On the Indian Readers of Hitler's Mein Kampf (EPW)

in: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 46, November 17, 2012
- Special Issues

This paper brings an analytical perspective to bear on media reports on
the popularity of Mein Kampf in India and evocations of Hitler in Indian
political and cultural discourses. The basis and implications of such
reports are examined for the Indian context, and relatedly for North
American and European contexts. It is argued that Hitler and his manifesto
are now evoked in India and elsewhere in fractured and dispersed ways that
elide their ideological significance. The coherence and continuing
potentiality of fascist ideology and Nazi-like programmes are noted, and it
is suggested that their conceptual shadow remains recuperable amidst
contemporary circulation of Mein Kampf and evocations of H itler

http://www.epw.in/special-issues/indian-readers-hitlers-mein-kampf.html

India: Will Showing Exhibits on the Holocaust Curb Popularity of Hitler Among Business Schools ?

The Times of India

Hitler fame in B-schools prompts Holocaust exhibit
Bella Jaisinghani, TNN | Nov 6, 2012, 01.29AM IST

MUMBAI: The Jewish community in the US is alarmed by the slow emergence of Adolf Hitler as a popular role model in Indian business and management schools. The recent incident of a Nagpur pool parlour having devised its theme around the German leader has further caused ripples of anxiety.

To remedy the situation, the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles has brought a display of 200 photographs of Holocaust history to Mumbai. 'The Courage to Remember' exhibition will have 40 picture panels of Holocaust history from 1933-1945. The display is on from November 6-10 at St Xavier's College in partnership with the Consulate of Israel.

The annual Holocaust Day commemoration of January 27 is weeks away. However, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, stresses the urgency of this exhibition. "Some groups like to give the false impression that the Holocaust never happened. We hope that the genocide pictures and documents help Indians understand Hitler's hateful ideology that killed six million Jews based on sheer accident of birth," he says.

"The Jewish community has always had an affinity for India given that the country has never expressed negative sentiments about them. However, we are perplexed to see the popularity of his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and to see commercial establishments being named after Hitler. Indians are told he was a leader who unified Germany. One cannot forget that he killed millions of his own countrymen in doing so," the rabbi adds.

Alarmist reasons aside, 'The Courage to Remember' has travelled to 16 countries and visited New Delhi and Bengaluru already. "We will place a permanent set of photographs with the Israeli consulate in Mumbai so local institutions can display them in future," says Dr Alfred Balitzer, professor emeritus from Claremont McKenna College in LA. The Simon Wiesenthal Center is an NGO that is dedicated to teaching the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust. It runs a Museum of Tolerance that figures among the six must-see museums in the US.

Mein Kampf a hit on Dhaka streets

BBC News
27 November 2009


By Alastair Lawson
BBC News, Dhaka

Mabul with the book
Mabul generally sells six copies of the book in a day

Booksellers touting their wares amid the heavy traffic in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka, have discovered an unusual best-seller.

Adolf Hitler's autobiography manifesto Mein Kampf is selling as well as Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol.

The street vendors in Dhaka are found at every major road junction and intersection.

Most of the sellers are young boys and many compete with beggars to attract the attention of motorists.

Last week, Mein Kampf did unusually well because many bought the book to give it away as an Eid present.

'All the rage'

Mabul, 15, is among many boys who risk the chaos of Dhaka's roads to earn a living selling pirated copies of popular paperbacks.

Among his offerings are The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, the 9/11 Commission Report - Omissions and Distortions by David Ray Griffin, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy and copies of Mein Kampf (volumes one and two).

"For some reason Hitler's book is all the rage among educated people - on a typical day I can sell as many as five or six," Mabul told the BBC.

Hitler is not as popular as Dan Brown or Amartya Sen among Dhaka's motorists and their passengers, but there is a constant demand for his book.

"I think it's because many people have seen Hitler in films and want to know more about him."

Mabul earns up to 1,000 taka ($8) a day in his job, usually working eight hours a day for six days a week.

He says that the best time to sell books is when traffic is at its heaviest, in the morning and evening rush hours.

When it is gridlocked, some people appear to buy his books because they are bored and there is nothing else to do.

Career path

Nearly all the books Mabul sells are photocopies of books he has bought from dealers - and in some cases the photocopying is not of the highest quality.

The maps in his Lonely Planet guide to Bangladesh, for example, are difficult to read and of poor quality.

Yet despite the dubious legality of his career path, Mabul and his friend Aminul - who has the use of only one arm - typify the entrepreneurial spirit for which many Bangladeshis are renowned.

"If I didn't do this job I would have no income - it's as simple as that," said Aminul, as he proffers a copy of Monica Ali's latest novel.

"It's not easy being disabled and selling books in a Dhaka traffic jam. Several times we come close to getting run over."

Indian business students snap up copies of Mein Kampf

Sales of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler's autobiography and apologia for his anti-semitism, are soaring in India where business students regard the dictator as a management guru.

By Monty Munford

The Daily Telegraph, London (20 April 2009)

NEW DELHI - Booksellers told The Daily Telegraph that while it is regarded in most countries as a 'Nazi Bible', in India it is considered a management guide in the mould of Spencer Johnson's "Who Moved My Cheese".

Sales of the book over the last six months topped 10,000 in New Delhi alone, according to leading stores, who said it appeared to be becoming more popular with every year.

Several said the surge in sales was due to demand from students who see it as a self-improvement and management strategy guide for aspiring business leaders, and who were happy to cite it as an inspiration.

"Students are increasingly coming in asking for it and we're happy to sell it to them," said Sohin Lakhani, owner of Mumbai-based Embassy books who reprints Mein Kampf every quarter and shrugs off any moral issues in publishing the book.

"They see it as a kind of success story where one man can have a vision, work out a plan on how to implement it and then successfully complete it".

Jaico Publishing House, one of the publishers in India, said it reprints a new edition of the book at least twice a year to meet growing demand.

"We were the first company to publish the book in India and there are now six other Indian publishers of the book, although we were first to take a chance on it," said Jaico's chief editor, R H Sharma, who dismissed any moral issues in publishing Mein Kampf.

"The initial print run of 2,000 copies in 2003 sold out immediately and we knew we had a best-seller on our hands. Since then the numbers have increased every year to around 15,000 copies until last year when we sold 10,000 copies over a six-month period in our Delhi shops," he added.

Senior academics cite the mutual influence of India and Hitler's Nazis on one another. Mahatma Gandhi corresponded with the Fuhrer, pro-Independence leader Subhas Chandra Bose's Indian National Army allied with Hitler's Germany and Japan during the Second World War, and the Nazis drew on Hindu symbolism for their Swastika motif and ideas of Aryan supremacy.

Dr J Kuruvachira, Professor of Philosophy of Salesian College in Nagaland and who has cited Mein Kampf as a source of inspiration to the Hindu nationalist BJP, said he believed the book's popularity was due to political reasons.

"While it could be the case that management students are buying the book, my feeling is that it has more likely influenced some of the fascist organisations operating in India and nearby," he said.

India is not the only country where Mein Kampf is popular. It has been a best-seller in Croatia since it was first published in while in turkey it sold 100,000 in just two months in 2005. In Russia it has been reprinted three times since the de facto ban on the book was overturned in 1992.

In Germany the book's copyright is held by the state of Bavaria where its publication is banned until 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death.

In India, any book more than 25 years old is free of copyright, which has paved the way for six separate publishers to print the book.