There’s always been little honor in politics, it’s not even an Indic or Western belief as such but a universal thing agreed upon by most cultures and civilizations, like men should provide and women nurture. However, unlike the example I gave, which is facing a deadly onslaught from modern value movements like Feminism, little honor in politics is something which still has stood firm despite assault on divinity of honor or even honor itself by post-modernism. Though an open secret, it was perhaps Machiavelli who laid it bare by pointing out that to succeed in politics it wasn’t merely a good but necessary quality, the quality being-backstabbing. We sing ballads of those who fell in batting from wound taken on chest, but it is those who inflict wounds on the back that sit on or near the throne. The little honor was still out there when we romanticized concepts like sacrifice and chivalry, in the age of democracy, we have ceased being romantics, and what little honor was there, doesn’t seem around anymore. And to be fair, Abe wasn’t exactly the most honorable man but he loved Japan more than his political career and perhaps life. That is honorable.
In present day democracies, elections are fought mostly on domestic issues. International policy for the most past is static with bureaucratic influence perhaps the most in this realm. It makes sense too, you fuck up domestic policy and you might lose the next election, you fuck up international policy and there goes your nation. One might argue that unlike other multi-party democratic nations, Japan has had political stability owing to LDP’s complete dominance, but so did Nehru and even his admirers admit that foreign policy was not his strongest area. What Abe managed with respect to foreign policy is perhaps the greatest feat in international diplomacy of 21st century.
India owes a lot to Abe. His address to the parliament in 2007, “The Confluence of Two Seas” is literally a plea to India to do more in Indo-Pacific and fulfill its destiny to be a maritime and global power, we did not listen. When the Quad came to fruition in 2007 it received heavy criticism domestically both in US and India but it was eventually Australia which chickened out and that was it. Abe stepped down due to health reasons and it seemed that was it. For most of us destiny is pre-written, we live the lives that’s been ordained for us even before our birth, but for those amongst us called “great”, the same is not true. Great men write their own destinies, Abe stormed back to power in 2012 and would remain in power till 2020. Perhaps a combination of foresight and luck, a Chief Minister of an Indian state Abe had visited in 2007 who was also amongst the three people Abe “followed” on Twitter, won a historic national election in 2014. Things also took a wild turn in the USA, Orange Man came to power and Australians had Liberals(ironically conservatives) running things now. But more than these madlads, the one guy without him the Quad would not have returned is Xi Jinping. The madlads of madlads has certainly taken a vow to give us a century of humiliation part II. May the Devas bless him to rule China for decades to come. In less than a decade of rule he has made the entire world unanimously Sinophobic while steering his nation into economic stagnation.
India’s EAM S Jaishankar is married to a Japanese woman coming from an influential family. After Pokhran, reportedly his wife played a pivotal in maintaining Indo-Japanese relations. It was S Jaishankar who fixed the first meeting between Dr. Manmohan Singh and Shinzo Abe. Hence it’s somewhat divine that what Abe extolled the parliamentarians to do, Jaishankar finally got the wheels rolling 14 years later under a PM, Abe had strangely built ties with when he was still a CM. Abe stepped down in 2020, and I think was happy at the time of his death. His nation was pro-nuke now for starters, India is seeming to pull its own weight and China seems to be doomed. Even in death Abe has served its nations, as initial reaction suggests the country will be go on a further reactionary path. Who knows people finally start having unprotected sex in honor for his services. For a man who popularized pro-natalist policies again, it’s ironical that he never had kids of his own but then of all the things he did for nations, he did one thing himself also for love. A true romantic.