December 01, 2012
Hitler’s Strange Afterlife in India
Dilip D’Souza in The Daily Beast:
My wife teaches French to tenth-grade students at a private school here in Mumbai. During one recent class, she asked these mostly upper-middle-class kids to complete the sentence “J'admire …” with the name of the historical figure they most admired.
To say she was disturbed by the results would be to understate her reaction. Of 25 students in the class, 9 picked Adolf Hitler, making him easily the highest vote-getter in this particular exercise; a certain Mohandas Gandhi was the choice of precisely one student. Discussing the idea of courage with other students once, my wife was startled by the contempt they had for Gandhi. “He was a coward!” they said. And as far back as 2002, the Times of India reported a survey that found that 17 percent of students in elite Indian colleges “favored Adolf Hitler as the kind of leader India ought to have.”
In a place where Gandhi becomes a coward, perhaps Hitler becomes a hero.
Still, why Hitler? “He was a fantastic orator,” said the 10th-grade kids. “He loved his country; he was a great patriot. He gave back to Germany a sense of pride they had lost after the Treaty of Versailles,” they said.
"And what about the millions he murdered?” asked my wife. “Oh, yes, that was bad,” said the kids. “But you know what, some of them were traitors.”
Admiring Hitler for his oratorical skills? Surreal enough. Add to that the easy condemnation of his millions of victims as traitors. Add to that the characterization of this man as a patriot. I mean, in a short dozen years, Hitler led Germany through a scarcely believable orgy of blood to utter shame and wholesale destruction. Even the mere thought of calling such a man a patriot profoundly corrupts—is violently antithetical to—the idea of patriotism.
But these are kids, you think, and kids say the darndest things. Except this is no easily written-off experience. The evidence is that Hitler has plenty of admirers in India, plenty of whom are by no means kids.
Consider Mein Kampf, Hitler’s autobiography. Reviled it might be in the much of the world, but Indians buy thousands of copies of it every month.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 05:28 PM | Permalink
Comments
This is really disturbing. Coincidence re origins of the swastika symbol?
Posted by: Eli | Dec 1, 2012 6:10:57 PM
Anyone who thinks that something like the Holocaust won't happen again doesn't understand history or human nature. It's inevitable. What's to be decided is only where and when.
Posted by: Josef Stern | Dec 1, 2012 6:37:56 PM
This is not the first time I've herd of this in India. A few months back the Jewish community was outraged that a clothing store in India was named Adolf Hitler and had swistikas as the store Logo, when asked why they did this they said because in India he is seen as a hero.
Posted by: Sheldon | Dec 1, 2012 6:57:07 PM
Rather seems that the concept of Aryan purity is being overlooked by this improbable following.
Posted by: Erich | Dec 1, 2012 7:09:12 PM
Well, as a nation that suffered under British rule for centuries, it makes some sense that they would celebrate a figure that brought the British Empire to its knees. Shame he was also an insane mass murderer and all.
Posted by: DP | Dec 1, 2012 7:19:21 PM
Don't conflate ignorance about Hitler with the reverence for the swastika. It is an ancient Hindu holy symbol for peace and harmony (the irony!) and it continues to be used during auspicious occasions by Hindu households. The co-opting of the swastika by the Nazis for their murderous rampage did not diminish the symbol in the eyes of Hindus, as it shouldn't.
The problem is the despicable condition of the early Indian education system where the history syllabus barely steps outside narrow parochial boundaries. Also, the retelling of the era of the late 1940s and early '50s focuses much more on India's own independence movement and as such text books mostly ignore the upheaval in Europe during WWII to the extent that many Indias are totally ignorant about the Nazis. It is a shame that again and again, we hear about the veneration of Hitler in India, sometimes from ignorant businessmen and now from impressionabl nine year olds. If these Indians don't know that Hitler was a bad man, who is telling them that he was good? I hope D'Souza's wife proves to be a better history teacher than most.
