On July 3, 1957, Daisaku Ikeda, the then-Soka Gakkai youth division chief of staff, was summoned to the Osaka Prefectural Police Headquarters, where he was arrested on false charges of election law violations in a House of Councillors by-election held earlier the same year.
The news of his arrest spread quickly throughout Kansai. Outraged, many members gathered at the Soka Gakkai Headquarters building in Osaka to pray fervently for his safety and for the truth to prevail.
The young Daisaku had been arrested on July 3—the same day in 1945 when his mentor, second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda, was released from prison at the end of World War II. Mr. Toda and his mentor, first Soka Gakkai President Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, had been jailed as “thought criminals” for refusing to worship state-sponsored Shinto during the war. Mr. Makiguchi died in prison, a martyr to his beliefs.
Deeply concerned for his disciple’s health, Mr. Toda met Daisaku on July 3 in an airport lobby before he departed for Osaka to face the charges.
Gripping his shoulder, Mr. Toda said: “[Daisaku], if, just if, you should find yourself facing death, I would come to you instantly and throw myself upon you to shield you from harm as we die together” (The Human Revolution, pp. 1618–19).
For 15 days, police subjected Ikeda Sensei to repeated verbal abuse in closed interrogations. On one occasion, they paraded him outdoors in handcuffs to humiliate him in public.
“It was clear that the authorities had their sights set on implicating Mr. Toda. I therefore firmly resolved to act as a shield and prevent them from laying so much as a finger on my mentor” (Oct. 22, 2010, World Tribune, p. 10).
Soka Gakkai members congregated outside the Osaka Detention Center, some weeping bitter tears. On July 12, some 40,000 members attended a protest rally at the National Sports Arena in Kuramae district in Tokyo.
On July 17, Sensei was released from jail. That morning, from his jail cell, he could hear a brass band playing Soka Gakkai songs nearby. That evening, some 20,000 members attended a rally at the Central Civic Hall in Nakanoshima.
After a trial spanning nearly five years, on Jan. 25, 1962,
Sensei was cleared of all charges.
He writes:
Propagating the Lotus Sutra in the evil age after Shakyamuni’s passing is described as being an incredibly difficult undertaking. And it is precisely when the struggle to spread the Law is at its most challenging and critical stage that the Bodhisattvas of the Earth courageously step forward. (Oct. 22, 2010, World Tribune, p. 11)
July 3 has since come to be known as the Day of Mentor and Disciple. It is a day when we refresh the united spirit of mentor and disciple to fight undaunted against those forces that aim to destroy what is true and just.
—Prepared by the World Tribune staff.
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