博客

TOKYO — Japan’s parliament is set to approve a controversial revision to the Imperial House Act on Friday, a piece of legislation that critics warn threatens the long-term survival of the country’s 1,500-year-old hereditary monarchy by entrenching a rigid male-only succession rule amid a rapidly shrinking and aging imperial household.

Under the existing law, women born into the imperial family are barred from ascending the Chrysanthemum Throne, even when they are the incumbent emperor’s direct eldest child. This rule blocks 24-year-old Princess Aiko, Emperor Naruhito’s only daughter and one of the most popular members of the royal family, from succeeding her father. Public support for Aiko’s accession remains widespread across Japan, but the law dictates the line of succession will next pass to Naruhito’s 60-year-old younger brother Crown Prince Akishino, followed by Akishino’s 19-year-old son Prince Hisahito — the first male royal child born into the immediate imperial family in four decades. After Hisahito, the next eligible heir is 90-year-old Prince Hitachi, Naruhito’s elderly uncle.

Today, only 5 of the 16 adult members of the imperial family are men, and there are no minor children in the household. This demographic collapse is the core backdrop to the legislative revision, which the government of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has framed as necessary to protect the purity of the paternal imperial bloodline, which conservative leaders argue is the only source of the emperor’s symbolic authority and legitimacy. While the current emperor’s mother is a commoner, the Imperial House Law requires all heirs to be born to men of royal descent.

The most contested provision in the revised law would allow the imperial family to adopt unmarried male descendants of distant paternal imperial branches, who gave up their royal status in post-World War II reforms, into the household to sire future heirs. A second, less controversial provision would allow princesses who marry commoners to retain their royal status and official duties, a change from current law that requires them to renounce their titles after marrying outside the imperial family. That change was added to address longstanding criticism of the existing rule that pushed princesses like Mako, Naruhito’s niece, to leave the imperial family entirely after marrying a commoner, a move many observers saw as an escape from the institution’s strict, suffocating constraints.

Scholars and critics have denounced the revision as an explicit move to block female monarchs and entrench patriarchal traditions, rather than a practical solution to the monarchy’s demographic crisis. “It’s a declaration to prevent female monarchs and to defend the male-lineage at all costs,” explained Hideya Kawanishi, a Nagoya University expert on Japanese monarchy. “They cannot say it’s male chauvinism, so they call it tradition.”

Prominent Japanese feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno pointed out the stark irony of the nation’s first female prime minister leading the push for male-only succession. She also criticized the framework’s dehumanizing approach to royal women, noting that it “treat male royals as stallions and put female royals under pressure as ‘childbearing machines’ to produce male offspring.” That pressure already took a documented toll on Empress Masako, a Harvard-educated former diplomat and commoner who developed a stress-related mental health condition after decades of public criticism for failing to produce a male heir following Princess Aiko’s birth.

Even former senior palace officials warn the male-only system leaves the monarchy extremely unstable after Prince Hisahito. “Because of the male-only succession rules and the dismissal of princesses who marry commoners, the monarchy after Hisahito is extremely unstable,” former Imperial Household Agency chief Shingo Haketa told Kyodo News recently.

Historians note the male-only system has not functioned as claimed throughout Japanese history: nearly half of all past emperors were born to concubines, a practice that was abolished 100 years ago under Emperor Taisho, Naruhito’s great-grandfather, eliminating the primary safety net that previously guaranteed male heirs. A 2005 government proposal to reform the law to allow female monarchs was scrapped after Prince Hisahito’s birth, leaving the crisis unaddressed.

Critics also question the practicality of the adoption provision. The distant male relatives eligible for adoption are at least 36 generations removed from Emperor Naruhito, tracing their shared lineage back to a common ancestor 600 years ago, after 51 members of 11 branch imperial families renounced their royal status in 1947 to reduce the postwar financial burden on the monarchy. Many question whether any of these distant relatives would agree to upend their lives to enter the highly restrictive imperial institution, where members have no control over their careers, housing, or personal choices. “Who wants the son of an adoptee who nobody knows to be emperor instead of Aiko?” asked Yoshinori Kobayashi, a cartoonist who has campaigned publicly for Aiko’s succession.

