Japanese Military surrendered unconditionally to the US Forces it negotiated very hard for only one thing, which was the continuation of Imperial System in the post-war constitution. Americans recognized the great importance of the Emperor for Japanese Society that treats him as a descendent of God according to Shinto traditions. So Hirohito was spared as the Emperor and though he had much reduced powers in the new constitution dictated by US, he completely escaped facing the music in Tokyo Tribunal. Since then the neighboring countries of Japan have been vocally demanding an apology from the Emperor of Japan for the brutal occupation and atrocities in China, Korea and elsewhere. Japan that is proud of its culture of tendering a flat apology without making any excuse even for mistakes of others and the Japan that can never say ‘no’ has dodged this moral responsibility ever since while it does not give up a single opportunity to protest the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. All states of the world shamelessly excel in this craft of duplicity of propaganda. The Queen of Britain travelled all the way to Jallainwallah Baugh in Punjab to offer a theatrical moment of silence but skipped the necessity of sincerely apologizing for that gruesome massacre. So it is not very difficult for the people of India to feel the pain of the people of China and Korea also while feeling equally pained by the loss of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For the qualities of compassion and tolerance had earned the title of ‘Second Buddha’ for Justice Pal. He had the courage and a moral right to protest the unfair act of mighty victors for he came from a country, which though suffering centuries of repeated invasions and slavery had never opted to subject its weaker neighbors to the same humiliation. It is by far the greatest contribution to world peace by any standards and India made it while constantly bearing the cross of persecution by first the Islamists and then Imperialists. India was the only nation that did not demand wartime reparations from Japan though Japanese Military had occupied some Islands of Andaman and Nicobar. Japan expressed the gratitude toward India and Justice Pal by sending its very first ODA (Overseas Development Assistance) to India.

We must also realize that Indian has never done enough to protect itself and the lives of its people from the violence of attackers. That is because Buddha and Gandhi botched the definition of non-violence as non-resistance and we have since given up the responsibility of defending our boundaries, wealth and lives, and have paid dearly for that. India is not a soft state; it is just a very weak one. This lack of strength is the vice that has repeatedly jeopardized India’s freedom and survival but we camouflage it as a virtue and try to fool ourselves. India’s Prime Joker Manmohan Sigh might as well get rid of India’s nuclear scarecrows and stake a claim for the next Nobel Prize for Peace. For it has ceased to be a deterrent for India’s enemies who know only too well that Indians are nothing but Gandhian assholes. Only twelve schoolboys from Pakistan amply proved that when they came to Mumbai on a picnic and took the entire city and country by siege on 26/11. The Indian military forces have to seek the permission of our elected jokers to fire back on the Islamists and Maoists merrily firing at them. Our army men must be the most frustrated lot and wondering why they must fight and lay down their lives for protecting this nation of halfwits and half-naked Gandhis. India’s police have been proven ineffective in meeting the challenges of insurgents that now occupy huge territories of Indian Union and are killing our poor police by daily dozens. But the most important job that is assigned to our armed forces is to fly the ministers and their families on Indian Air Force jets for picnics to the safer locations of India. For once India could forget everything about World Peace and should focus on killing the threats to its own internal and external security. Let the Japanese or British or the Americans contribute their two-pence to World Peace.

Whenever Japan is faced with its own record of the Second World War, Japan always remains silent and instead shrewdly plays the Hiroshima-Nagasaki card. Obviously there are internal pressures from the ultra-nationalist right wing and a consideration for the war veterans, who fought for Hirohito, and their surviving families. But before the 2020 Olympics Japan will have to make the difficult choice of hurting the feelings of either its war veterans or those of Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivors. If the present Japanese Emperor, and son of Hirohito, also shies away from doing the dutiful then that will not absolve Japan of its misadventures and will rob Japan of its rightful role in nuclear disarmament. The people and survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have earned the moral right to host the 2020 Olympics for sending a message of peace and non-violence to the world but Japan’s continued silence on Hirohito’s role and responsibility will strike a very discordant note sending a message of hypocrisy. It will be a very sad and a colossal betrayal of the victims and survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.