Why PM Modi referred to Japanese PM Takaichi as his ‘little sister’

While many thought it was a sign of PM Modi venting his emotions, something that he rarely does, the real reason lay in a restricted conversation.

Updated on: Jul 3, 2026, 08:10:46 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today surprised everyone at a press interaction after the 16th India-Japan annual summit when he referred to Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as "little sister.”

PM Modi and and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

While many thought it was a sign of PM Modi venting his emotions, something that he rarely does, the real reason lay in the restricted conversation that took place between PM Modi and PM Takaichi at Hyderabad House.

According to officials privy to conversations, PM Takaichi told her Indian counterpart that late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was like her elder brother and she looked up to him. Apparently PM Takaichi said that since Abe San had a lot of affection and respect for PM Modi, she now looked towards him as her elder brother too.

PM Modi had close personal relations with PM Abe, who was assassinated on July 8, 2022 by a radical in Nara, the constituency of PM Sanae Takaichi. The India-Japan ties took off to a new level under the leadership of Abe San, who was the longest serving prime minister in Japanese history. PM Modi specially flew to Tokyo on September 27, 2022 to attend the state funeral accorded to Shinzo Abe and held a condolence meeting with the late leader’s wife Akie Abe.

PM Modi with former Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe

Given PM Modi and PM Takaichi’s respect for the departed leader, PM Modi took on the role of elder brother and called the visiting leader as his little sister.

On her part, PM Takaichi openly embraced the sibling bond by thanking PM Modi for calling her his “beautiful younger sister” and stated that the two leaders were on the same page with the bond reflecting the understanding the two leaders had reached during their private discussions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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