Osamu Suzuki Revisits History and Dwells on India-Japan Ties

It was a rare sight: the chairman of a giant corporation, delving into personal memories of a bygone era — on a public platform. Suzuki Motor Corp. Chairman Osamu Suzuki, in an interview in New Delhi, drifted into nostalgia about India-Japan ties, Sanjay Gandhi's role in Maruti, and Justice Radhabinod Pal's view of Japan during World War II.

Stepping aside from the then-current troubles at the Maruti Suzuki plant in Manesar, Haryana, Suzuki slipped into reminiscence mode before reporters. He spoke of his love for India — how he considers Haryana his first home and Gujarat his second. It is genuinely unusual for a Japanese executive to turn personal in front of the press, which is why the interview, reported by the Wall Street Journal's India Real Time, made waves.

Sporting a traditional Indian turban, Suzuki spoke about Radhabinod Pal — the Calcutta High Court judge who sat on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. Pal was the lone dissenter among the tribunal's judges, arguing the Tokyo trials were victor's justice and calling for the acquittal of Japan's wartime leaders — a stance that made him a revered figure in Japan and a near-unknown one in his own country.

The history lesson carried a present-day purpose. Japan was deepening its economic footprint in India — backing the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor as a major technical partner and financier — even as the Manesar labor violence tested Indo-Japanese business ties. With that as backdrop, Suzuki's trip down memory lane read as more than nostalgia: it was a reminder, from one of the oldest Japanese investors in India, that the relationship runs deeper than any single dispute.