Social infrastructure, cultural exchange to get boost in Edogawa: Yogendra Puranik

Edogawa, Tokyo (Japan). Overwhelmed with his resounding victory in the municipal corporation elections from Edogawa, Yogendra Puranik – the first Indian to contest and win municipal elections in Japan is revisiting the list of promises he made to the people of Edogawa during election canvassing.

The election manifesto of Yogendra Puranik or Yogi as he is known locally had flagged the issues of poor social infrastructure in Edogawa, had promised to address the issues of entertainment avenues, government-run public schools, and crèche for the children of foreigners there.

Edogawa, which is one of the 23 municipal wards of Tokyo, is a fairly backward region with very poor social infrastructure. With about 4500 people of Indian origin and other nationalities of Korea and Chinese besides Japanese, the place lacks the very basic avenues of entertainment and elementary living.

The cultural divide between the foreigners and Japanese natives too is also the cause of concern for Yogi.

In an interview with Asian Community News (ACN) Network, Yogi said that despite being the part of Japan’s national capital Tokyo, Edogawa is yet to have such as malls, theatres or multiplexes, vocational training facilities for breastfeeding mothers and even crèche for babies.

“Young and elderlies, both have voted for him during the elections, and now I feel the pressure to fulfill their requirements. They have expectations from me, and I own the responsibility to do real work on the ground in Edogawa for the people here.  Edogawa is a very backward area and does not have even one movie theatre or a mall but it has some parks only. I will try to bring an entertainment place for the people so that can spend time with their friends and families,” said Yogi.

Also read: YOGI wins elections in Japan. Aspires to become Mayor

Yogi accused the previous Mayor for the fiasco in Edogawa and said that Edogawa did have just one public daycare center run by the government and it was not enough for the given population here.

“The previous mayor saved money and closed public kindergarten care centers here even though billions of yens were there in the kitty. Working mothers can go back to work without worry after leaving their children in the daycare centers,” said Yogi.

When asked what he is going to do the Indians in specific, Yogi said that even though the foreign nationals paid taxes but the government had not opened public schools for their children in Edogawa where they could get an education at an affordable fee.

There are Japanese schools here but not the international public schools for the foreign nationals Edogawa.

While talking about other initiatives, Yogi said that he plans to start briefing sessions at the ward office in Edogawa for the foreigner workers coming to register themselves.

“We plan to start 1-2 hours briefing session in the English language for the foreign nationals on the pre-requisites on how to live in Japan. Such sessions can be organized for the Koreans and Chinese too in their own languages and also in the Hindi language for the Indian workers who don’t have knowledge of English,” said Yogi

While touching upon the issue of cultural exchanges between the Japanese and foreigner communities in Edogawa, Yogi said that he said Indians and Japanese don’t mix much and communicate or hangout in Edogawa. Only a few Japanse participate in the Indian festival events here. We need more cultural exchanges so that both the communities can mix, know each other’s cultures, he said.

When asked about the reaction of the people from Japan and from his hometown in Pune, Maharashtra in India, Yogi said that his Facebook page was flooded with greetings from all over. A huge number of people are calling him over his phone to congratulate him or visiting him in Edogawa too.

He said that Indian ambassador to Japan Sanjay Verma too called him up to congratulate him, but said that he was the image of India now and advised him to keep it clean.

“People have a lot of expectations from me and I own responsibility to fulfill their expectations,” said the beaming Yogi.

(Nupur Tewari represents Asian Community News (ACN) Network in Japan, and she is based out of Tokyo.)