Mirror to the past

The Yasukuni Shrine inTokyo is a monument dedicated to those who died in the wars for Japan's imperial aims, including convicted war criminals. Every year, Yasukumi becomes a contentious site, even among the Japanese. VIVEK PINTO writes on the position of the shrine in the nation's psyche.

"Mountbatten left for London on May 14, (1947) with the agreement reached with the Congress and League leaders and suggested to Attlee that the date for transfer of power be advanced from June 1948 to August 15, 1947. (I was told he chose August 15, because the Japanese surrendered to the Allies on this date in 1945.)"

Durga Das, India: From Curzon to Nehru and After (1969), p. 247.

THERE has always been a certain amount of speculation as to why August 15 was chosen as the date for India's Independence from British colonial rule. Philip Ziegler, in his biographical work, Mountbatten, writes, "Mountbatten claimed that the date came to him as by inspiration, the only reason for August 15, being the somewhat tenuous one that it was the anniversary of his appointment as Supreme Commander." However, Mountbatten later "contradicted" this statement in his "own retrospective despatch in which he states that 15 August was agreed with the Indian leaders in the first days of June." Notwithstanding this denial, Ziegler clarifies, "No trace of such conversations is to be found in the copious records."

Adding a further twist while clarifying matters, Mountbatten's Press Attache, Alan Campbell-Johnson, in Mission With Mountbatten, tells us of the "splendid opportunity (which Mountbatten grasped in his broadcast to America on August 8, 1947) to drive home the double meaning of August 15 - V. J. Day - not only as the celebration of a victory, but also as the fulfilment (sic) of a pledge." What is not in question, irrespective of the writings of Das, Ziegler and Alan Campbell- Johnson, is that India was independent on August 15, 1947 and on this very day in 1945, Japan surrendered in World War II.

Through some strange coincidence or irony, the Embassy of India in Tokyo is located just across the road from the immense and imposing (due to its torii or entrance gate) Yasukuni Shrine. The word Yasukuni means "to bring peace to the nation". Every year, on August 15, this shrine ignites powerful and painful memories for most Japanese, and the physical location provides the effective space in religio-historical terms to give public expression to one's private grief. At the same time, various competing religio-political forces, in the form of civic organisations which are firmly linked to political parties, vie to communicate their messages and secure control of the very same public space.

What is so special about this shrine? Aren't there many other shrines all over Japan, which provide similar space? The answer is that Yasukuni is one of two shrines (the other being the Grand Shrine at Ise) in the religio-political pantheon of Japan, which has a predominant position in Japanese society. Yasukuni is a Shinto shrine, opened in 1869, in the heart of the capital. It is dedicated to those who died (by inscribing their names on mortuary tablets and then enshrining them) in various wars for Japan's imperial aims. This is not a war cemetery. It is here that the "spirits of 2,466,344 people are enshrined. They include martyrs of the Meiji Restoration and victims of the Satsuma Rebellion, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, World War I, the Manchurian Incident, the Sino- Japanese War of 1937-45 and the Pacific War. Soldiers, civilians employed by the military, and others who lost their lives in the course of their official duties are enshrined (here)."

These facts give Yasukuni its special and probably unique status. The belief of enshrining spirits is connected to ancestor- worship, which is a part of Shinto religion. However, when the compelling concepts of kokutai (national essence), seishin-shuji (the victory of spirit over material) and emperor-worship are interpolated with the former, they result in State Shinto. State Shinto provided the puissant ideological underpinnings of the Japanese Empire from the late 19th Century until 1945.

The concept of kokutai made it imperative, together with emperor- worship, for most Japanese to be not only nationalistic (being otherwise was an act of treachery), but dying for Japan was the most spiritual and purifying act imaginable. This was effectively fostered by the concept of seishin-shuji, which made logical thought impossible.

Every year, on August 15, the Yasukuni Shrine takes on metaphysical dimensions. It literally becomes a site of angst. With its religio-political connotations, it becomes the physical location of the Japanese national psyche. Right-wing zealots come here, together with thousands of others as supposedly wide-eyed onlookers, and sing the controversial national anthem, Kimigayo (The Emperor's Reign), adopted as the National Anthem in 1888. War-veterans parade in quaint uniforms with weapons and the Rising Sun flag, which adds to the sense of bathos. The parade is accompanied by rousing military music dating from the war, which blares through loudspeakers, lending the day a certain majesty and momentousness, though the melancholia of onlookers is palpable.

