Manmohan Singh and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (second from right) with their wives Gursharan Kaur and Akie Abe (left) during a welcome ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, Aug. 22: A picture-perfect Parliament was on display today as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sketched the beginning of “a long and beautiful relationship” with India.

Minutes later, both Houses were a study in contrasts as angry lawmakers stalled proceedings with the demand that action be taken against Ronen Sen, India’s ambassador to the US.

In a stirring speech in Parliament, the Japanese Prime Minister paid tribute to Radhabinod Pal, the lone judge who refused to condemn the Japanese as war criminals during the Tokyo Trials after World War II.

Abe’s determination to meet Pal’s son Prashanto in Calcutta tomorrow comes amid some criticism back in Japan that the Prime Minister is playing to the nationalist gallery.

But Abe, despite his minority Prime Minister status, has remained unfazed. Partly because his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi was one of those accused by the Allied powers of being a war criminal and partly because Kishi and Radhabinod Pal were good friends.

Hiroshige Seko, the special adviser to Abe, told The Telegraph: “The Prime Minister is going to Calcutta because he likes the city and believes it to be especially friendly to Japan.’’

In the same spirit, Abe told parliamentarians today that the Japanese people had undergone a “discovery of India’’ and begun to look upon the country as a partner in freedom and prosperity.

This was only the second time in recent years that a foreign leader was being given the honour to address a joint session of Parliament. But unlike the time Bill Clinton had spoken in the Central Hall in 2002, when parliamentarians had vied with each other to shake the erstwhile US President’s hand, the 14th Lok Sabha was a picture of decorum.

The parliamentarians applauded at the right places, even gave Abe a standing ovation at the end of his speech. But the special excitement associated with the Clinton visit was missing.

As for Abe, he invoked the title of a book by Dara Shikoh in 1655 called the Confluence of the Two Seas, saying the Pacific and Indian oceans that washed Japan and India were now engaging each other in a “broader Asia”.

Clearly, the reference was to a rising China next door, whose increasing defence expenditure a senior Japanese official described as being of “considerable concern”.

Abe’s speech made no mention of China. But it was littered with implicit comparisons in terms of freedom, democracy and human rights — as well as the need to protect shipping routes between the two countries for trade and commerce.

Abe also proposed a new initiative called “Cool Earth 50”, which went beyond the Kyoto protocol by promising to cut global emissions of greenhouse gases by 50 per cent by 2050.