R・M・プラタープと近代日本のアジア主義-反植民地ネットワーク・世界連邦・日本帝国主義-

二〇世紀アジア広域史の可能性

抄録

Raja Mahendra Pratap (1886-1979) was born the third son of the Mursan royal family of Uttar Pradesh in India, and received his education under strong Muslim influence in Aligarh. At the age of 21, young Raja traveled around the world through Europe, the United States, Japan, and to China.The next year (1908), having become aware of the finiteness of material wealth, Pratap established the “Prem Mahavidyalya (University of Love)” in Vrindavan.
With the outbreak of World War I, Pratap went to Europe hoping to gain the support of Germany for the cause of liberating India from British rule. He joined in secret maneuvers with Germany and Turkey, and in 1915 went to Afghanistan as part of a delegation for both nations to ask the royal king to enter the war against England. The negotiations failed, and he established the Provisional Government of India in Kabul.
In 1918 Pratap rushed to the post-revolutionary Soviet Union, and had a meeting with Trotsky. Since he could not continue carrying out activities in Germany because of WWI, he fled to Budapest in Hungary, and there, established the religious organization “Religion of Love.” He began to appear for the idea of “World Federalism” based on the spirit of “love.”
In 1922 Pratap went to Japan in order to strengthen sympathies for the Indian independence movement in East Asia, at which time he also began to associate with R. B. Bose. His goal of visiting various nations gradually shifted to one of propagating his ideas regarding the “Religion of Love” and “World Federalism”, and to this end he published many articles while in Japan. In September 1929 he founded the “World Federation” magazine in Berlin. Moving from the United States to Japan to Manchu-kuo, he continued to publish a total of 100 issues until March 1942. His unique notion of religious ontology influenced many Japanese Pan-Asianists and produced various linkages among their ideas.
Pratap settled down in Japan in November 1930, and became involved in anti-British maneuvers in Manchu-kuo. The results of these activities however did not turn out well. His social position drastically declined in the mid-1930s and he gradually lost the influence he once had in Japan. Nonetheless, Pratap kept a wide range of personal connections all over the world, and managed to maintain certain ideological associations by means of correspondence with people of different races, nations, and religions.
This paper focuses on the process of how the World Federation movement, which Pratap developed, inspired connections with Japanese Pan-Asianists, and how it was used as propaganda to expand Japanese Imperialism. The relations between Pan-Asianism and both anti-colonial and religious networks that allowed Pratap to travel the globe are also discussed in this paper.