[INDOLOGY] Mein Kampf in India/Popularity of Hitler Stories!

Fri Feb 14 08:02:25 UTC 2014

I did not know about this author and the articles in Desh. Thanks for that. I would only like to add that Sri Aurobindo never had any doubts about the true evil character of national socialism and wholeheartedly supported the Allies.

Op 14 feb. 2014 om 08:23 heeft "Dipak Durgamohan Bhattacharya" <dipak.d2004 at gmail.com<mailto:dipak.d2004 at gmail.com>> het volgende geschreven:

That was very fine! I have two additions to make.
When he first published his belles-lettres Ali started with Chacha Kahini 'Anecdotes of the uncle'. Ali was a democrat and also an anti-British great nationalist patriot.  However, perhaps because of his anti-British sentiments, initially Ali was not an opponent of Hitler. He himself admits that it was later when a blue-eyed Kashmiri was taken for a Jew and attacked by Hitler's musclemen that Ali understood the would be Nazis as an evil. Ali said these much later long after coming back to India.
In the sixties he was writing again and commented on the Eichmann trial. He cited quite a few facts pointing to Eichmann's crimes. He had visited Germany more than once.
How Ali -- admired on both the Bengals for his sarcastic writings, particularly in my University at Santiniketan where he lived for long -- viewed the British may be seen also in the Deshe Bideshe (In my land and abroad), a unique document on the rise and fall of Amanulla and Bachchai Sakao in the thirties. Here Ali does not hesitate to praise anti-British Russians, both exiled intellectuals and Soviet soldiers!
Greetings
DB

On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Dr. Debabrata Chakrabarti <dchakra at hotmail.de<mailto:dchakra at hotmail.de>> wrote:
Dear All,
I have been stirred by Dr. Stella Sandahl to say something about the popularity of Hitler in West Bengal, India. I remember very well that in the sixties a very learned writer of Bengal, a polyglot, who spent a considerable time studying in Europe, particularly in Germany, was writing a series for the Bengali literary magazine Desh and his writings were being admired on all hands. The writer was Syed Muztaba Ali, publishing a series of belle’s letters on the Nazi violence in Europe, not so much like setting the grass aflame, but generating his tongue in cheek to shake the utmost depths of men’s hearts with horror. The Europe of that time had not been able to steer clear of the ashes of the Second World War and passive watchers of the war, as we Indians were, we were moved to read Ali’s numerous stories, which one did not write in a book of history. We read thus innumerable stories of Hitler’s invasions into the other European countries, along with Ali’s sweet and sour anecdotes; we learnt about different political and military strategies and tragedies, the condemned life of the Jews, the toothless life of a teenager called Anne Franck, who died in the Bergen-Belsen Camp in 1945, and we could more than ever take a look at numerous concentration camps of Europe with horror. I remember spending many a sleepless nights with the issues of the magazine.
The inclusion of the series of writings gave a considerable hike to the sale of the magazine.
During the last fifteen years I have tried to visit concentration camps in Germany, Czech Republic and Poland whenever I had the opportunity to attend seminars in the nearby places, though the experiences were nonetheless heart-breaking.
Regards
Debabrata Chakrabarti

“This body is like a musical instrument; what you hear depends upon how you play it.” – Anandamayi Ma

“Inside every human being there exists a special heaven, whole and unbroken.” - Paracelsus

________________________________
From: ssandahl at sympatico.ca<mailto:ssandahl at sympatico.ca>
Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2014 15:54:35 -0500
To: CoseruC at cofc.edu<mailto:CoseruC at cofc.edu>; INDOLOGY at list.indology.info<mailto:INDOLOGY at list.indology.info>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Mein Kampf in India

A friend sent me this distressing information: "Actually, in a survey of “strong” leaders conducted among Delhi University students some years ago, Hitler came out ahead of Gandhi."
However, I wonder how much Delhi students actually know about Hitler.
 Best
Stella

--
Stella Sandahl
ssandahl at sympatico.ca<mailto:ssandahl at sympatico.ca>

On 2014-02-12, at 4:42 PM, Coseru, Cristian wrote:

This is digressing from the main point of this thread, but let me just add that once he became aware of Hitler's ulterior motives (after the invasion of Russia), Bose jumped from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak, by turning to the Japanese for the same sort of help (while fully aware of Japan's own imperial ambitions in SE Asia).

Best,
Christian

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 12, 2014, at 4:14 PM, "Bijlert, V.A. van" <v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl<mailto:v.a.van.bijlert at vu.nl>> wrote:

Here I have to object. Bose was not really an admirer of the darkest sides of Hitler and Bose was quite well aware of the intensely racist nature of national socialism. But Bose was an Indian nationalist and vehemently anti-British. Thus trying to get Hitler's help was based on the principle 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. Hitler, incidentally, saw nothing in Indian independence.

Victor van Bijlert

Op 12 feb. 2014 om 20:09 heeft "Coseru, Cristian" <CoseruC at cofc.edu<mailto:CoseruC at cofc.edu>> het volgende geschreven:

And let’s not forget also that "Netaji" Subhas Chandra Bose was also a great admirer of it (after all, he helped organize the Indian Legion in Berlin from Indian subjects that had been formerly enlisted by the British forces, and subsequently captured by the Axis powers in Africa; they sore allegiance to both Hitler and Bose).

Best,
Christian

Christian Coseru
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424

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Phone: 843 953-1935
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On Feb 12, 2014, at 1:14 PM, Stella Sandahl <ssandahl at sympatico.ca<mailto:ssandahl at sympatico.ca>> wrote:

About time to invoke it. But Golwalkar was a great admirer of Mein Kampf, so banning it might upset Hindu feelings. Who knows.
Best
Stella
--
Professor Stella Sandahl
Department of East Asian Studies
130 St. George St. room 14087
Toronto, ON M5S 3H1
ssandahl at sympatico.ca<mailto:ssandahl at sympatico.ca>
stella.sandahl at utoronto.ca<mailto:stella.sandahl at utoronto.ca>

Fax. (416) 978-5711

On 2014-02-12, at 11:18 AM, Matthew Kapstein wrote:

Of course, Hitler's Mein Kampf is readily available in almost any Indian bookstall.
I imagine that the small Bene Israel community never mobilized itself
to invoke Section 295-A.....

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago
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