The Importance of Paul's Day

Right-wingers in the LDP repeatedly submitted a bill restoring public maintenance funding for Yasukuni Shrine. Paul's position as a neutral Asian from India lent him an aura of credibility and respectability, which could be mobilized to defend a nationalistic reading of the war that sanitized what Japan had done. On one hand, he did express concern during his 1952 visit that his narrowly focused dissent aimed at a specific interpretation of the nature of law was being misinterpreted. He didn't really fight the impression that he was exonerating Japan that hard, but supposedly gave permission eventually,. like titles for the argument for Japan's innocence, to be attached to his work.