Tangoing with Tokyo

There is perhaps no other pair of major world powers whose strategic interests overlap as much as they differ from each other socio-culturally as India and Japan. Japan is a capital-rich country with an ageing and declining population. India is a capital-poor country poised to reap a major demographic dividend in the next few decades. Indians are as argumentative as the Japanese are polite. India is a deeply stratified hierarchical society, in contrast to Japanese society’s much more egalitarian ethos. India is as heterogenous as Japan is homogeneous. The work culture and integrity of the lower levels of the Indian bureaucracy are almost the polar opposite of its counterparts in Japan. Indian food is as spicy as Japanese food is not.

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