Why Is Japan Where It Is?

Modern industries made their debut in India and Japan almost simultaneously. In fact, a little earlier in India, which was the first of the oriental countries to feel the impact of industrialisation. It already had about 10 cotton mills before the Meji Restoration prepared the ground for the rise of factory production in Japan. Yet more than 100 years later, Japan is the second most industrialised country whereas India is still a developing one. A comparative study is, therefore, an interesting subject.

The Meji Restoration marked the industrial breakthrough in Japan. On the eve of the Meji Restoration, the only thing that stood between Japanese society and an entrepreneurial breakthrough was the Tokugawa totalitarianism. The Meji Restoration leaders realised that the only way to meet the challenge of the gate-crashing barbarian West was to catch up with it materially, instead of having contempt for it.

 

The first colonial trade offensive came in the form of textile imports. The Japanese leaders thought that the best way to meet this challenge was to meet the West on its own ground. They sent their boys to the West to learn to make equally good spindles and looms. This option was available to Japan, as it was a semi-colony then.

India had no such option because it was a colony. The Indian leaders response to textile imports was, therefore, to retire into their shell the charkha. The charkha ethos became a fad. Even when India became independent, she found it difficult to get out of the charkha syndrome. India is country where there is deep distrust of modern technology, and this is chief cause for the difference in performance of both the countries.

In Japan, the Meji authorities attended to the task of industrial transition with greater vigour. The kind of confrontation between the government and business that many developing countries have been experiencing was almost absent from the Japanese scene. In fact, the industrial policies and endeavours of the Meji government gave birth to and nurtured the ideology of partnership based on mutual trust and interdependence between the State and business. There has been a cosy relationship between politicians, bureaucrats and business. Of course, it is a different story that this relationship has become counter- productive now.

In India, the colonial rulers exerted very little to generate the forces of industrial transition. It was left entirely to the natural process of change. The author, in fact, has underplayed the obstructionist role of the Raj. It was not a case of benign neglect, as the author makes it out to be. In fact, most positive changes in India were unintended by-products of the policies and programmes directed to tightening the imperial noose around the countrys neck. But this in no way distracts from the fact that entrepreneurial climate in India improved significantly during the Raj although in most cases not because but in spite of it. A study of the Raj, however, reveals that indigenous industry grew only during the war periods. Otherwise the tariff policy, the exchange rate etc. were heavily loaded against Indian industries.

After Independence, this opportunity was lost because of the socialist path. The industrial policy was based on a perceived ideologically adversarial relationship with business.

Much has been made out of the cultural difference between Japan and India. It is said that Confucianism is more rational than Hinduism. Confucianism is not a religion but a code of conduct. Hinduism, on the other hand, is a collective of sects and sub-sects, embracing myriad beliefs and principles, sometimes contradictory, sometimes complementary. The author, however, rejects a cultural explanation, as in both the countries religious institutions and the value system, sanctified by scriptures or traditions, were re-adapted or reinterpreted to facilitate the exploitation of new business opportunities. Industrial transition, it seems can push its way through different socio-cultural parameters. Though culture is not destiny, yet it plays some role. For instance, Confucianism does play a role in austere living, high rate of savings, avoidance of conspicuous competition and hard work. Overall, the book is a good attempt at analysing the historical roots of entrepreneurship in India and Japan.