This has been a season for Friendly Foreign Affairs for India, and I am drawing these words from a story in our previous edition. For many months now, either Prime Minister Narendra Modi is travelling out or he is warmly welcoming foreign Presidents and Prime Ministers in New Delhi, or elsewhere in other cities.
August 15 marked India’s 80th Independence Day, and as India moves fast forward in this age of Technology, Satellites and Laser Connectivity, building and maintaining good relations warrant matching steps and speeds in Relations between States. The Modi Government’s foreign policy, ably steered by career diplomat and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, is ever widening the Smiles of Friendship. High level exchanges have taken place with several countries in the recent months, say Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Seychelles, Slovakia, and most significantly, Japan.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was in New Delhi this July on a three-day visit, and in the summit meeting with Mr Modi, the two countries worked out an ambitious agenda for cooperation in highly advanced Semiconductors, which dot nearly every sophisticated electronic system anywhere, from the deep, dark depths of the seas to the invisible heights of the skies where our satellites operate. Critical Minerals, Artificial Intelligence, Clean Energy, Logistics, Mobility, and most advanced Defence and Space systems, our everyday lifeline of 24 x 7 mobile phones, nothing works without the chips, or semiconductors.
The summit was also about resilient supply chains, which are occasionally threatened in the dynamics of global ambitions and desire for dominance and control of natural resources.
Japanese are among the first to set up industries in India, and they have some 1400 companies. Mitsui, (Maruti) Suzuki, Toyota, Honda, Nissan provide comfortable rides to Indians on bumpy roads.
Japanese are gracious in personal and business relations, technologically great, and sticklers to quality.
I have had friends from Japan from my college days; my immediate neighbour in my International Students House hostel in the University of Delhi was Ihe Kishida, and as I became a writer on Defence and Foreign Affairs, and a Foreign Correspondent based in Dubai, my Japanese circle widened. My close friend and colleague Firdous Khergamvala had to resign from the Indian Foreign Service as per the Rules applicable then to marry his gentle Japanese friend Masako. A brilliant officer with an Army background, he moved on become The Hindu’s Middle East Correspondent based in Bahrain.
Minister Jaishankar has a key role in India’s foreign policy, and his wife is also a gracious Japanese, Mrs Kyoko Jaishankar.
It so happens that bang opposite the India Strategic office in Gurgaon, it’s also a Japanese company there. Japanese are around us for long, and we love them.
My personal experience aside, actually everything Japanese is good, quality is assured and every word given by a Japanese is honoured. The quality of their products is super. I have a 1981 Hitachi Stereo Radio Cassette player, Made in Japan, that I bought in April that year in Dubai after my posting to the UAE, and it still works fine.
This is enough background on India’s relations with Japan, even though based on personal anecdotes. The fact is, whichever side of the mirror you are, relations between India and Japan are time-tested, and built on mutual Respect and Trust.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi was grace, discussions were result-oriented, and thanks to the respect the Japanese command in India, Mr Modi welcomed her as My Sister.
Do I need to say more? Salute Madam Prime Minister.
— Gulshan Rai Luthra
