3 Review(s)

THE TRUTH ABOUT HITLERS VIEWS ON INDIA AND INDIANS, REVEALED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.The Indians can think themselves lucky that we do not rule India. We should make their lives a misery! Adolf Hitler, 1942Hitlers autobiography, Mein Kampf, is a perennial bestseller in India, with even street-side bookstalls prominently displaying stacks of it. The name Hitler anathema almost everywhere else in the world is tossed about casually in the Indian subcontinent, not infrequently invoked in praise. Many Indians still harbour the notion that the F�hrer was a friend of the Indian people and had extended wholehearted support to their freedom struggle. To journalist and historian Vaibhav Purandare, this clearly suggested that Indians continue to be largely unaware of the German dictators views on India, in spite of the fact that they are unambiguously expressed in his own writings. This lacuna spurred him on to root in the archives in Germany, India and elsewhere.The result of Purandares research is this comprehensive and painstaking portrait and analysis of Hitlers outlook on India and its people, his opinion of their struggle against the British Raj, and his take on Indian history, culture and civilisation. Also within these pages are surprising details of Netaji Subhas Chandra Boses entanglement with the Reich, the experience of other Indians living in Nazi Germany, the mission that Hitler sent to the Himalayas in search of pure-blood Aryans, and a number of other little-known historical nuggets. Accessible and rich in detail, Hitler and India is the very first examination of what India meant to a figure who, perplexingly, remains quite alive in the country.