Popular/People’s Rights Movement

Jobial alex

❖ Assess the significance and impact of the Popular Rights movement in the Meiji Period. (2018)

❖ Trace the Popular Rights Movement in the Meiji period. What was its impact on the political life of Japan? (2017)

❖ Jiyuto & Kaishinto (Short notes: 2016 & 2015)

❖ Gender (Newly added)

The most significant political drive in the 1870s and 1880s was the “movement for freedom and people’s rights” ( jiyu
minken undo) which was inspired by the first two articles of the Charter Oath, 1868. The first article dealt with the
establishment of deliberative assemblies while the second dealt with popular participation in the administrative affairs of the
state. The popular rights movement was manifested in the formation of political associations that were essentially
personality centric, region specific and had to be seen in the binary of urban-rural and landholding commercial farmer and
small entrepreneur-tenant farmer and wage earner. These associations demanded a constitution and influenced public
opinion on the issues of sovereignty, popular participation and rights of the subjects. After the promulgation of the
Constitution of 1889 and institutionalization of the bicameral Diet, these associations were transformed into political parties
that participated in electoral politics. Andrew Gordon calls the movement as a beast of many faces, a varied series of
popular initiatives that posed a major challenge to the new Meiji government.

From 1872 to 1873 a consensus in support of adopting a constitution of some sort emerged within the government. At
almost the same time, and with a particular plea for a representative assembly, the call for a constitution became the rallying
cry for a variety of non-government, or anti-government, organizations. These were formed in localities scattered around the
country. They gradually came to coordinate their efforts and form the national networks that comprised the core of the
Movement for Freedom and Popular Rights. As the new Meiji leaders gradually concentrated political power in the hands of
a narrow group of former samurai from Satsuma and Choshu, the popular rights activists were able to make increasingly
credible charges that a new “Sat-Cho” dictatorship had replaced the old Tokugawa tyranny opines Andrew Gordon.

The first local popular rights group - Aikoku Koto (the Patriotic Public Party) - was founded in the former Tosa domain in
early 1874 by Itagaki Taisuke. The priority given to the concept of patriotic action on behalf of the nation is significant.
Itagaki had left the government several months earlier in a rage when the plan to invade Korea was overturned. Unlike Saigo
Takamori, who took his anger in the direction of armed rebellion, Itagaki and his allies submitted a memorial to the
government calling for a national assembly. They argued that free discussion and representative government were necessary
to build a strong nation.

Itagaki’s initial organizations soon collapsed. But by the late 1870s, a fast spreading interest at the grass roots of society in a
constitution and parliament sustained a renewed movement for popular political participation. In the years from 1879 to
1881, in particular, local activists formed nearly two hundred political societies in the cities and countryside. Members
included both farmers and former samurai. They undertook an unprecedented popular mobilization that gradually came
together into two national political parties, with all the features of such bodies except the chance to contest national
elections. They had dues-paying members in local units. They wrote bylaws to allow local groups to send representatives to
national conventions to hammer out a platform and action program. These groups held rallies and founded journals. Leading
members barnstormed on speaking tours of the Japanese countryside, holding grand fund-raising banquets with local
supporters. They also collected tens of thousands of signatures on hundreds of petitions demanding a constitution and a
parliament, which they submitted to the government.

One reason for the popularity of this so-called “movement for freedom and people’s rights” was the dissatisfaction with
current conditions among many samurai. But actually the most numerous and enthusiastic members of the movement were
prosperous peasant landowners and petty entrepreneurs, probably because they, rather than the impoverished samurai,
constituted the chief tax-paying group. Another reason for the spread of the parliamentary movement was the growing
knowledge of democratic institutions among Japanese intellectuals, largely because of Fukuzawa’s books and those of other
writers. For example, Nakae Chomin popularized the ideas of Rousseau.
What was particularly noteworthy about political life in Japan at this time, observes Gordon, is the self-generated activity of
so many people at the grass roots of society. They came together in ad hoc study groups to read and debate, to write
petitions or manifestos, or even to draft model constitutions. Popular rights activity took place in a variety of forums. Groups
called “industrial societies” were formed in the countryside to discuss issues such as new farming techniques, cooperative
experimental stations, or high rates of taxation. Landowners and leading local families were usually the organizers. Typical
members included village heads, teachers, local merchants, shrine officials, and doctors. The government decision to
establish a Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce in 1881 was a step to coopt and control such local energies.