It is also interesting to note that every report I have so far come across about the celebration of Hitler's "heroism," have been from western India in the vicinity of Mumbai. It is not a coincidence that this happens to be the region which is the stronghold of India's own homegrown fascist philosophy such as the RSS, Shivsena and the like. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 1, 2012 7:41:43 PM
Actually, the reasoning is pretty simple.
1) About the only education you receive on Hitler in Indian history books is that Subhash Chandra Bose wrote to him seeking his help agains the British. Indian education spends no time on the Holocaust.
2) Hitler personifies (outside of the whole genocide thing) what many Indians, tired of the incessant corruption and terrible bureaucracy that has held the country back, the kind of powerful leader who is patriotic to his country and can help propel it forward.
Basically, boils down to the holocaust just not being a very important part of the Indian discussion, and Hitler, for all his faults, had impressive leadership qualities.
Posted by: addicted | Dec 1, 2012 7:42:49 PM
I don't think its as simple as a lack of historical understanding in India. India has plenty of leaders who have bloody histories.. Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat Anti-Muslim riots and the recently deceased Bal Thackeray who led years of anti-communal violence in Mumbai. ALL OF these leaders are admired and respected. Because somehow in my country these seem to be lost as mere accidents and a "strong" leader (both of them are also considered good orators) becomes a quality admired above all else. Including yes, murdering millions of innocents.
Posted by: Ujj | Dec 1, 2012 8:27:53 PM
Distance, both historical and geographical, reduces all tragedies into non-events. You will find sane, normal admirers of Hitler in many non-Western countries. China and Korea have far more than you would ever expect, even if the majority don't like him. Indeed, I imagine if Hitler had never allied with Japan, these two cultures would have much greater positive feelings towards him. The Holocaust (and I am in no way trying to lessen its horror) has been propagandized into Western education and media as a key event. Non-Western countries have their own far more important propaganda from the 1940s and 1950s. For the majority of people in the World, the Holocaust was not important at all, and will remain so. If someone in America answered "J'admire Napoleon," or "Julius Caesar" or "Richard III" or even America's own Hitler "Andrew Jackson" no one would think this was horrible or strange. But all of these men have guilt in the same way as Hitler. 500 years from now, Hitler will likely stand beside Napoleon as a weird, ambitious, and ultimately failed "Great Man".
Posted by: ElAleph | Dec 1, 2012 8:35:26 PM
Lots of mock cosmopolitanism around, isn't there? Hideously ignorant takes on history do not resolve to alternative points of view that can be propounded with a certain cool. As long as history is recorded, there are going to be some standouts, notorious for their evil intentions, and for the successful realization of those intentions. Your ignorance of these people does not actually nullify their perfidy, and the argument that the sands close over everyone's footprints, eventually, lacks for cogency though not for truth. Westerners with college degrees are indeed pretty ignorant of what was happening in South Asia and East Asia in the 30s and 40s, but how would some of us sound if opining casually that an Asian madman who occasioned the murder of 6 million Asian ethnic minority citizens of several Asian countries was "a failed great man"?
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Dec 1, 2012 10:02:16 PM
Hi I am from India 20 years back I was the single Gandhi kid in our class against 30 Hitlers. I blame it on our teachers. When they teach about India's independence from the British & the World war 2 together naturally enemies enemy is our friend concept gets emphasized. Some of them taught us its not Because of Gandhi its because of Hitler the brits got scared and gave us our freedom.
Posted by: dev | Dec 1, 2012 11:40:25 PM
What is so suprising about that?
This is the city that worshipped an Indian fascist, Bal Thackeray.
Posted by: NASAH | Dec 1, 2012 11:47:50 PM
This is human nature. The interesting question is why Hitler is so hated in the West. Stalin and Mao were not much better, but both were popular in the West at different times, so it does not seem to be the case that people in the West are averse to all mass murderers. My guess is that Hitler is so hated simply because he was the enemy in World War II. Hitler was never the enemy of India (and indeed was the enemy of India's enemy), so it is not surprising that he is not hated there.
