Little did India imagine that the Shinkansen high-speed rail network launched in Tokyo in 1964 would one day carry a million passengers a day. Even farther would have been the thought that one day the technology could be used to connect Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Yet today this signals the beginning of a fresh collaborative journey between India and Japan, going by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for building more high-speed rail (HSR) routes.
If history remembers the partnership only for the HSR, both would have settled for far less. For the Shinkansen, which literally means ‘new trunk line’, is not just about tracks for trains, but the starting point of new journeys too. Education is another track on which this journey can take both nations towards a mutually rewarding destination.
The strategic trust between India and Japan has a legacy that is not driven just by trade and geopolitics. There is also a strong undercurrent of their shared social values, civilisational commons and, more importantly, the contrarian demographic crossroads that bestow on them a rare complementarity.
Let’s begin with demography. Over half of India’s population today is below the age of 30. Every year, lakhs of young Indians graduate from universities to seek meaningful opportunities. On the other hand, Japan’s ageing population is threatening its might as one of the world's foremost technological powers. It is the solution to this demographic conundrum that the coming together of the two nations through an educational-civilisational mix can achieve.
For this, higher education offers perhaps the biggest untapped opportunity to blend both STEM knowledge and non-STEM aspects such as culture and values. The imbalance between the global mobility of Indian students westwards, to North America and Europe, and eastwards, especially to Japan, needs to be addressed.
The deafening silence of the Indian diaspora in business and higher education that I heard during a recent visit to Japan convinced me that a clarion call is needed at the policy level to pivot eastwards. There may be exceptional outliers in both nations, but India-Japan collaboration in such strategically complimentary areas needs a futuristic outlook.
While looking forward, we can learn from traditions too. One way Japanese industries have demonstrated their global competitiveness is through kaizen, the idea of continuous improvement, and monozukuri, the spirit of craftsmanship. Together, they lead to uncompromising quality standards.
Introducing Japanese standards of safety, precision and civic discipline to Indians would not be a one-way street. We can infuse the best of Japanese ways to fuel India’s progress towards a Viksit Bharat by 2047.
India’s manufacturing ambition can soar with Japanese participation to build globally competitive industries in sectors as crucial as semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, renewable energy, machine tools, medical devices, aerospace and defence.
Civilisational connections between the two have been forged for over a thousand years through the spread of ideas linked to Hinduism and Buddhism. Today, yoga, ayurveda, Indian classical arts, cuisine and cinema attract huge audiences in Japan. Equally popular among Indians is Japanese anime, manga, martial arts, architecture, cuisine and design.
The three-day bilateral summit between Prime Minister Modi and his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi starting today solidifies the Modi-Shinzo Abe friendship that brought the two democracies closer for engaging in stronger collaborations.
The relationship can be further cemented through catalysing agents such as higher education institutions and industry partners. Universities are comprehensive canopies for students, artists, entrepreneurs, researchers, innovators and cultural ambassadors. Corporate houses can also be bilateral evangelists capable of accelerating educational-cultural ties. It would require a tripartite coalition of government agencies, universities and companies in India and Japan to uncork the synergies.
Increasing two-way student mobility between Indian and Japanese universities, regular staging of cultural festivals, youth policy and social leadership programmes, language learning initiatives, heritage conservation projects, industry-academia collaborations, endowed schemes for cross-border employability and innovation can effectively strengthen people-to-people bonds.
Given the excellent diplomatic ties but widening trade and social deficits, stronger multidimensional connections can improve regional stability and global economic resilience at a fraught geopolitical moment.
India and Japan can today think of ‘bullet trains’ to promote collaborative learning, innovations and investment in people. The challenge is to convert goodwill into a comprehensive partnership that transforms education, research, manufacturing, innovation, culture, trade and human capital. While India strives to be a developed nation, Japan, the first Asian nation to earn the tag, can offer deep learning.
S Vaidhyasubramaniam | Vice-Chancellor & Tata Sons Chair Professor of Management, SASTRA (Deemed) University
(Views are personal)