Popular political education and activism also took place in city-based study groups. These were comprised primarily of
journalists and educators, often former samurai, who made up the urban intelligentsia of the Meiji era. Parallel to these
urban academic groups were many rural cultural societies and political associations. These were the most numerous
organizing units of the political ferment for popular rights.

Gordon claims that although the total membership of such organizations was a small minority of the entire population of
Japan, measured against the standard of the Tokugawa past, it seems appropriate to regard the glass of political activism in
the 1870s and 1880s as half full rather than half empty. A larger portion of the populace than ever was engaged in the great
political issues of Japan’s modern emergence.

The peak of popular rights activism came from 1880 to 1881. Groups all around the country collected at least 250,000
signatures on more than one hundred petitions submitted to the government in Tokyo. Hundreds of local organizations
joined into a national federation that organized three “preparatory conventions” in Tokyo. The delegates to the third such
gathering met in October 1881. They declared themselves a “political party,” the Liberal Party (Jiyuto) with Itagaki
Taisuke as the president, and immediately held their first national convention. Drawing on radical French doctrines, points
out J.K. Fairbank, the party proclaimed that “liberty is the natural state of man” and called for popular sovereignty as well
as the convening of a constitutional convention. Its program was as follows: 1) to broaden liberty, protect the people’s
rights, increase prosperity and reform society; 2) to expend its strength in establishing a sound constitutional system; 3) to
accomplish its purpose the party must cooperate with others in the country who are striving for the same end. E.H. Norman
states that the content of its program differs scarcely one whit from the vague and abstract aspirations of such earlier
political groups as the Aikokukoto or the Risshisha, but the significance of the Jiyuto of 1881 lies in the victory of the idea of
the right of a political party organized on a national basis to play a legitimate part in the life of the nation.

A few months later, in early 1882, a second group coalesced around Okuma Shigenobu. This former samurai activist from
the domain of Hizen had just been ousted from his position as government minister, in part because he advocated a
constitution that provided for a powerful parliament on a British model. His Progressive Party (Rikken Kaishinto) was
more moderate than the Liberal Party in its demands. It was oriented towards English parliamentary concepts and initially
drew its chief support from urban intellectuals and businessmen. Fukuzawa and the products of his Keio University were
among its most important supporters, as was Iwasaki, head of the great Mitsubishi interests. Norman observes that its
program was so watered down that by contrast it makes the Jiyuto platform revolutionary. The essence of the Kaishinto’s
political philosophy can be best epitomized in its watchword “Onken Chakujitsu,” which might be paraphrased as “moderate
and sound, slow but steady.”

The third political party was the Constitutional Imperial Party (Rikken Teiseito) which was founded in 1882 as the
government party to offset the influence of the other two and was conservative to the core.

Each party had its own organ and held public debates at which the most contentious subject was the question of sovereignty.
The Jiyuto maintained that the sovereignty lay with the people and that consequently the constitution should be drawn up by
an elected people’s assembly. The Teiseito bitterly contested this claim, asserting that sovereignty was inalienably attached
to the emperor’s person and that accordingly he alone could grant a constitution to the people as a gift. The Kaishinto in the
best English Constitutional style compromised between these two views by asserting that sovereignty lay jointly in the
throne and the people’s assembly.

It is no coincidence that in October 1881, precisely as this political mobilizing was reaching a peak of intensity and size, the
Meiji government had the emperor announces that a constitution would be written and promulgated by 1890. The leaders
who took this step were spurred by a sharp sense of crisis.
Fairbank remarks that although Jiyuto and Kaishinto were frequently able to stir up enthusiastic mass support, they had few
enrolled members – at most a few thousand in the early years. Most Japanese remained too close to the feudal past to
commit themselves openly by joining political parties. Both retained feudal features in their leader follower organization and
readily split into smaller leader-follower factions. While both parties supported the imperial institution as the symbol of
Japan’s political unity, they argued that a popularly elected parliament could better represent the emperor’s will than a
Satsuma-Choshu oligarchy. Each however was quick to accuse the other of being a self seeking faction merely attempting to
replace the “Sat-cho clique.” In particular, the progressives would accuse the liberals of being at the service of Mitsui
interests and the liberals would reply by accusing the progressives of being controlled by Mitsubishi.

