The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

A thought for the soldier
There must be a national war memorial
It is a matter of sheer indifference and neglect that the country is still without a national war memorial. The demand has been raised off and on, but without results. Now that the Punjab Governor and former Army Chief, Gen S.F. Rodrigues, has raised the issue and the President of India has promised all help, it may materialise, hopefully, in the near future.

Thought for the day

ARTICLE

Power and caste
Quota has nothing to do with social justice
by C.P. Bhambhri
The ongoing debate on the proposed policy of reservations for the Other Backward Castes in institutions of higher education by the Central Government has generated controversies because a sizable section of the intelligentsia has refused to accept that the political class has taken this step to promote the cause of social justice.

MIDDLE

A lesson in values
by Satyapal Anand
Values, credos and beliefs! Ideals, criteria and precepts! What one would not have given to know before hand about all one might expect on landing in North America! What kind of people one might have to deal with? What kind of behaviour is expected of a newcomer — say, in a bus, standing in a queue for one’s turn at the cashier’s desk, waiting in the lobby of a hotel — or, for that matter, in the small clients’ corner inside a motor workshop when your car is being serviced! Well, I was not a novice when I finally chose to live here because I had been to the US and Canada a number of times on visiting professorial assignments, but a short trip is one thing and coming here to be a part and parcel of society is another.

OPED

Break the rice-wheat cycle
Diversification necessary for long-term resource and income sustainability
by K.S. Aulakh
An unwarranted controversy has been kicked up against crop diversification. This is absurd and belies the truth. The critics of diversification apparently lack perspective and their arguments in sustaining wheat-paddy rotation are misleading to say the least. A study by Professor H.S. Shergill overlooks many facts of the disadvantages of continuation of paddy-wheat rotation and presents a distorted picture of the ground realities.

Japan’s problem with history
by John Ikenberry
Japan has a serious geopolitical problem. Essentially, the problem is that Japan has not been able to eliminate the suspicions and grievances that still linger in China and Korea about Japan’s militarist past. While postwar Germany has somehow been able to put the “history issue” to rest, postwar Japan has not.

From the pages of

REFLECTIONS

EDITORIALS

Nuclear plans intact
PM’s assurance should satisfy critics

PRIME MINISTER Manmohan Singh’s reply to the marathon discussion on the Indo-US nuclear agreement in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday should allay all doubts about the deal. He has particularly disarmed the BJP and the CPM critics that the nuclear deal is not in India’s interest. The long and the short of his speech is that whatever the US Congress may legislate on the issue, India is bound only by the July 18 agreement the Prime Minister signed with US President George W. Bush. In other words, New Delhi will not accept any changes that the US Congress might make in the agreement compromising India’s national interest. India’s nuclear programme will be guided solely by its own legitimate concerns in “an uncertain, unpredictable world” as Dr Manmohan Singh put it.

Sceptics should draw solace from his categorical assertion that India will not allow a situation whereby American officials enjoy free access to Indian nuclear facilities. It is in the fitness of things that he allayed apprehensions of a large section of the people who keenly followed the proceedings in the US House of Representatives on the trajectory of the nuclear deal. Some of the provisions the House has legislated in this regard did raise suspicions that the US may have a larger role in the implementation of the deal than has been presumed, going purely by the text of the July 18 deal. There was concern over how the law would eventually be once the Senate vetted it as reflected in the unusual statement a group of retired nuclear scientists issued on the subject. There was also a worry that development of Indian nuclear deterrent would suffer a setback with the US indirectly seeking a cap on India’s nuclear weapon programme. Hopefully, the nuclear Ayatullahs in the US will take the hint that India cannot accept any constraint on this account.

Now that the Prime Minister has reassured Parliament that the essence of India’s nuclear programme will remain intact, political parties like the BJP, which is in the Opposition, and the CPM, which is supporting the government, should leave the matter to the government to handle it. It has been this newspaper’s consistent stand that the July 18 deal will benefit both India and the US, which are emerging as strategic partners. It is the result of an out-of-the-box approach to nuclear and technological challenges India faces in its bid to emerge as an economic giant by the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, if not earlier. It cannot fritter away its energy in shouting slogans of the past and addressing fears, more imaginary than real.

