People's Democracy

IT is not only in India that reactionary forces try to rewrite history according to their diabolic plans. There is in the world at least one more country that is witnessing a similar phenomenon. That country is Japan.

The issue concerns the invasions of East Asian countries during the second world war, as they have been presented in the Japanese textbooks. The blatant attempt made in these textbooks to justify these invasions has given rise to a lot of heartburn in China, North Korea and South Korea, and has caused a big diplomatic tussle between Japan and its neighbours.

But this is not the first time that it has happened. A similar tussle took place between the country and its neighbours some time ago, on the issue of what the Japanese called "comfort women." And just as the Japanese government refused to offer apology and pay due compensation to these "comfort women," it is again busy trying to push the issue of invasions under the carpet.

(These so called "comfort women" were the hapless East Asian women whom the Japanese military forced into prostitution, at gun points, during the second world war days. Thus these women were compelled to entertain the same soldiers who were overrunning their countries.)

The reactionary elements in the country are solidly backing the government on the issue of textbook revision. They are also objecting to foreign criticism of this version of East Asian history, on the spurious ground that it is an unwanted foreign intervention in Japan’s "domestic" affairs.

The immediate cause of the neighbouring countries’ apprehension is that an advisory body to the Japanese ministry of education, culture, sports, science and technology is most likely to approve a new controversial textbook that is meant for junior high school students in Japan. Needless to say, the book is meant for an age group when minds are most impressionable.

The ministry itself has refused to make any comment on the current debate. But its stand is very much in accordance with the revanchist attitude that is gaining some ground anew in Japan. Some time ago, the Japanese government pushed through the controversial new war bills that allow Japan’s "Self-Defence Forces" (SDF) to take part, on a "limited" scale, in a war in the neighbouring region. (The country’s constitution had hitherto altogether banned Japan’s participation in a war.) These war bills were passed despite stiff opposition from the Japanese Communist Party and three other parties, and during their absence in the Diet following a walk-out.

The controversial book developed by a group that calls itself the "Committee to Create New History Textbooks." The group was formed in 1997 and comprises Japanese scholars who want to eliminate all references in junior high school textbooks to "comfort women."

The committee also seeks to justify the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula, on the bogus ground that the annexation was "legitimate" according to the then prevailing principles of international relations. The committee also seeks to justify Japan’s motive in invading other East Asian countries as well as some of the Japanese actions in this war zone.

According to some of the media reports, these textbooks also play down the systematic brutality that is associated with what historians call "the rape of Nanjing." The logic is simple: There was no holocaust in Nanjing. Of course, some Chinese were killed but that is normal practice during a war.

This is just to play down what the Tokyo war-crimes trial had already recognised --- that the Japanese armed forces had killed a large number of Chinese during the war. The Tokyo trial was conducted by the Allied powers between 1946 and 1948, after Japan’s defeat in the war.

According to the Japanese media, however, it was the ministry’s advisory body that suggested some changes in the textbooks, ostensibly in order to avoid offending neighbouring Asian countries that had suffered from Japanese occupation.

Quite naturally, therefore, China, DPR Korea and South Korea have warned the Japanese government that it must not approve the said textbooks. The South Korean parliament has already passed a resolution asking Japan not to allow such a distortion of history.

Japanese reactionaries are, however, adamant. On March 4, about 80 legislators from Liberal Democratic Party, the main party of the ruling three-party coalition, sought to depict the neighbouring countries’ criticism of the textbook as an intervention in Japan’s "domestic" affairs. Former agriculture minister Shoichi Nakagawa, who heads the so called "Committee of Young Parliamentarians to Consider Japan’s Future and History Education," recently met the Japanese prime minister Yoshiro Mori, asking him to reject the criticism and take a "resolute" stand against it.