This was obviously not what the world had seen earlier when armistice was reached at the end of World War I. The end of the First World War saw the victors joining hands to share the big pie that the losers were compelled to leave behind. Thus, the arrangements at Versailles were merely punitive actions imposed mainly on Germany for a crime that all concerned parties were too enthusiastic to commit. As a result, the post-World War I arrangements, no doubt, stirred deep resentment among the Germans that eventually paved the way for Hitler and his henchmen to take control of the state machinery and direct the German nation to regain its lost glory. The Nuremberg Tribunal, on the other hand, was free of such prejudices of the past, and hence was largely successful in broadening the scope of what could be seen as war crimes.

It is now more or less forgotten that the second half of the 1940s had also witnessed the formation and workings of another war crimes tribunal to focus on crimes committed by the imperial Japanese army when it invaded neighboring countries in the name of the Great East Asian Co-prosperity. This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the convening of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, commonly known simply as the Tokyo Tribunal. Although in Japan and elsewhere not much is remembered these days about the tribunal. We the South Asians, mostly recall the tribunal in connection with the dissenting judgment given by an Indian Judge of the Tribunal, Radha Binod Pal. The scope of the Tokyo Tribunal, however, was broader than that of Nuremberg, as it also included at least two judges from countries that, until then were not allowed to play any role in decisive matters of history. In addition to Justice Pal, a judge from the Philippines was also included in the panel of the eleven-member Tribunal that had the responsibility not only to judge the criminal acts of the wartime Japanese leadership, but also to make sure that the tragedy was not repeated. But was it as successful as its counterpart in Nuremberg?

The question has divided the Japanese nation, as well as the people of many other Asian countries, ever since the judgment was delivered in November 1948. We, the people of Bengal, tend to look at the issue from an emotional angle, as the lone Bengali-speaking judge of the tribunal acquitted all of the accused from the charges of any crime they had committed by invading other countries. Justice Pal's dissenting judgment tried to focus on the moral issue of judging the losers by the winning sides. As a result, the honorable Indian judge of the Tribunal failed to see in the acts of the Japanese imperial army any trace of crime as what they did, in his opinion, were mere repetitions of what had long been practiced by those who were now trying the losers.

Justice Pal's arguments at the Tribunal boosted the position of those in Japan who even today see in the tribunal a mere attempt by the Western nations to subjugate Japan by forcing a number of unequal treaties on the country as they had done during late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It is no wonder that Radha Binod Pal has become a darling of such nationalists groups of Japan ever since he expressed disagreement with his other colleagues at the tribunal in Tokyo. A bust of Justice Pal has been erected in Japan, which till now stands as the only such example among all the members of the full bench of the International Tribunal. A film devoted to the wartime Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, which was released in connection with the tenth anniversary of the verdict given by the Tokyo Tribunal, devoted a significant portion of time to Justice Pal; and his portrait now decorates a corner of the war museum at Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine.

These facts clearly indicate that the process of undermining the international mechanism that was in place to help Japan get rid of the excess of nationalism is now very much underway. As a result, the sixtieth anniversary of the formation of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was more or less a silent observance, in which only the media tried to focus on that important issue of the past and tried to find out how the verdict of the tribunal itself is being judged by the Japanese people more than five decades after its deliverance.

According to an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in late April, 70 percent of Japanese adults have little or no knowledge at all about the Tokyo Tribunal. 53 percent of the respondents said that though they were aware of the existence of such a tribunal, they did not know any further details. 17 percent said they knew nothing at all about the tribunal. This ignorance was far greater among younger generation as 90 percent of those in their 20s said they had little or no knowledge of the tribunal.

The proceedings of the tribunal tried 28 Japanese wartime leaders and ended with the conviction of 25 defendants, out of whom seven, including the wartime Prime Minister Tojo, were sentenced to death. The tribunal was designed to condemn Japan's war of aggression and hold Japanese political leaders accountable for war crimes they committed in Asian countries. It should be noted that Japan accepted the outcome of the Tokyo Tribunal when the country signed San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, which brought Japan back into the fold of the international community.

The result of the Asahi poll suggests that a process is now underway in Japan to reassess the country's past, particularly the part of the past that some in Japan see as an effort by outsiders to undermine the country. Though the process started long ago, it received much needed moral boost ever since Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi started his regular yearly visit to the controversial shrine that among others enshrines fourteen of Japan's wartime leaders who were convicted by the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

Though Japan is yet to declare the trial illegitimate, certain acts of the country's leadership suggest that this is probably what they would like to do should the right moment arise. But would this effort to put the trial itself under question free Japan from the burden of responsibility for her acts during the war? Obviously not, as this would also mean a whole rearrangement of the country's position in international affairs, including that of her relationship with the United States, a step that Japan simply cannot afford to undertake.

As a result, we can presume that the whole act of looking at the position of Japan's past by its present leadership is an effort to appease those who are increasingly becoming ignorant of what Japan did in the past. As long as their numbers continue to grow, the leaders traveling the narrow lane of popularity would probably not be in a position to ignore that reality, be it at the cost of even denying history.