The Government opposed the parties by strengthening the laws on public meetings in 1882. It also got Itagaki out of the
country by persuading Mitsui to finance a trip for him to observe European governments. While he was abroad his party fell
into serious difficulties. Some of its members became involved in peasant uprisings, protesting the drastic drop in prices and
resultant increase in the burden of taxes caused by Matsukata’s deflationary policies. The government had no trouble in
suppressing the disturbances but the liberal party was sio disrupted and discredited by its involvement that it dissolved itself
in October 1884. The faction ridden progressives also soon fell apart.

Another effort was made in 1887 to rally the opposition groups against the government. This time the movement was
directed less towards advocacy of democratic institutions than against the government’s foreign policies. To counter this
latest attack, the government issued on December 25, 1887, a Peace Preservation Law, which gave it the right to expel from
the Tokyo area any person felt to be “a threat to public tranquility.” In the next few days some 570 persons were removed
from the capital. The revived party movement was shaken by this blow and soon collapsed completely when some of its
leaders were inveigled back to the government. Okuma became the foreign minister in February 1888 and thus replaced the
Satsuma-Choshu oligarchs as the object of popular indignation at the failure to get revision of the unequal treaties. In
October 1889 he lost a leg when a fanatic threw a bomb at him.

The popular rights movement was an important factor influencing the timing and direction of the government’s decision to
adopt a constitution. But, as Gordon has rightly pointed out, the Meiji leaders were not simply caving in to the opposition.
They had already decided that constitutional government was needed to secure international respect for Japan and to
mobilize the energies of the people behind projects to build a “rich nation and strong army.” In 1878 they took a first step in
this direction by establishing elected prefectural assemblies nationwide, with advisory powers only. The government hoped
thereby to win the support of the rural elite of property owners (voting rights were limited to those who paid the highest land
taxes). In fact the assemblies often became hotbeds of popular rights agitation.

The unprecedented popular rights campaigns of petitioning and speechmaking influenced the decision to adopt a constitution
in two ironic ways. First, they led the government to adopt repressive censorship laws. The first set was promulgated in
1875. These were tightened the following year and reinforced once more in 1887. Second, the campaigns also intensified the
determination of government figures to write a conservative constitution modeled on the Prussian constitution of 1854. This
document gave the king and his ministers much power and limited the rights of the people. For the Meiji rulers to write a
constitution that upheld their vision of limited civil rights and marginal popular participation was not particularly difficult.
Actually using the constitution to enforce such a vision would prove much harder.

Impact

The Popular Rights Movement had a significant impact on Japanese society and polity. The most obvious consequence was
that it had forced the government to agree to a constitutional system. In face of the rising tide of this popular movement for
constitutional agitation the government had realized that a certain degree of democratization would have to be brought into
the system. It is for this reason that the government had declared in 1881 that it would issue a constitution in 1889.
Moreover, the government officials themselves were forced to discuss and deliberate regarding the nature of the
constitution. The most liberal view was put forward by Okuma, who advocated a British style parliamentary system in
which the government would be formed by the majority party. He wrote that the constitutional government is party
government and the struggle between parties is the struggle of principles. This, however, was naturally rejected by the
oligarchy.

Almost diametrically opposed to this was the view of Iwakura, an influential noble who belonged to the core group of Meiji
leaders. He and Inoue Kowashi argued that in Japan, unlike Britain there was no tradition of political parties and they
would not be successful. Therefore, the Emperor should appoint and dismiss the Cabinet independent of a parliamentary
majority. Such views were supported by influential newspapers.

However, Marius Jansen has argued that declaration of the constitution should not be seen as the high mark of the
movement. He argued that although the Meiji oligarchy issued a constitution, it was not able to establish a true democratic
polity. The constitution was the oligarchic response to the existing liberal tradition in Japan and was meant to be an
instrument in the hand of the oligarchy to suppress this liberal tradition. If one looks at the provisions of the constitution it
would become amply clear that only limited representation was provided to political parties in the diet, where only the lower
house could be composed by a popular mandate. However, the franchise was restricted only to a small number of people as
it was based on the tax paying ability of the people and thus, it was not a representative institution at all. Moreover, the
lower house of the diet, which was the only organ of the government in which the political parties could have an effective
voice had very limited powers. It had no control over the Cabinet; could not interfere in dynastic affairs; didn’t have the
power to declare war, conclude peace or treaties nor could it initiate any amendment in the constitution. Moreover, all
control over the government affairs was vested in the oligarchy that was spread over the House of Peers, the cabinet, the
privy council and the Genro. Thus, the constitution was in fact an inflexible instrument of absolutism. It was a strait
jacket for democratic movements, as at every level, the position, privileges and authority of the oligarch was safeguarded.
According to Jansen, it was only in the first few decades of the 20 th century that political parties gained a share of
ministerial powers and the immediate impact of the Popular Rights’ Movement had only led to an even more authoritarian
government.