Posted by: Guy | Dec 2, 2012 12:44:18 AM
What Guy and Addicted have alluded to (enemy of my enemy) is somewhat true for my father's generation while WWII and the Indian independence movement were under way at the same time and the true extent of Hitler's genocide was not fully clear to the world, especially outside of Europe. Even so, it is important to remember that the Indian Congress Party sided with the rest of Europe against the Nazi regime in Germany. But the full facts are now known and the British are long gone from the Indian subcontinent. The perspective needs to be revised and the foolishness about "strong leadership" coming only through fascist rule has to be put to rest.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2012 1:05:47 AM
Call me cynical, but I am convinced that it is not enough to talk about the holocaust. You want these kids to know about the hundreds of thousands of racially pure Germans who died in the hands of the Nazis, the 7-8 million who died as the result of the war Hitler started (close to 10 per cent of the population), and other consequences of Hitler's war, including the deportation of millions of Germans after the war was lost, the massive loss of territory, and the splitting of Germany into two separate countries. Such are the consequences of electing a "strong leader".
Posted by: Guy | Dec 2, 2012 1:57:53 AM
History is written by winners. How many people know that 20m Russians were killed in WWIi or that 30m Native American were victims of genocide?
Posted by: Raza Husain | Dec 2, 2012 2:08:25 AM
Elatia,
I have no idea what "mock cosmopolitanism" means or refers to, but an Indian admiring Hitler is in no way problematic because the idea of Hitler they admire will not lead them to commit or support his genocide.
And teaching Indians about the Holocaust will likely not change their minds about Hitler anymore than learning about Genghis Khan will make you hate him. They will never care about those particular 6 million deaths. Why the hell should they? What good would it do them?
"Ignorance of perfidy does not nullify it"
Of course not. Neither does knowledge of past perfidy.
Evil is a subjective, cultural, and emotional naming. (I am not arguing for moral relativism: Evil is not the same thing as morally Wrong) I cried when I visited Dachau, yes. But I had been conditioned my whole life to cry in such a situation. Disgust with Hitler is a product of Nationalism, not moralism.
Man's empathy is not some perfect global force - it will always end somewhere. No one can feel for or have knowledge of tragedy happening in the world now. Why waste your condemnation and tears on history?
"how would some of us sound if opining casually that an Asian madman who occasioned the murder of 6 million Asian ethnic minority citizens of several Asian countries was "a failed great man"?"
Depending on who you are talking to, it is quite likely to be agreement. Or even anger that you called them "Failed" instead of successful. Hitler is hated by Americans far more than Stalin is by Russians simply because only Hitler was at the receiving end of tireless propaganda.
If it takes a heavily concerted effort to make people identify someone like Hitler as evil, maybe the real truth is much more complicated. Arendt makes a good source here, I think. Hitler has been distorted by the West into a false boogeyman. The true wrongdoing was spread out over millions of perpetrators.
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/cambodia/diary06.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-big-question-why-is-stalin-still-popular-in-russia-despite-the-brutality-of-his-regime-827654.html
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/05/24/why-do-italians-still-have-a-soft-spot-for-mussolini/
Posted by: ElAleph | Dec 2, 2012 2:25:16 AM
Adolf for a new generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqTuWJCTP64
Posted by: Troy | Dec 2, 2012 4:13:14 AM
Elatia:
"how would some of us (Westerners) sound if opining casually that an Asian madman who occasioned the murder of 6 million Asian ethnic minority citizens of several Asian countries was "a failed great man"?"
The West not just opined casually, but supported that Asian madman Pol Pot who occasioned the murder of 3 million in the Killing Fields of Cambodia.
