Who is Radhabinod Pal?
And what has that got to do with the movie 12 Angry Men?
Well, to those who have seen the movie, it is a story of one man, who happens to be a part of the 12 member jury to crusade the cause of the accused in the murder case. A brilliant narration and screenplay, tighly revolved around those 12 jury men and the case on the hand. A must see movie, if you have not seen it.
Very similar to that, Radhabinod Pal was the only one out of 11 Allied justices who handed down a not guilty verdict for Japan’s top wartime leaders at the post-World War II International Military Tribunal for the Far East, or what are popularly known as the Tokyo trials.
For this act, Radhabinod thought that Japanese actions were akin to any other imperial powers’ and as such do not require so severe a punishment. Infact he thought that the American bombing of Hiroshima was even more henious than the Japanese or for that matter Nazi crimes.
Every issue has two sides, and NY Times gives a slightly different perspective here, however what matters to me is in India where this person has been long forgotten, japanese still remember him, honour him and that’s why the Japanese Premier recently on his visit to India traveled to Calcutta to meet the judge’s 81-year-old son.
At the end, one angry man may not be the majority and may not change much, but you know, it still makes a difference.
Hi! I just watched 12 Angry Men and I thought it could have been a metaphor for the guilt for Hiroshima at the time, a kind of mea culpa for hiroshima, with a kind of confirmation of an ‘american rectitude’. Yourself, do you think it’s an obvious metaphor in the movie or did you make the comparison for other reasons? I’m wondering right now if there’s any equivalent for nowaday’s ‘irak mistake’–I don’t see any and I don’t think so—because I think americans see it more like a bad move than a morally wrong action. I don’t know. what do you think?