Robert A Scalapino argues that the political parties could not bring about any fundamental changes in the Japanese political
system because of their internal contradictions and weaknesses as well as their selfish leaders who preferred to attain power
within the existing system. There were no efforts to expand the electorate or to challenge the unconstitutional institutions.
The liberal developments that had taken place were due to the popular pressure, flow of western ideas as well as the desire
for change among the influential business groups. J.K. Fairbank also agrees with Scalapino’s view that there were no
fundamental changes but claims that that was not due to any inherent weakness of the parties or due to the selfish motives of
the leaders rather the main cause of the failure was that these parties were operating within extremely unfavourable sites and
hence were forced to collaborate with the conservative oligarchs which in turn limited their scope.

Jansen claims that the limitations of the Popular Rights’ Movement came from the leadership. It was weak and
compromising and did not have the ability to rise above their own vested interests to guide the various factions that had now
become a part of the movement. Moreover, the factionalism within the various organizations had also limited or restricted its
effectiveness. However, the greatest weakness of the liberal movement during this period was the acceptance of imperial
authority as the fountain of all legitimate political authority. The declaration by the liberal leaders that power should be
shared by the Emperor and the people was an ideological commitment to the sanctity of the position of the Emperor. Thus,
when the Meiji oligarchy declared that the Emperor had issued an ordinance that it would declare a new constitution it had
come as a severe blow to the movement.

The Popular Rights’ Movement had also exposed the authoritarian nature of the Meiji oligarchy and how far they would
go to curb any dissent against their authority. Apart from resorting to ruthless coercion and bribery, a number of other
repressive measures were used like the Peace Preservation Law (1887) that empowered the police to ban any person they
suspected of creating disturbances against the government; strict restrictions were imposed on the press that required the
newspapers’ editors to be registered, all comment to be signed and for the editor to be held responsible for any anti-
government statement and finally such provisions were extended to cover political parties and associations as well. As the
movement gained momentum, the number of arrests and seizures by the government also went on increasing.

Peter Duus argues that the Popular Rights’ Movement had given rise to a counter conservative reaction. The proponents
of these counter currents feared the influx of radical new ideas- natural rights, equality, legitimacy of rebellion-that
undermined respect for constituted authority. Nostalgic for the virtues of discipline, obedience and order so central to pre-
Restoration attitudes, a new group of conservative intellectuals began to call for a return to the values and morality of the old
society. This undercurrent was characterized by a great deal of anti-western attitude and by a desire for the revival of
Confucian-style moral education. It was this conservative reaction that provided intellectual justification for the increasing
static policies of the government.
 However, Duus also says that one should not ignore the positive aspects of this movement. He argued that one of the most
significant long-term impacts of this movement was that it had established a new tradition of legitimate political dissent.
Moreover, this movement had given rise to a great deal of political consciousness among the masses. It had provided an
opportunity to the common man to protest against the government in a legitimate manner; something that had been denied to
them for a long time. In pre-Restoration times, even well-to-do peasants rarely had concerned themselves with events
beyond the village or domain boundaries. It was this emergence of the Popular Rights Movement with a national
organization cutting across local provincialism that represented a broadening of political consciousness, which was a
complete departure from traditional politics. It also marked the awakening of a new kind of nationalist sentiment, which was
necessary to make the country stronger. Finally, Duus has argued, many veterans of the movement went on to become
professional party politicians after the opening of the Diet in the 1890s, continuing the struggle there against the government
oligarchy.