Asahiro Kuni, an 81-year-old former member of a renounced imperial branch who worked as an engineer for a major Japanese corporation, told TBS he would advise his own family to decline any invitation to rejoin the royal household. “It’s cruel to tell 15-year-olds to change the entire course of their life for this,” he said, adding he supports allowing female monarchs to lead the institution.

Polling and public commentary confirm broad public support for Princess Aiko’s accession. “The emperor is a symbolic figure, and I don’t see why women cannot serve in the role,” said Junichiro Tsujimura, 78-year-old founder of a popular sushi chain. Another Tokyo resident, 78-year-old Yoshio Iwase, noted Aiko is the emperor’s direct legitimate heir, adding that “there used to be female emperors in Japan’s history, so why not now?” Japan has had eight female monarchs in its history, with the last being Empress Gosakuramachi who ruled from 1762 to 1770.

Many observers also worry the government’s push to entrench male-only succession runs counter to the legacy of former Emperor Akihito, who abdicated in 2019 after working to modernize the monarchy, connect it closer to the Japanese public, and apologize for Japan’s actions in World War II. Palace watchers widely believe Akihito supports reform to allow female succession, and Emperor Naruhito has also signaled quiet disapproval of the current bill. In a June statement, Naruhito said he hoped discussions on the revision would reach a conclusion “that will gain understanding of the people” — a comment interpreted by observers as a subtle expression of his displeasure with the government’s approach.

Seventy-one years after a single activist’s 58-day hunger strike reshaped the political map of the world’s largest democracy, another Indian protester is testing the enduring power of voluntary self-denial as a political tool. Educationist and climate activist Sonam Wangchuk has now survived 19 days on nothing but salt water during an indefinite hunger strike in New Delhi, shedding more than 9 kilograms as he advocates for sweeping education reforms in support of the online satirical Cockroach Janta Party movement. As his health declines rapidly, public concern over his condition has grown, and the Delhi High Court has ordered the national government to monitor his vital signs and provide emergency medical intervention if required.

Wangchuk’s protest is far from an anomaly in India’s modern political history. No other nation has integrated the hunger strike into its political fabric as deeply as India, a tradition rooted in centuries of religious practice and refined into a core tool of anti-colonial resistance and post-independence activism. Long before the founding of the Indian republic, major South Asian faiths including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism have long framed voluntary fasting as a morally significant act of self-denial, a framework that Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence movement, adapted to modern political struggle.

Between 1918 and his assassination in 1948, Gandhi undertook at least 15 major fasts to oppose religious violence, caste discrimination, and British colonial rule. He argued that a hunger strike was not an act of coercion, but a moral gesture of suffering designed to awaken the conscience of opponents and the public alike. His longest fast stretched 21 days, while his final 1948 fast, completed just weeks before his death, helped end communal bloodshed in Delhi. Writing on the eve of that fast, Gandhi described fasting as a peaceful alternative to violent resistance: “Fasting is his last resort in the place of the sword.”

The 1947 fast Gandhi held in Kolkata to end brutal religious rioting won praise even from critics of the tactic. The British-run *Statesman* newspaper noted at the time that while it had long disagreed with the use of fasting as a political tool, “never in a long career has Mahatma Gandhi, in our eyes, fasted in a simpler, worthier cause than this, not one calculated for immediate effective appeal to the public conscience.”

Independent India inherited this centuries-old tradition, and hunger strikes have since been deployed to demand action on nearly every major national issue: farmers’ rights, caste-based affirmative action, environmental protection, anti-corruption legislation, and the repeal of controversial national security laws. High-profile cases dot modern Indian history: In 2011, iconic activist Anna Hazare’s 13-day fast reignited a national anti-corruption movement that captured the attention of the entire country. In India’s northeast, activist Irom Sharmila refused all solid food for 16 years to protest the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, surviving only through forced nasal tube feeding by state authorities. Prominent social activist Medha Patkar has repeatedly held prolonged fasts to demand fair compensation and rehabilitation for communities displaced by large-scale dam projects.