Pat Buchanan (a Westerner if ever their was one) on Hitler: “he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier’s soldier in the Great War, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him... "
And little brown children and their teachers should know better.
Posted by: Raza Husain | Dec 2, 2012 8:03:01 AM
An evolution to the right could be a global phenomenon.
Posted by: Dredd | Dec 2, 2012 8:39:13 AM
1. "Lack of historical education": Since the Treaty of Versailles is mentioned by those 10th-grade kids, there must be some level of historical education. But what kind of? Seeing fascim and WW II only as reaction to the Treaty of Versailles is a classical argument of revisionists and neo-Nazis. This deserves more research.
2. "Only Pop culture". This hasn't been mentioned yet: In Pop culture Hitler is the worst of the worst, the incarnation of evil, the worst man who has ever lived. This makes him well-known to everyone. He is without doubt one of the most famous persons, and this could be one reason why he is mentioned so often. But why would kids or students name the incorporation of evil as someone they admire? Maybe because they know it's only pop culture. They know there's some exaggeration and stylisation involved. Maybe they are even proud of looking through this kind of stylisation. They don't care much about facts, mentioning "Treaty of Versailles" is good enough for them. They know this kind of Hollywood and US culture and feel superior to it.
3. "Only numbers". Speaking of facts, I don't think counting victims and comparing numbers is helpful. There's indeed something special about the national socialist ideology. It brings back the darkest racial ideas and stylizes them as the virtues of the modern age. There's something special about telling people they have to kill certain people, including women and children, only for making the world more pure, and not killing them would be evil and uncivilized.
Posted by: zat | Dec 2, 2012 9:56:03 AM
Sorry Ruchira, I didn't mean in any way to disparage the original swastika symbol, I just think it's an odd coincidence. Interesting that the term Aryan also has Indian origins.
ElAleph, you say that knowledge of past perfidy does not "nullify it." That's a high bar. But I'm sure you're familiar with the proverb about the doom of those who do not learn from history. So if knowledge of past perfidy can help in some way to prevent future perfidy then it does in a sense "nullify" (a future) perfidy.
Hi Elatia!
Posted by: Eli | Dec 2, 2012 10:07:44 AM
Anyone who reduces the Holocaust to just another cultural and historical signpost is, at best, the proprietor of a juvenile intellect. The Holocaust was a singular human event - one that still needs to be processed and discussed. And Hitler was a monster who was in the right place and the right time. Anyone who admires what his did - initiate the deaths of not just 6 millions Jews, but millions of non-Jews too, and who singlehandedly helped destroy the adopted homeland he claimed to love - is doing nothing more than tapping into their own monstrous qualities (we all have them) for reasons to banal to even discuss. Grow up.
Posted by: Josef Stern | Dec 2, 2012 11:15:04 AM
Some 15 years ago, I was staying in a Jain Ashram in Bihar translating a book about the Acharya who had founded that Ashram. I had been criticized for my 'flowery' writing style and admonished to give only a literal, word for word, English translation. One sentence gave me particular difficulty 'The Acharyaji was called 'Hiltler' because of her determination to complete the building work before the onset of the monsoons'. Now, in Hindi, the word Hilter sounds like 'hatti' (obstinate) and also there was this idea that Hitler got the trains to run on time and was very strict. Still, to call a gentle Nun belonging to the non-violent Jain religion a 'Hilter' seemed a bit much.
I may mention that President Zail Singh was criticized for his praise of Hitler.
In both cases, what lies behind this respect for Hitler is skepticism that he committed any real crime. After all, politically motivated writers accuse everybody of genocide- a Bengali Scientist has written a book saying Churchill was guilty of genocide against Bengalis, Lord Rama and Lord Krishna are accused of conducting genocide against Tribals and Dravidians, Narendra Modi, who put an end to the cycle of communal rioting which began in 1969 within one year of taking office as C.M, is labeled a 'merchant of death', Bush and Obama are accused of genocide, Zizek says Gandhi was worse than Hitler as a cause of genocide- so what is one supposed to do?