President gives assent
Now JPC must do its duty

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam has lived up to the letter and spirit of the Constitution by giving the much-awaited assent to the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Amendment Bill on Friday. This follows Parliament’s decision a day earlier to set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee to define the “Office of Profit”. In the present constitutional scheme of things, this was the only option left before the President. Under the Constitution, the President can return a Bill to Parliament only once for its reconsideration. However, if it is returned to him the second time without any changes, the President has no alternative but to give his assent. Now that Dr Kalam has given his assent and followed the Constitution, a confrontation between Parliament and the President has been avoided.

Essentially, the setting up of the JPC to define the “Office of Profit” is primarily aimed at examining Dr Kalam’s suggestions on the Bill. On May 30, while returning the Bill to Parliament for its reconsideration, Dr Kalam wanted it to enact a law that would be just, fair and reasonable as also applicable to all the states and Union Territories. He wanted a uniform (and not selective or random) use of the exemption clause in the light of the settled interpretation of Article 102 of the Constitution. Significantly, in addition to examining all these proposals, the JPC’s terms of reference includes a close look at the British law and its feasibility for India. The British law enables its Parliament to add to the list of offices of profit almost annually by a resolution.

In view of the importance of Dr Kalam’s proposals, the JPC would do well to evolve a broad all-party consensus on the issue and enact a new law at the earliest. The presidential assent has indeed come as a welcome relief for over 40 MPs, including Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, against whom petitions for disqualification were pending before the Election Commission.

A thought for the soldier
There must be a national war memorial

It is a matter of sheer indifference and neglect that the country is still without a national war memorial. The demand has been raised off and on, but without results. Now that the Punjab Governor and former Army Chief, Gen S.F. Rodrigues, has raised the issue and the President of India has promised all help, it may materialise, hopefully, in the near future. In this context, it is quite commendable that this part of the country, on the initiative of the Indian Express, has taken the lead by raising the Chandigarh War Memorial, which was inaugurated by President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Thursday.

When a former Governor of Punjab, Lt Gen J.F.R. Jacob, used the opportunity to ask pointedly the Chief Ministers of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and the Deputy Chief Minister of Punjab whether they were doing enough for the welfare of disabled soldiers, widows of martyrs and their children, he was actually voicing the sentiments of citizens in general and soldiers in particular. Many of those present nodded in approval when General Jacob observed: “Soldiers are remembered in times of war and forgotten in peace”. Frequent reports of ex-servicemen, disabled soldiers and widows of martyrs fighting the government for their dues are an endorsement of the General’s observation.

It is quite heartening to read that the surplus money raised for the war memorial will be used to upgrade schools and dispensaries located in the villages of martyrs. While it is for the government to take care of their financial needs, jawans should be shown respect in every walk of life. Unless society at large treats its soldiers with dignity, there would be a dearth of talented youth opting to join the armed forces. The services of ex-servicemen should be better utilised, particularly by industry, as they are disciplined, hardworking and have been imparted the right values.

ARTICLE

Power and caste
Quota has nothing to do with social justice
by C.P. Bhambhri

The ongoing debate on the proposed policy of reservations for the Other Backward Castes in institutions of higher education by the Central Government has generated controversies because a sizable section of the intelligentsia has refused to accept that the political class has taken this step to promote the cause of social justice.

It can be argued that the scepticism of the intelligentsia should not be taken seriously because this stratum of society has been always suspicious of social interventions of the political class. It can also be suggested that professional middle class intellectuals are generally distrustful of politicians and their present opposition is the result of their general anti-politics and anti-politician attitude.

It deserves to be clearly asserted that along with the Founding Fathers of the Indian Republic, the post-Independence intelligentsia has not only shown a firm commitment to the cause of social justice, but also many movements have been launched by this strata of society to demand that the state should perform its constitutional responsibilities and implement policies with a view to establishing a just and moral social order.

Why is a section of the intelligentsia vehemently opposed to the idea of reservations for the OBCs in institutions of higher learning? Not only this. The policy of reservations for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, the real wretched of the earth, has worked on the basis of national consensus and the middle class professional intelligentsia has firmly supported the cause of upliftment of the real Dalit castes/classes. Has the media, consisting of the professional middle class, not highlighted the atrocities committed against the real Dalits, who happen to be either landless agricultural workers or are surviving on the margins of society?

It is an empirical fact that the so-called Other Backward Castes, the darling of politicians, have emerged as new oppressors in the place of the erstwhile higher castes. These so-called middle castes have been the real beneficiaries of land reforms, and their attitude and behaviour towards the real Dalits is a replication of the feudal attitude of the erstwhile higher castes.