The shrine would not be controversial if this were everyday agit- prop, staged by a small section of Japanese society, albeit nationalistic and harking back to the dismal misadventures of an earlier and sad era in Japan's political history. What is it that makes the Yasukuni Shrine so controversial? This is not an easy question. To answer it, many overlapping religious, political and historical reasons must be considered: these need sensitive understanding and careful sifting, before a conclusion can be reached.

First, among the "spirits" enshrined at Yasukuni are those of seven war criminals tried and hanged after World War II, including war-time Prime Minister, General Hideki Tojo. One may question the "justice" meted out to the vanquished by the American "victors" at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, but the fact of their enshrinement, along with millions of others, makes Yasukuni contentious politically, historically and ethically among Japanese themselves. The sufferings which these wartime leaders and soldiers, including the Class A convicts, caused to people in Southeast Asia is still a festering wound, crying for urgent healing.

Second, even before and during World War II, Yasukuni was regarded as a "religious institution of the military". It is known that "it (Yasukuni) was run by the Ministry of War ... with generals presiding at its ceremonies. And it was guarded by military police. Imperial visits gave it far greater authority than other shrines in Japan." However, "in December 1945, the shrine was stripped of its state sponsorship under orders from the General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation Forces." Thus, intentionally, the shrine's potential as an effective symbol for the revival of State Shinto - which had a large part to play in Japan's rabid nationalism, marked propensity for war, death and destruction in many parts of Southeast Asia and Pacific, and utter submission to temporal authorities - was "foreclosed under the postwar Constitution, which provides, in Articles 20 and 89, for the separation of politics and religion." Merely stripping the shrine of its military panoply and exposing it to a poorly prepared, supposedly secular world has far from remedied matters. In fact, paradoxically, it has given the shrine far greater importance in the ethos of the nation. Today, the shrine has become a de facto hallowed ground to most Japanese. As Ian Buruma comments, "What it glorifies in a quasi-religious manner is not belligerence or hatred, but self-sacrifice. Most important of all, (is) the denial that the suicide missions were an utter waste of life which only prolonged the war (and) the death of thousands is imbued with bogus significance." The last is not the view of most Japanese. Naturally then, when this national space for mourning and healing becomes a vexatious site, profound emotions are stirred and painful memories resurrected, which the State strangely or otherwise is seemingly unable to sensitively salve.

Third, Japanese Prime Ministers in their official capacity have mostly stood away from visiting the shrine on August 15, lest they stir further unnecessary controversy though, in the recent past, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone paid homage in his official capacity on August 15, 1985. Such visits invariably raise moot political questions such as, "Why is the government promoting the shrine as a national resting place for those dead in the war, without separating the convicted war criminals whose spirits also repose alongside?" What is the government's understanding of the Constitutional separation of religion and politics?

Fourth, China and other Asian neighbours are highly critical of Japanese government officials visiting the shrine as they consider it as "a litmus test of how Japan looks at its own past." There are deep war wounds within the national psyches of these neighbouring nations too, which cannot be healed, the neighbours unambiguously and repeatedly contend, if Japan continues to justify and glorify its role in past wars. In their words: "It is not your money we want. It is the truth we want you to make clear. Only then will the problem be solved."

If these reasons were insufficient to make Yasukuni controversial, consider this. Exhibited within the precincts of the shrine and in the museum are: artillery pieces employed by the Imperial Army in the Pacific War, memorials to such elite corps as the kempeitai (the military police equivalent to the Secret Service) and kamikaze pilots (kamikaze, literally, means "divine wind": these were members of the Japanese attack corps in World War II assigned to make a suicidal crash on such targets as ships), mementos from the Burma railway, a kamikaze plane, battle flags signed by soldiers in their own blood, and a one-man suicide submarine. One cannot escape the huge bronze statue of Masujiro Omura (1824-69), popularly accepted as the founder of the Japanese Army. How do all these instruments and memorabilia of death, destruction and doom "bring peace"? If they do, then this is surely a staggering concept of peace, is it not? The dominant questions one ponders after visiting the Yasukuni Shrine are: Is this a war museum or is it a memorial to those who died in blind obedience for causes which they were mostly ignorant of? Can it be both, without distorting the purpose? Can such a controversial space in a troubled nation's psyche provide the proverbial and elusive balm for national healing and neighbourly reconciliation?

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