Not without Blood, Sweat and Tears

The critical role played by agriculture in the modernisation of Japan, well-highlighted in the literature, is held to be a model worthy of emulation by latecomers. What this meant for the poor or the tenant farmer is something that does not get much attention. This article looks at the writings of a poor owner-tenant farmer, Teisuke Shibuya, who maintained a diary in the years 1925–6 in which he had graphically recorded the conditions in agriculture and the kind of life the peasant led. We also utilise a book Shibuya published 60 years after he started maintaining the notes which led to the publication of the diary. Shibuya, who actively struggled to raise peasant consciousness, was articulate and extremely well read, and could hold his own in debate with urban intellectuals. His writings are valuable as they convey the actual life of the peasantry during Japan’s modernisation drive. In Shibuya’s jottings, the emotions and feelings of the peasant who was exploited by the authoritarian state and the landlord system come through, presenting us with a picture that is vastly different from the standard academic writings on the subject, thus cautioning us when we uncritically attempt to learn lessons from the Japanese modernisation experience.