Incidentally, the political class of Tamil Nadu has been actively involved in the articulation of this new policy of reservations on the basis of a claim that Tamil Nadu has witnessed a great social and educational development because of the implementation of the policy of reservations in educational institutions.

The North Indians do not know much about the caste-based society of Tamil Nadu, and a few facts may be mentioned on the basis of an authentic scholarly study by Mr M.S.S. Pandian. Tamil Nadu has a long history of reservations and in 2006, Mr Pandian informs, “...Its benefits were unevenly distributed across various backward castes. It benefited some castes more than others, leading to the formation of caste-based parties seeking special treatment”. This long history of reservations for the backwards, along with anti-Brahmin movement of the Dravidians, has made the Tamil Nadu society and politics completely casteised and polarised on the basis of caste versus caste and sub-caste versus sub-caste identities.

Mr P. Chidambaram of the Congress, Mr M. Karunanidhi of the DMK, Mr S. Ramadoss, the founder of the PMK and a representative of a specific Vanniyar caste, et al, irrespective of their political divide, have been enthusiastically championing the cause of the new policy of reservations. Mr Ramadoss organised a national seminar on social justice for the OBCs in Delhi on June 2, 2006, and he collected a galaxy of pure casteist leaders from the South to the North to pressurise the already convinced UPA government to implement the policy “in one stroke and not in instalments”.

Mr Ramadoss himself, in response to Mr Veerappa Moily’s Oversight Committee, asserted on June 2, 2006, that “Talking of increasing seats and infrastructure in institutions before implementing a quota is only a ploy to postpone it. The legislation should be brought in the monsoon session of Parliament itself.”

The cat is out of the bag, if there is any doubt, that the protagonists of social justice are in reality a pressure group for the promotion of the interests of their own sub-set of castes. A final nail in the coffin of the southern miracle, which has been brought by caste-based quota politics, is provided by Mr Ramadoss’s PMK itself because the Dalits walked out of the Vanniyar caste outfit and formed a separate Dalit Panthers of India.

The upshot of the above description is that caste-based politics and its logical offshoot, the caravan of caste-based reservations, is a sure recipe for complete social fragmentation of India. Further, it deserves to be clearly stated that the political class is not at all committed to improving the living status of the real Dalits and none of the stalwarts of social justice, who assembled in Delhi on June 2, 2006, has ever launched a popular movement in support of genuine implementation of secular programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or the Rashtriya Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Has India cared for the education of the children of the poorest of the poor? Child illiteracy and the high dropout rate reflect the reality of the children living in the slums and jhugi-jhopri clusters in every metropolitan city and capital city of every state of India.

What is the explanation for caste-based social concern of the political class in India? The growing decline of the Congress party and the emergence of a plethora of caste and sub-caste-based political formations have made local caste loyalty the decisive factor for winning an election. The best illustration is again provided by Tamil Nadu where the verdict of the April/May 2006 State Assembly elections was complexly fragmented, and the once formidable DMK could form its government with the support of other allies.

The logic of caste-based parties has become unstoppable and every specific caste group has floated its own caste-party shop. A new political category of forward castes, upper backward castes, most backward castes and the Dalit castes is the reality of political India of the twentyfirst century, and the Yadava-based Rashtriya Janata Dal of Mr Lalu Yadav could be replaced by the non-Yadava castes under the leadership of Mr Nitish Kumar.

If politics and political parties have become equated with specific fractions of castes, the caste-party leaders have to play the card of caste-based quota for entry into public institutions. Every caste and sub-caste-based party has to placate its own constituency of supporters by distributing caste-based benefits from the public exchequer. The cruel logic of caste-based politics is that weaker and vulnerable castes like the real Dalits are treated as guinea pigs, and the powerful among the so-called backward castes keep the cake for themselves.

The upshot of the narrative is that reservations for the backwards has nothing to do with the philosophy or practices of parties of social justice. It has every thing to do with the muscle and political power of the backward castes who have come to control the levers of power on the basis of their political shops which are masquerading as parties.

