By IANS
Kolkata : West Bengal is pivotal to the strong Indo-Japan relationship as reflected in the popularity of famous Bengalis like Subhas Chandra Bose and Rabindranath Tagore in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday.
“Bengal is the gateway to Indo-Japan relationship. The relationship between India and Japan is at the deepest level of the soul and this is reflected in the context of people like Tagore, Bose, Swami Vivekananda and the Japanese artists and intellectuals,” Abe said here after inaugurating the Rabindra-Okakura Bhavan, an India-Japanese cultural centre, in Salt Lake on the eastern fringes of the city.
Abe arrived here Thursday accompanied by his wife Akie and a large business delegation for a daylong trip with packed programmes.
“The Japanese remember Indian freedom fighters like Subhas Bose and Rashbehari Bose. Even now they fondly remember Radhabinod Pal,” he said.
Pal was the lone Indian judge who gave a dissenting judgment at the Tokyo Tribunals after World War II, proclaiming the Japanese not guilty.
“The momentum of Indo-Japan friendship has never been so strong as now. Yesterday I met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi and discussed various issues and agreed on a roadmap. I am here to reaffirm the relationship between Japan and Bengal which is pivotal in the relationship between Japan and India.”
Abe also met Prasanta Pal, 81-year-old son of Radhabinod Pal, for 20 minutes.
“I am glad that I could meet you. Japan-India friendship is there and would be there,” he told Pal who also presented the visiting dignitary some photos of his visit to Japan with his now late father in 1966 when the duo had met the present prime minister’s grandfather.
Abe later met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya at Hyatt Regency Hotel over lunch to discuss various projects and investment opportunities.
Bhattacharya was expected to seek Abe’s help in getting Japanese companies to participate in a chemical hub planned at Haldia near Kolkata. Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemical Corp PTA has invested over Rs.20 billion in Haldia.
“Mitsubishi Chemical will treble its capacity by 2009,” Abe said here.
A request for Japanese funds to build the Rs.43.10 billion East-West Metro project, which is in the final stages of clearance, was also reportedly on the agenda.
Earlier in the day, the chief minister and senior government officials welcomed Abe, who flew in from New Delhi, at the airport. Abe concludes his three-day India visit Thursday.
Abe later visited Rabindra Bharati University’s Jorasanko campus in north Kolkata and released a 250-page book on Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s speeches titled “Talks In Japan” amid presentation of Tagore songs and dances.
He also visited Netaji Bhavan in south Kolkata, which houses the Netaji Research Bureau and a museum on the national hero, and recalled Japan’s association with Subhas Chandra Bose.
“I am impressed to have come to this historic house. Everyone in Japan respects Bose and whenever we remember him Indo-Japan friendship would grow stronger,” he said.
Former Lok Sabha MP Krishna Bose, widow of Netaji’s nephew Sisir Kumar Bose, and her son and Netaji Research Bureau director Sugato Bose showed him around the house which has a museum and has kept encased the car, a rare German-model Wanderer, in which the great freedom fighter had escaped from Kolkata in 1941 while under house arrest under the British.