Indian versus Japanese Socio-economic Identity. Japanese Exceptionalism, Myth or Reality?

This chapter demonstrates that Japan was not an “exception” as the Eurocentric historiography has been claiming since the end of the 19th century. Both the cases of India and Japan reflect traditions which allowed very similar ways of socio-economic thinking. The final choices were, however, very different, even contradicting. These were the result of their respective geo-political and geo-economic realities. Japan, thanks to its geographically remote and irrelevant situation up to the mid-19th century, remained independent and reconciled its traditions with modernity and a foreign economic policy focussed on economic growth and development. It was indeed a very pragmatic approach similar to the concept of “nyaya”. India, being focussed because of its central location on trade routes and historical importance as a major centre of production and consumption, was unable to maintain its political independence. Its traditions were consequently used for creating spiritual and socialist alternatives to Western thinking instead of reconciling with it like the Japanese did. In doing so India got trapped in an ideological “blaming-attitude” which was “niti”-oriented. As part of the rise of the West from the 18th to the 20th century Japan has received much attention from conventional international historiography. But in the very near future the main object of historical scholarship may be how to explain the rise of India and China in the 21st century. Other perspectives and historical facts will most probably come to the forefront. Meanwhile a Eurocentric approach of world history continues to dominate historiography. Considering the scale of globalization today, should there not be a more balanced approach to world history in which the roles of Japan and India are put into a broader perspective?status: publishe