MIDDLE

A lesson in values
by Satyapal Anand

Values, credos and beliefs! Ideals, criteria and precepts! What one would not have given to know before hand about all one might expect on landing in North America! What kind of people one might have to deal with? What kind of behaviour is expected of a newcomer — say, in a bus, standing in a queue for one’s turn at the cashier’s desk, waiting in the lobby of a hotel — or, for that matter, in the small clients’ corner inside a motor workshop when your car is being serviced! Well, I was not a novice when I finally chose to live here because I had been to the US and Canada a number of times on visiting professorial assignments, but a short trip is one thing and coming here to be a part and parcel of society is another.

So, when I finally came, I chose the metropolitan area of Washington D.C. “as my abode, then and thereafter”, as the British say. I found within a week that I was well nigh out of place unless I learnt — and learnt fast! For one, no one cared about who you were, where you were from, what language you spoke — unless it was for a so-called survey in which people sold to you — things, things, and things! And these things included money — money for house mortgage, equity, car, boat, and furniture — indeed, any damned thing that you might buy. In our countries, money was the rarest commodity, and you may have to go from pillar to post even to get a small loan from a bank. Here you were “pre-approved”, at least that’s what they say in the plethora of junk mail you get enticing you to get a loan.

One small incidence that sticks even today in my mind is about sharing a newspaper. I remember that back in India, one newspaper was sufficient for all the passengers in a bus. If you were taking a train, a single newspaper would suffice for the whole compartment. I’ve seen people entering a railway compartment with bags and baggage and in response to a an akhbar-wallah offering a newspaper for a rupee, looking right and left inside, and finding that one was already being shared by a dozen passengers, you would decline his offer with undue haste. “Oh, no! Don’t you see they already have one there?” No one took offence — indeed, least of all, the original “owner” of the newspaper.

As ill luck would have it, the first lesson I learnt about values and day-to-day social grace was when within three days of my arrival I took my daughter’s car for oil change. There was one other gentleman waiting in the room while his car was being serviced. He had the local newspaper; all sections stacked up together, A, B, C, & D, right up to the last section containing cartoons. I looked around. Finding no other reading material in the room, (I don’t know why; normally they’ve lots and lots of it!), I looked at him hopefully expecting that he might extract one section and offer it to me for reading. He did not.

Well, having failed to get his attention, I said, “Sir, may I have a section that you’re not reading?” Was it my accent (Well, I speak no worse than an American!) or his being the “owner” of the paper, he looked at me, and without batting an eyelid, said, “You may not!” And then, thinking that I might not have understood him, he added, “You might go out and if you have a quarter, you can get one from the machine.” I looked at him again. I thought he was about to add insult to injury by saying, “And if you don’t have a quarter, I damn care either!” but he did not — and that was that!

Well, one learns — and since then I have learnt the hard way — never to ask an American for anything gratuitous, least of all a newspaper!

OPED

Break the rice-wheat cycle
Diversification necessary for long-term resource and income sustainability
by K.S. Aulakh

An unwarranted controversy has been kicked up against crop diversification. This is absurd and belies the truth. The critics of diversification apparently lack perspective and their arguments in sustaining wheat-paddy rotation are misleading to say the least. A study by Professor H.S. Shergill overlooks many facts of the disadvantages of continuation of paddy-wheat rotation and presents a distorted picture of the ground realities.

Adaptive and adoptive research has thrown up other economically viable alternatives to the vicious paddy-wheat cropping pattern for different agro-climatic zones of Punjab. It is now well established that paddy is the villain, a water guzzling crop that has played havoc with state’s economy and ecology.

Economic theory suggests the emergence of specialised enterprises and crop patterns in an area depending upon the principles of comparative advantage that lasts over a long period of time. It should not be at the cost of degradation of natural resources of the region. Though wheat is a traditional crop of Punjab, paddy was introduced on a larger scale after mid seventies due to water logging and salt affected conditions in 25 per cent of the area of the state, mostly in central districts.

Later, due to high productivity, paddy got support in terms of assured market and remunerative prices. However, by the mid-eighties, paddy had begun to deplete water resources at an alarming rate while it showed no significant growth in productivity. Consequently, paddy-wheat rotation led to some abiotic and biotic stresses, as 2.6 million hectare area under paddy turns Punjab into a shallow pond every year. This gives rise to higher incidence of diseases and insect-pest attack because of high relative humidity. However, the compulsions of food security at the national level resulted in higher profitability from paddy as compared to other competing enterprises because of government support in fertilizers, power and output prices. Let us have a look at the problem of paddy-wheat rotation from the perspective of long term economic and ecological sustainability.

