The world paid a heavy price for ignoring Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. He, on his part, had suppressed nothing. His agenda, and the outlook which inspired it, were laid bare with perfect candour.
The Italian scholar Marzia Casolari’s classic In the Shadow of the Swastika: The Ambiguous Relationship between Indian Nationalism and Nazi Fascism [(2011), I Limri die mil, via Benedetti Marcello F, 40141 Bologna; Italy] based on stupendous research in the archives in New Delhi and Rome, exposes the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and V.D. Savarkar’s attachment to the Nazi-Fascist ideals and the links and contacts between them.
The RSS’ claim to be the Vishwaguru (tutors of the world) is not a new development, nor is it a vain boast based on an insane version of history. M.S. Golwalkar, the RSS’ boss for years, claimed in his Bunch of Thoughts (1966): “Our arms stretched as far as America on the one side—that was long long before Columbus ‘discovered’ America!—and on the other to China, Japan, Cambodia, Malaya, Siam, Indonesia and all the South-East Asian countries and right up to Mongolia and Siberia in the North. Our powerful political empire too spread over these South-East areas and continued for 1,400 years, the Shailendra empire alone flourishing for over 700 years— standing as a powerful bulwark against Chinese expansion.”
His chela, Pravin Togadia of the Vishwa (World) Hindu Parishad, an RSS’ creature, gave free rein to his imagination: “At a point of time, the entire world was Hindu. There were 700 crore Hindus, and now there are just 100 crore.” He was then the international working president of the VHP. Such people live in Vedic times and conjure up “achievements” of that era.
This article first appeared on thewire.in