Okakura Kakuzo

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Okakura Kakuzō (14.02.1862, Yokohama – 02.09.1913), the nationalistic Japanese writer and art critic with great influence upon modern Japanese art. He was also intimately concerned with the ideal of Asian reawakening and solidarity. He came to Calcutta in 1901 and at a gathering of the town’s elite announced: “You are such an educated race. Why do you let a handful of Englishmen tread you down? Do everything you can to achieve freedom, openly as well as secretly. Japan will assist you.” Okakura did not know much of English. His manuscript dealing with Pan-Asiatic cultural connections was rewritten by Sister Nivedita and named The Ideals of the East (1903). It bore the stamp of Swami Vivekananda’s ideology on Asia. Okakura inspired P. Mitter and Saria Ghoshal to start revolutionary centres in Bengal.

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