Did Hindu leaders support the Nazis?

[Guest guest]

Did Hindu leaders support the Nazis?

 

Amit Mehta

 

With the start of the football World Cup there has been a lot of

talk about how the fans from various countries are going to behave

in Germany. In particular, there has been quite a bit of news about

England fans singing and chanting about World War II and poking fun

at Germany's Nazi past. To glorify Nazism is illegal in Germany and

people there still tend to be a bit cagey and reserved about

expressing their Nationalism.

 

Now, I'm not sure how much politics and history the average Hindu

reads or cares to read but I for one take a big interest in these

subjects. One thing that has struck me over the years is how a lot

of Hindu groups and individuals get called "Fascists" or "Nazis" in

the media even though, growing up in London, I had always associated

the terms with "white-supremacy" or racism. Anyway, all the

arguments aside, it is worth finding out what Hindus thought of the

Nazis when they were a dominant power and seemed as if they were

going to take over the world.

 

To do this, I'm going to look very briefly at the views of four

major Hindu leaders and thinkers of the time and to try and see what

we can learn. As this is a very short piece I'm not even going to

pretend that I'm doing justice to the individuals and issues

involved and recommend that everyone who is interested tries to

learn more for themselves. The four people I'm going to look at are:

Sri Aurobindo, Veer Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra

Bose. Most likely you will have heard of some of these personalities

if not all of them. All four were major figures in Indian/Hindu

politics and had big followings in the inter-war years. Indeed, even

today all four of these personalities are revered by some and hated

by others. Whatever your views on them, it's beyond doubt that each

of them had something to say and that they led the way for many

common Hindus.

 

Sri Aurobindo spent the vast majority of his later life in exile and

outside of British controlled India due to the fact that he was a

wanted man by the colonial administration. He was extremely

outspoken about his views on a number of things even when he had

retreated out of public life and into spiritual life. When Hitler

came to power in Germany and started threatening neighbouring

countries, Aurobindo was openly saying that Hitler should be

stopped. At the outbreak of World War 2, Aurobindo made a speech

saying that every Indian should support the British war effort

against Hitler and the Nazis. He often had to castigate many of his

followers who wanted a Nazi victory (believing that a Nazi victory

would help India's Independence). Many people found this surprising,

because Auribindo had been an advocate of the use of force to remove

the British from India. But Aurobindo knew that no matter what the

faults of the British Imperial government, that Hitler was far worse

and that all Hindus should join in the fight against him first and

foremost for moral reasons.

 

Veer Savarkar is often called a Nazi nowadays for his writings and

views of Hindu nationhood. Without going into details, it is worth

saying that nationalism was a pretty dominant ideology in those days

(just as communism was to become dominant later) and being a

nationalist didn't necessary make someone a Nazi. Of the four,

Sarvarkar's writings are hardest to get hold of and he is probably

the least well known. But in his time he was a very well known and

respected personality. He was sentenced to 50 years of imprisonment

for his part in the Indian Independence movement but interestingly

when the Second World War begun, he encouraged Hindus to join the

British army and fight the Nazis. Unlike Aurobindo his main reason

to support the British war effort was not for moral reasons against

Hitler but because he believed that the British desperation for

military resources was the best way for Hindu men to learn how to

use modern weapons and fighting techniques. He argued that when

these men returned to India they would be equipped to fight for

Indian Independence and also make up the armed forces of a free

India. Back to Nazism, Sarvarkar was one of the first Hindus to

argue for friendly relations between India and Israel and often saw

common interests between Hindus and Jews. That much alone shows that

his views were far removed from any Nazi affinity.

 

Mahatma Gandhi is probably the most famous Hindu leader of that era,

and I doubt that anyone reading this will not have heard of him.

Gandhi is famous for his non-violent struggle against the British

rule in India and also had his own views about Hitler and Nazism. Of

course he was not a fan of Hitler but he did say that no one should

join the British war effort as it was against his non-violent

principles. Gandhi was also painfully aware of the realities of war -

he was the only leader of the Indian National Congress who had

actually served in the British army and served in the Boer War (in

the Ambulance Corps) - so he had every reason to be anti-war.

Indeed, Gandhi even wrote two letters to Hitler to urge him to

desist from war. Interesting, he addressed the Nazi Furher as "my

brother", but however despicable we find Hitler, we can't hold that

against Gandhi as he tried his best to see the humanity in everyone.

Famously, his advice to the Jews of Europe was to give themselves

over to Hitler and willingly let the Nazis kill them as such an act

would melt the Nazi hearts. Gandhi was imprisoned for his anti-war

views during the Second World War and was only released under house

arrest because of his poor health.

 

Subhash Chandra Bose was an immensely popular figure in India and

remains so to this day. He was a leader of the Indian National

Congress and famous for clashing with Gandhi on the best methods for

gaining Indian Independence. He fled India during the war and made

alliances with the Axis powers. He headed the Indian National Army

and fought alongside the Axis forces against the Allies. His

eventual aim being the military invasion of India and subsequent

Independence. In this way, Bose is the one of these four famous

Hindus who did indeed help the Nazis [given that he even went to

Germany to meet Hitler and] for fighting alongside the Nazis.

However, as I already mentioned, Bose is regarded as a national hero

especially in the Bengal region of India which has been politically

dominated by the Communist Party of India. Bose is regarded

politically as more of a Socialist rather than a Nazi. It should

also be noted that Bose was indeed openly critical of Hitler's

treatment of Jews, the destruction of democratic institutions in

Germany and his aggression against pacificist nations.

 

So as we can see, Hindu political opinion spanned quite a spectrum

in the 1930s and 40s. It might surprise us today, but in those times

there were many Indians that wanted the Nazis to win the War but

more so through anti-British feelings rather than any doctrinal

affinity with Nazism (very few Hindus in those days would have been

able to read Mein Kampf, for example). It should also be noted that

people didn't know about the Jewish Holocaust until after the war.

 

Aurobindo famously reacted angrily to this sort of "my enemy's enemy

is my friend" type thinking and said all Hindus should fight the

Nazis. Sarvarkar also argued that Hindus should fight the Nazis,

albeit for different reasons to Aurobindo. Gandhi, like Aurobindo,

expressed a moral argument but in favour of not fighting rather than

joining the War. Bose, though not really accused of being pro-Nazi,

is probably the closest any Hindu can be called a Nazi. The fact is

that even under colonial rule, Hindu political thought showed a

unique maturity and spanned quite a range of opinion. The thing to

note though is that all four of these Hindu figures were united in

their goal of seeing an Independent India and three of the four

lived to see this goal achieved. But all four clashed publicly,

expressing very divergent views on Indian Independence as well

as "foreign policy".

 

Looking back we can all have our own views about who was right and

who was wrong. We can all criticise each of the four or praise each

of them. In my opinion, we should learn the lessons of our history

and see that far from being black and white the approach to problems

of foreign policy needs to be well thought out and guided by real

principles. From that perspective we can have respect for all four

of these great figures and their efforts for freeing Hindu Society

from Imperialism. Most importantly though, wherever possible we

should learn about our own history to see what Hindus actually

thought about Nazism and when we do this we can see that when people

start labelling Hindus as Nazis they aren't necessarily telling you

the whole story.

http://www.hinduvoice.co.uk/Issues/6/Nazis2.htm