Research evidence has amply demonstrated that paddy is a water guzzler crop. Its intensification as well as early planting has caused major damage to the groundwater resources, especially in central Punjab. About two-third of paddy production comes from central belt comprising about 47 per cent of the geographical area of the state. Also, two-thirds of the tube wells are in this belt. Both PAU studies and a survey by the Central Ground Water Board have concluded a steep fall in the ground water table in the central belt. This fall was at an alarming rate: 74 cm in 2004-05 alone. It is erroneous to say that this fall is ‘an exaggeration’.

The irrigation water requirement of paddy is 180 cm while it is 45 cm in cotton, 40 cm in maize and 25 cm in groundnut. It is for this reason that agricultural scientists are advocating crop diversification. PAU studies show that since ground water is of poor quality in 40 per cent of the state’s area, it is adversely affecting the soil health. Monoculture of paddy-wheat rotation has further aggravated the soil sickness by mining major and micro nutrients.

The author of the study has ignored the hydrological factors as well. The groundwater flows from north-east to south-west direction at a gradient of one ft per km. Due to mining of ground water resources in central districts, there are indications of reverse flow of groundwater to Moga and Sangrur, where good quality water has turned brackish. PAU studies show that the proportion of this unfit water in Nihal Singh Wala block was 29 per cent in 2004, against 11 per cent in 1997.

Let us also examine the price policy for paddy and its profitability. There are any number of fault lines in the analogy of the study. Favourable price policy for paddy and wheat appears to have outlived its utility. Consequently, the increase in their minimum support price has become nominal during recent years. Therefore, over-dependence on paddy-wheat rotation may prove fatal. Higher profitability of paddy was ensured by its higher prices during eighties and nineties. However, the continuing increase in MSP of paddy has been given a short shrift in recent years.

The minimum support price of paddy during 2001-02 to 2005-06 has increased by 1.8 per cent annually, whereas, cost of production rose by around 8 per cent per annum; thereby squeezing profitability. However, the study by Shergill has selectively chosen 1990-2002 in support of misplaced hypothesis. Unfortunately, the minimum support price of alternative crops was neither commensurate with paddy nor was there assured market for these.

PAU has developed several alternative crop rotations with matching production and protection technologies which too yield nearly equal or higher returns than paddy-wheat rotation: cotton-wheat, basmati-wheat, summer moong-maize-wheat; fruit crops, vegetables, including net house cultivation; and dairying. Therefore, the hypothesis of economic losses to farmers in the wake of diversification towards these rotations does not hold water.

Unemployment, a serious problem, has been further compounded by paddy-wheat rotation. The current level of employment in paddy-wheat rotation is about 120 days in a year. And the suggested diversification in agriculture or alternatives to this cycle is intended to find viable and sustainable solutions to the persistent farm crisis. Professor Shergill’s hypothesis that the labour force released by paddy-wheat rotation contributed to the structural shifts for the growth of economy is unfounded and sans data support. Facts on employment generation suggest that there has been no significant growth in employment opportunities in private and public organized sectors. Contrary to this, employment declined from 2.56 lakh in 2000 to 2.53 lakh in 2005 in private sector and from 5.9 lakh to 5.2 lakh, respectively, in public sector. In the wake of absence of other employment avenues, the rural youth has been bottled up in the farming sector.

Let us now turn to certain facts, which have been ignored by the study. These pertain to social cost of environmental degradation and opportunity cost of power diverted from industrial and domestic sectors to agriculture sector. The ground water resources have depleted. One kilo of rice is produced with the use of around 3000 litres of water on the basis of usage of irrigation water. Such a high social cost in rice production is never accounted for in the cost estimates.

Similarly, the state had to buy electricity worth Rs 640 crores last year for paddy production alone and supplied free of cost. Power was diverted even from industrial and domestic sectors to meet demand in paddy season. About 3500 million kwh of electricity is used in rice production and exported to other (consuming) states free of cost. The economic and the opportunity cost of power usage in addition to the cost of diesel in rice production are also not considered.

More than 30 per cent of the operational holdings of the state are small and marginal and their economic viability is under threat due to falling profitability of paddy and rise in fixed investments due to lowering of the water table. About one-third of the centrifugal pumps in the state have already been replaced with submersible pumps, each costing around Rs 80,000 – Rs 100,000. Its installation is beyond the financial capacity of small and marginal farmers. Further fall in the water table will exclude them from access to groundwater resources and will prove disastrous for their already dwindling economic survival. This will lead to social tensions and impinge on law and order situation. Since small and marginal farmers cannot be wished away, dairying and high value crops like vegetables are the only viable way out.