In Indian Politics, all parties show a reckless disregard for the truth. Subramaniyam Swamy was a Prof. at Harvard, he accuses Sonia and even Priyanka Gandhi of being in bed with the Tamil Tigers, and complicit in Rajiv Gandhi's assasination! Rahul Gandhi was accused of raping a the daughter of a Congress worker 'with the aid of his foreign friends'- probably Bill Gates and David Milliband-indeed the entire political class has been accused of stashing away so much 'black money' abroad that some illiterate Yoga Guru says that repatriating that money will be enough to buy every single Indian an air conditioner.
In this context, if Hitler is accused of genocide, he must have been a Saint.
Posted by: windwheel | Dec 2, 2012 11:49:11 AM
Raza & others, indeed little brown children need not be ignorant just because self serving westerners pick and choose their heros and villains. My point was not that. Ignorance about Hitler is understandable in a country with its own long and complicated history. I won't even object if Indians, witness to much bloodshed and tragedy of their own do not choose to shed tears for atrocities in faraway lands. But what is troubling is that Hitler is being admired as a "strong leader," the kind that may be desirable as a cure for India's corrupt and inept government. Somebody is teaching that version of history. That is not ignorance but willful distortion.
Posted by: Ruchira | Dec 2, 2012 11:56:12 AM
I am curious to know if there is any objective data about the popularity of Hitler in India versus Pakistan or Saudi Arabia? I have not been to India (though I have indeed met Indians who admire Hitlerism..which is more frightening) but I have lived in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and both are flush with Hitler fans. In SA it was simple, he killed Jews. In Pakistan a bit more complicated. Islamists admired the Jew-killing, but there were definitely separate currents of "made the trains run on time", "knew how to deal with miscreants" and "enemy of the British, so good" .
Fascism is a worldwide attraction. Though I, like Borges, do believe that several Western countries like the USA and Britain are relatively healthier if you compare educated modern people to other educated modern people. I use that category because I also think there are pre-modern populations that are "nicer" and more innocent in some hard to explain way. But middle class to middle class, America and Britain (and for all I know, France and Holland and Denmanrk and so on) are trained to abhor fascism more (even if only slightly more) than the middle class in Pakistan or India or China or anywhere in the wider Muslims world (i admit vast ignroance of the African middle class).
We are, or course, speaking in RELATIVE terms. And not about all aspects of life, just the willingness to admire life under dictatorial rule.
Posted by: omar | Dec 2, 2012 12:29:28 PM
Last year I was sitting on a plane from Delhi to Amsterdam next to a young Nepali man with political aspirations in his country. He told me thag one goal of his trip was to learn about Hitler, as he sees him as a model of leadership.
He did not appear to be aware of the notorieties we know Hitler for, and truly thought he was an inspirational leader.
I gave him some friendly advice that he might not want to go around Holland flaunting an admiration for Hitler.
I think this article and the comments hdre explain quite clearly that we should not judge people from other cultures, who see the same events of history in a very different light.
Posted by: Jeremy | Dec 2, 2012 3:53:22 PM
The Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad is about as close to the heights of academia worldwide as you can get (it was ranked #11 by the Financial Times) and I can vouch for the fact that Hitler-mania has not overtaken Indian academic institutions having grown up there and having lots of insights into what is going on there still.
While Hitler-mania may be a "popular" phenomenon in India ("popular" as contrasted with academic), it has hardly affected Indian institutions. As far as I know, no major policy decisions are affected by this worship of Hitler.
The problem is that the 'books, magazines and written materials' sector of the economy has poor 'institutional guidance'. The issue is that a well-functioning market even for books needs institutions and there are just not enough institutions in India. What is happening is that India has a burgeoning middle class and that middle class can hardly be said to go through the intellectual motions of assessing every idea on its own merits. So on the whole, this is not a particular worrying phenomenon since it is primarily a 'pre-intellectual' response and since Indian media is hardly sympathetic to the Nazi philosophy.