While hunger strikes are a global protest tactic, used by suffragettes in Britain and Irish republican nationalists as a tool of anti-colonial resistance across the British Empire, scholars argue the practice holds unique weight in India. “But in India, where governments can become deeply unresponsive, protesters often see fasting as the only way to force those in power to act,” explains Sayantan Saha Roy, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut who studies the politics of fasting. Saha Roy notes that Gandhi’s transformation of the ancient religious practice into a modern moral and political act created a uniquely rich tradition of hunger strike protest in the country. “In a world of self-interested politics, they stand out as acts of self-sacrifice. As the protester’s body weakens, the moral and political pressure on those in power grows.”

That pressure, however, depends on public engagement to succeed. “Hunger strikes have to be performative to be persuasive. They’re not just aimed at the state, but at the public, whose outrage can pressure those in power,” Saha Roy says. He points to the 1970s and 1980s Irish republican hunger strikes as an example of how the tactic works: by framing their suffering as proof of the state’s cruelty, protesters sought to mobilize public support for their cause. “But there’s no guarantee the audience will respond, which is what makes hunger strikes such a precarious form of protest.”

For all its deep cultural roots, the hunger strike has faced consistent criticism from India’s leading political thinkers since independence. If Gandhi elevated the tactic to a respected moral weapon, B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution, was deeply skeptical of its use in a democratic republic. In a 1949 landmark speech, Ambedkar argued that once constitutional channels for redress were established, fasting and civil disobedience should be replaced by formal democratic processes, warning that unregulated direct action became the “grammar of anarchy.” “The sooner they are abandoned, the better for us,” he said.

That debate has persisted into the 21st century. During Anna Hazare’s 2011 anti-corruption fast, leading political philosopher Pratap Bhanu Mehta argued that high-profile hunger strikes can become “deeply coercive.” When tied to a protester’s moral authority, he wrote, a fast unto death “amounts to blackmail.”

Public skepticism has grown in recent years, fueled by a wave of performative, short-duration fasts staged by politicians for media attention. Social media is regularly filled with jokes and allegations that politicians sneak meals behind closed doors, ending staged “fasts” with lavish private feasts. Many fasts last only a few hours, while others are carefully produced media spectacles complete with branded stages, live news coverage, and pre-planned photo opportunities. Not all acts of self-denial carry the same moral or political weight, as historical outcomes reflect: Potti Sriramulu’s 1952 fast, which ended in his death on the 58th day, ultimately forced Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s government to create the new state of Andhra for Telugu-speaking people, a change that paved the way for the full linguistic reorganization of India’s state borders. By contrast, Hazare’s high-profile 2011 fast galvanized public support but saw its momentum fade quickly, and Sharmila’s 16-year protest failed to force a repeal of the law she opposed.

From a medical perspective, prolonged hunger strikes are always simultaneously a political action and a life-threatening emergency. After two weeks without solid food, the human body begins breaking down muscle tissue as well as stored fat, and electrolyte imbalances can trigger fatal cardiac arrhythmias. Even ending a fast carries risks, as reintroducing food too quickly can cause life-threatening metabolic complications. It is common practice for Indian authorities to hospitalize hunger strikers and administer forced feeding to prevent death, a practice that has been widely criticized by activists.

As Wangchuk’s health continues to decline, a growing coalition of opposition leaders, fellow activists, artists, and public figures have called on him to end his fast. Yet despite widespread cynicism toward staged protest fasts, the belief that voluntary suffering can shift political outcomes in ways speeches and marches cannot remains deeply rooted in Indian political culture.

Wangchuk’s protest follows the long-established script of Gandhian fasting, Saha Roy explains: “In the public demonstration of his suffering, Wangchuk seems to be following Gandhi’s path. As his health deteriorates, his protest gains traction and raises the political stakes for the government. How this unfolds remains to be seen.”

The outcome of Wangchuk’s fast will not only determine the fate of his demand for education reform: it will also offer a new measure of the enduring power of one of India’s oldest and most controversial political rituals.