He is known as the father of Little India.

Jagmohan S. Chandrani heads the Edogawa Indian Association. He is widely known in Tokyo’s Indian community for helping Indian expatriates settle in the Nishi-Kasai district of Tokyo's Edogawa Ward.

In a recent interview with The Asahi Shimbun, Chandrani, 70, recalled his early days in Japan and discussed where he sees society heading.

He said he feels young Japanese people have lost nuance in their thinking. He also regrets their declining interest in overseas travel.

But as a cheerleader for Nishi-Kasai, Chandrani believes the neighborhood is a model for how other districts may look in the future. He said it has the potential to become fully cosmopolitan and explains why that is more valuable than an international community.

Excerpts of the interview follow:

***

Question: When did you come to Japan?

Chandrani: I came to Japan in 1978, when I was 26 years old.

I wanted to import tea from India, but for that I'd need a warehouse to store tons of tea. So I rented a newly built warehouse in the waterfront area in Edogawa Ward and moved into Nishi-Kasai, which is nearby. Nishi-Kasai Station on the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line was not yet built.

Q: When did Indians start moving into Nishi-Kasai?

A: Nishi-Kasai Station opened in 1979, but even about 20 years later there were still only four Indian households in the neighborhood.

In 1998 or thereabouts I began seeing Indians in the town frequently.

They were IT workers brought over from India by Japanese companies to deal with the Year 2000 problem, which was expected to cause computers to malfunction. They were looking for places to live.

Q: Was it difficult for them to rent homes?

A: Many of them lived in hotels and worked in Otemachi, Nihonbashi and other districts in central Tokyo. They said they wanted to rent homes so that they could cook for themselves.

Nishi-Kasai offers easy access (to central Tokyo) as it takes about 15 minutes on the subway. Besides, it was a newly developed area and it had many apartment buildings.

But because landlords and real estate agencies knew little about Indian tech workers, it was difficult for them to rent homes.

So I volunteered to help. I would visit realtors with them and negotiate on their behalf.

Q: That's how you started supporting the lives of tech workers.

A: The capabilities of Indian IT engineers won recognition during the Year 2000 episode and many of them decided to remain in Japan for work.

I opened a restaurant that formerly was a diner for Hindu vegetarians and an Indian food store.

An Indian school opened for the children of expatriates, an Indian festival drew many Japanese people, and other things also went well.

This made the area the frontier town that it is today, I think. Currently, more than 3,000 Indians live in Nishi-Kasai or nearby.

Q: Have Japanese people changed in the past 40 years?

A: I think they--especially younger ones--have become “digital” in their thinking.

It's like, there is a clear difference between what they are interested in and what they aren't, with no gray area between.

I also feel that is the reason why the number of young people studying or traveling abroad has decreased.

Young Japanese backpackers used to be seen frequently in India, but I hear that their numbers have drastically dropped.

I sometimes speak to students at Japanese universities, and I tell them their generation will definitely be working with non-Japanese people.

So, it is important to take an interest in the gray area.

Q: What do you think Nishi-Kasai will be like?

A: I want it to be a cosmopolitan town, not an international one. Being international means there is still a distance between one country and another because it is inter-something.

I like a cosmopolitan town better because you can be a part of it no matter who you are and where you come from.

Japanese children in Nishi-Kasai are not afraid of non-Japanese people, and they can choose what they want to eat when they go to an Indian restaurant.

It will become cosmopolitan in a few years' time. The first example of Japan's future society is right here.

***
Born in 1952 to a trading family, Chandrani graduated from the University of Delhi. He runs a business trading in tea. He also works as a restaurateur and consultant.

India is expected to surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2023.