'Pre-intellectual' is the best adjective I have been able to come up with to characterize the opinions of these nine year olds as well as that of the 'popular' admirers. Many of the commenters here are quite mistaken when they think that it is a bunch of people who see history in a different way. Actually, this is basically a 'pre-intellectual' view of history.
These kids have not grown up with the sort of critical thinking frameworks that children in other countries have. In these 'pre-intellectual' environments, all sorts of things happen. For example, if you express admiration of a certain person, say, Gandhi, the individuals within that environment may expect you to also follow that person's ideals. So basically, as a kid in India, you are better off saying that a relatively aggressive person, say, the Rani of Jhansi (someone who never foreswore violence) is your role-model even if it is Gandhi who you really think is
your role model. As a kid growing up in India, I had access to both the intellectual and the popular opinion and it was easy enough to self-censor my opinion on who I thought was "the best leader evah". We are looking at the sociology of a population of nine year olds. These fellows are hardly what you would call dyed-in-the-wool Nazis.
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Dec 2, 2012 5:01:07 PM
Note that kids bully and will even beat you up if they think you are a follower of Gandhi.
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Dec 2, 2012 5:05:39 PM
People forget one thing about Hitler. He completely ruined Germany's economy. His economic policies -- including jobs and ownership for only a particular class/ethnicity -- were pathetic. And what do you elect leaders for? Economy. Hitler was a bozo, a liar and an idiot. He lied to germany about bringing inprosperity, and killed himself like a coward because he couldn't.
Posted by: Ganko Wanko | Dec 3, 2012 1:09:25 AM
And all Indians who admire him are equally bozos
Posted by: Ganko Wanko | Dec 3, 2012 1:10:36 AM
consider this - http://danka.pk/danka-nama-blog/?p=198 on Hitler in the artsy afterlife and http://rugpundits.com/2011/01/21/hitlers-popularity-in-pakistan-jumping-to-conclusions/ on the youth's misperception - from just over the border.
Posted by: jakob | Dec 3, 2012 3:50:12 AM
If these kids had just learned about Nazis from "The Blues Brothers" like American kids did, they would be so much better off.
"I *hate* Illinois Nazis!"
Posted by: Anderson | Dec 3, 2012 5:03:54 PM
> And all Indians who admire him are
> equally bozos
They may be bozos but at least there is a system in place to deal with them. The system may not be perfect (which system is?) but at least it is there. In some countries, that is not even close to how it is.
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Dec 3, 2012 10:54:34 PM
This is sheer ignorance not malice. Indian education only highlights Hitler as someone who fought the British and lost just after British were involved in acts like Jallianwala Bagh. No mention of the scale of Hitler's crimes here. I myself went through a change in my perspective on Hitler after moving to London 10 years ago.
Posted by: Piyush Doshi | Dec 4, 2012 1:09:27 AM
How little do these not so little brown upper middle class brat children of Bombay know, they would not have even been there today in existence to write about Hitler if he would have got his way and conquered the world as their and my forefathers would have been among the first few hundreds of millions to walk silently into the giant gas chambers built all across India and all over the world! He was a loud mouth spreading maniacal messages of hatred and was not an orator. It is such a pity and spineless fantasy for some brown people to find kinship in Hitler. Gandhi's maintenance of
seemingly neutral position, passive and relative silence is another tragedy in the history Indian politics.
Posted by: Anil C Thakuria , MD | Dec 4, 2012 11:22:16 PM
winston churchill is idolized in the UK and some other western countries. But he was a racist, an imperialist, and responsible for the Bengal famine, and the repression of non-white, non-western peoples around the world. But no one challenges people who worship him! Hypocrisy
Posted by: bob | Dec 5, 2012 12:02:53 AM
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