THE JAPAN EXPERIENCE

THE JAPAN EXPERIENCE PERSONAL EXPERIENCES I N August 1945, the USA dropped two atom bombs on Japan reducing two of its major cities to rubble. Strangely enough, the Japanese seem to bear no grudge against the Americans, for, they say, it had only reacted to Japan’s violence in the arena of war. The responsibility, therefore, needs to be shared by each side. This realistic attitude on the part of the Japanese has seen them through all kinds of adversity and brought them to extraordinary heights of progress in modern times. Both the big industrial cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bustling with life, became enormous expanses of devastation in a matter of minutes. Within a ten-mile radius every kind of life—human, animal and vegetable was blown to bits. One and half million people died on the spot. Ten thousand of them simply disappeared. Yet, these cities have now been built up once again with wide streets, spacious houses, beautiful parks and gardens. Everything here now has a modern look. Only one ruined building has been left as it was, in order to remind one of the grim punishments meted out to them during the Second World War. When Mr Khushwant Singh (a noted Indian journalist and an acclaimed author, d. 2014) visited Japan, he learnt, much to his astonishment, that the Japanese do not exploit the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to discredit the USA. It is the other nations, on the contrary, who have exploited the same event for this purpose. When Khushwant Singh asked the reason behind this attitude, a Japanese replied in a surprisingly calm tone: “We hit them first at Pearl Harbour. We killed a lot of them. They warned us of what they were going to do, but we thought they were only bluffing. They beat us fair and square. We were quits, and now we are friends.” (The Hindustan Times, April 4, 1981) A memorial has been erected to commemorate the dead, the victims of a gruesome tragedy. In the museum are displayed photographs depicting death and destruction on a mass scale. About 70 lakh