The worst form of bondage is the bondage of dejection, which keeps men hopelessly chained in loss of faith in themselves."

So wrote, nearly a century ago, the Bengali poet, author, musician — and Nobel Prize in Literature laureate -Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) in an essay titled "Nationalism in Japan."

Tagore was a great admirer of Japanese ingenuity and industriousness, and saw Japan as a beacon of enlightenment for the people of what today is called "the developing world."