It was a rare moment to see the Chairman of such a big company, delve into personal memories of an era gone by, and that too on a public platform. I am talking about Suzuki Motor Corp. Chairman Osamu Suzuki’s nostalgic moments in an interview where he spoke about India-Japan ties, Sanjay Gandhi’s role in Maruti and Dr. Radhabinod Pal’s perspective of Japan in World War II.
Deviating from the current woes of the Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar, Haryana, Mr. Suzuki took time off and went into a nostalgic mode in front of reporters in New Delhi. He spoke about his love for India and how he considers Haryana his first home and Gujarat his second. It is very rare for a Japanese executive to get into personal mode in front of the public, so Mr. Suzuki’s revelations comes as a big shock to most people this side of Asia.
Sporting the traditional Indian turban, Mr. Suzuki further went on to talk about his opinion on Radhabinod Pal, a former judge of the Calcutta High Court and law professor at the University of Calcutta. Dr. Pal was one of 11 judges assigned by the Allied powers to oversee the trial of twenty-five top military and political leaders of imperial Japan who were responsible for planning the war in the Pacific. He went on to recount the Tokyo trials, or the cases that were heard by the International Military Tribunal of the Far East.
In any case, Japan is a major player in the economic and infrastructural growth of India, they are investing close to $90-billion in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and essaying the role of a major technical backer and financier. So the Manesar riots swept aside, a trip down memory lane seemed the right anecdote to set things right once again in the Indo-Japanese ties.