Votaries of paddy-wheat rotation perhaps are unaware about the volatile nature of international prices. These rule high during import and are on the low during export. In the wake of break down of WTO negotiations on farm subsidies in Geneva recently, the chances of level playing field in the international market is a mirage. Punjab has a better scope of increasing production and exports of suggested alternative crops and dairy enterprises if developed countries reduce their subsidies on these. In the US the quantum of subsidies on cotton alone is staggering nine billion dollars while the per cow per day subsidy in the European Union is 2.5 dollars.

In sum, agriculture diversification requires careful planning and implementation. One should not confuse good economics with ‘not happening’ of the diversification away from paddy. If other alternatives to paddy did not pick up during last few years it was due to poor linkage between producer and buyer as well as inadequate market and post harvest infrastructure and lack of value addition. It will be sheer absurdity to expect an over night change in cropping pattern from traditional paddy-wheat cycle. Punjab is gradually moving toward change and in the desired direction, where the production of other alternative crops can be effectively supported. The winds of change are beginning to blow in that direction and loose ends are being tied up.

The writer is Vice Chancellor, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

Japan’s problem with history
by John Ikenberry

Japan has a serious geopolitical problem. Essentially, the problem is that Japan has not been able to eliminate the suspicions and grievances that still linger in China and Korea about Japan’s militarist past. While postwar Germany has somehow been able to put the “history issue” to rest, postwar Japan has not.

The result is that Japan – 61 years after its surrender and the inauguration of its long, peaceful return to the international community – remains isolated and incapable of providing leadership in a region that is quickly transforming in the shadow of a rising China.

The most visible manifestation of Japan’s history problem is the controversy that erupts each year when the Japanese prime minister visits the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo – the Shinto memorial where the names of 14 World War II-era Class A war criminals are listed among the honored dead. In China and Korea these visits evoke the memory of Japanese war and imperial aggression, trigger popular protests and official condemnation, and provide a readily available tool to push Japan on the defensive and shrink its regional influence and appeal.

This problem was again on display recently – the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War – when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made his expected pilgrimage, covered live on Japanese television, to the Yasukuni Shrine.

Complicating matters, the United States has urged Tokyo along the course of great power “normalisation.” Indeed, some Washington strategists envisage Japan as America’s “Britain in the East” – a normalized and militarily capable ally that can stand should-to-shoulder with the United States as it operates around the world.

The problem is that “normalisation” and “historical reconciliation” are working at cross-purposes. Normalisation requires amending the constitution, acquiring new sorts of military capabilities and breaking longstanding pacifist norms against the use of force. Historical reconciliation requires symbolic gestures of apology and redoubled commitments to restraint and peaceful intent. This will be a tricky game to play. It is certainly going to take more enlightened and imaginative thinking than Tokyo has yet exhibited. And the United States will need to rethink its own vision of East Asia and the U.S.-Japan alliance.

There is a grand irony in the geopolitical hole that Japan has dug for itself.

The irony is that Japan has actually been remarkably successful in defining a postwar identity for itself. Turning a necessity into a virtue, Japan celebrated its “peace constitution” and defined itself as a “civilian” great power that would invest in international peace and security under the auspices of the United Nations. It provided funding for the United Nations, supported international commitments to human security and became a generous provider of official development assistance. But while the wider world admires and respects Japan – and its distinctive civilian-style great power role – its neighbors do not.

Koizumi’s term as prime minister will end after next month’s elections—and this will be a moment when both Japan and the United States might rethink their policies.

Japan needs to find an honorable way to end the visits by prime ministers to Yasukuni – or quietly encourage the Shinto officials who run the shrine to remove the 14 names. But more than this, the next prime minister should try to make historical reconciliation a hallmark of his time in office. Japan’s ability to exert leadership in the region depends on it. Symbolic politics must be part of this strategy of reconciliation. So, too, must be Japan’s approach to “normalization.”

What Japan can do is pursue reconciliation through regional diplomacy, offering a vision of a future East Asian security community. It would be a masterstroke if the next Japanese prime minister announced the end of visits to Yasukuni and invited Chinese and South Korean leaders to a summit in Tokyo.

*****

The writer is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

— By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post