Yet another attempt...

...to blog regularly. Except for that purple patch I struck during my first year in WIMWI, this has proven surprisingly difficult.

Since I'm now back in Bombay and will begin working soon, I don't except anything very exciting to happen in my social life. Instead, I'll try to write about the books I read and the TV shows I watch.

Today, I continued reading "A History of Japan" by Australian academics Mason and Caiger. I bought it in Tokyo last year, and finally began reading it two weeks ago. In between, I was diverted by Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct" (very engrossing).

Today, I picked up the history again. Read about the Tokugawa bakufu period. That was the time from about 1600 to about 1850 when shoguns from the Tokugawa family ruled Japan in the name of the emperor. This was also the time when the famous closing-up of Japan was enforced, and virtually all movement of persons into and out of the country ceased. The closure is probably unparalleled in history, and I often wonder how Japan managed to catch up with the world so rapidly after its 'reopening' in the mid-nineteenth century. The book has some answers.

The Tokugawa bakufu (bakufu refers to the apparatus of government officials who ran the central administration) oversaw the pacification of Japan after the continuous violence between local feudal lords in the 16th century. The samurai, contrary to my general impression of them, lost their military prowess too. A play written in 1717 has a samurai mother saying to her 10-year old son,

"Of course you're a samurai, but look at your father. He's enjoyed his lordship's favour and his stipend has been increased, but not because he's handy with weapons - there's nothing remarkable about that in a samurai - but because he performs the tea ceremony so well...you should learn how to hold the tea ladle and how to fold the napkins..."

(Anonymous play, cited in A History of Japan, p. 213)

This pacification allowed the government to create a stable administration. People were willing to accept the orders of government officials and laws were obeyed to a meaningful extent. Of course, Japan has always been a very homogenous country and this must have helped in enhancing the power and authority of national rulers as well. Hence, when the new government replacing the Tokugawa bakufu decided to industrialise and 'westernise' Japan, there was no significant obstacle to the implementation of this will.