Thus, to conclude one can see that despite the modernization and progress of Japan following the overthrow of the Bakuhan
system, there was a great deal of opposition to the Meiji oligarchy. One such opposition had come from the liberal
framework that had emerged in Japan. Through peaceful protests, petitions, meetings and newspapers they had popularized
and demanded for popular rights and a constitutional system, thereby, galvanizing almost every section of the society
against the oligarchy. However, while, this movement may have marked a new beginning in the history of Japanese politics
as it laid the groundwork for continuing opposition to an authoritarian system, it was unable to achieve anything
significantly tangible. The Oligarchs had no intention of undermining their own authority or conceding large power or rights
to the people. Moreover, the rise of a conservative counter-reaction to the movement gave legitimacy to the government
absolutism, which was reflected in the Constitution of 1889, for which the movement had been launched.

Role of Women

For a brief span from the late 1870s into the early 1880s, women played a significant role both as speakers and in large numbers
as members of the audience at popular rights rallies. One of the first women to demand “rights” was Kusunose Kita (1833–
1892), a 45-year-old widowed household head who, in 1878, petitioned for the right to vote in local elections, a right enjoyed by
male property owners. Women’s rights advocates, who called her the “People’s Rights Grandma,” contended that she should not
be taxed without representation. She protested the use of gender in establishing an individual’s relationship to the state. Kusunose
failed to gain the vote in 1878, but women began to advocate for danjo dōken (male–female equal rights) and joken (women’s
rights).

Fearful of the People’s Rights Movement, the government imposed press censorship laws in 1875. Verbal expression was also
restricted in the early decades of the Meiji period. In 1883 Kishida Toshiko (1861–1901), a feminist orator and People’s Rights
member, was arrested for publicly calling for women’s rights. She condemned what she called outmoded notions of “contempt
for women and respect for men.” She defined “progress” and “civilization” as a situation in which women would have political
and economic rights on a par with men. She called for education for women and equality within the family. She attacked the
legality of concubines, which gave a man’s wife and her children no greater claim on the husband’s resources than a mistress
had.

Kishida inspired women all over Japan. Thousands heard her proclaim that women’s equality in society and the family was an
indicator of civilization and that equality would elevate Japan in international eyes. After her arrest, she soon abandoned public
speaking for essay writing—mainly in the feminist journal Jogaku zasshi (Women’s Education Magazine)—and teaching.
Andrew Gordon opines that for the men in the popular rights movement, a speaker like Kishida was both a threat and an
opportunity. She increased the likelihood that the government might crack down on the movement. But she was a marvelous
draw who brought enthusiastic and curious crowds into lecture halls or open-air rallies.

The two major popular rights parties both collapsed in 1884 because of factional infighting, the taint of association with peasant
rebellions, and state repression. Their leaders soon regrouped. But the close alliance between male party politicians and activist
women was not revived, even after the constitution was promulgated. Women interested in political or social action turned to
activity as teachers or writers or organized nominally apolitical groups such as the Tokyo Women’s Reform Society.

The government was in large part responsible for this retreat in women’s political activity infers Andrew Gordon. It decided to
limit imperial succession to males. On the eve of promulgating the constitution in 1889, it issued a series of laws that barred
women from joining political organizations, speaking at or attending political gatherings, or even sitting as observers in the Diet
gallery. These measures provoked a flurry of outraged commentary by leading women educators and social reformers, such as
Shimizu Toyoko and Yajima Kajiko. This prohibition was reinforced in 1900 under the Public Peace Police Law. Repealing that
law’s infamous Article 5, which restricted women’s rights, was a major focus of women’s activism for the next two decades. By
the end of the 1890s, women’s rights were further limited by the Civil Code, which subordinated all members of a household (ie)
to the (male) head of household.

Supporters of women’s rights expressed profound disappointment with the gendered legal restrictions on rights. Novelist
Shimizu Toyoko (1868–1933) articulated these sentiments in her article, “To My Beloved Sisters in Tears,” published in Jogaku
zasshi in 1890. Members of the Japan Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (JWCTU), founded in 1886 as a branch of the
transnational WCTU, were also distressed by the codification of inequality but recognized that women’s activist options were
limited by Article 5. Barbara Molony suggests that the JWCTU’s focus on social and moral reforms, including movements
against licensed prostitution and concubinage, appeared less overtly political to the authorities. These movements were therefore
within the bounds of the law. Moreover, the Christian organizations that supported these reforms framed them in the patriotic
terms of elevating the status of the nation by improving the status of women.