The last two days I have been performing back-breaking, grueling, utterly soul crushing labor…in my own house (well, my parents house). Have you guys ever read a news article about some reclusive old guy who had a lifelong hoarding problem (a.k.a syllogomania) and when police finally entered the house they found a rotting, partially eaten corpse buried underneath a pile of junk that was formerly on one side of the only navigable lane through the house? Yes? Then now you know what my dad is like (known as “Yo Dad” to some who read SM). My dad left with my mom for India earlier this week so I flew home to help my brother clean out the house without any resistance. I wanted to solve this looming crisis before my dad made the local news in the “odd news” segment. Over the last two days we’ve been cleaning out stuff (mostly stored in the basement) that spans back 40 years! I won’t bore you with descriptions of 20-year-old used shower curtains or “Indian luggage bags” filled with spiders. I will take you straight to the good stuff. First, check out these two cricket bats. I remember they were purchased on a trip to India in 1982/3 in Ahmedabad (I was ~7). Notice anything shocking on one of them?
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Was I an angry militant batsman as a child? |
Can someone please explain this to me? Why would a child’s cricket bat say Hitler on it? I can understand why the one on the right has Sunil Gavaskar’s name…but Hitler?? As best as I can guess, the bat makers meant to spell “Hitter” but misspelled it as “Hitler.” Why did my parents even buy me this cricket bat? This could REALLY come back to tank my candidacy if I ever run for office. This is a closet skeleton right up there with GW Bush’s and Obama’s cocaine use.
Digging through more boxes, I found a pleasant surprise to offset the feeling of guilt that the cricket bat had left inside my soul. It was my mom’s British Colonial Passport!
It had a bunch of 1971 visa stamps in it so I guess this is the passport my mom had in hand when she first entered the United States. I’m glad this precious document avoided ending up in the local dump. What a thing to show my kids some day.
Finally, I came across the one thing that can make any grown man fall to his knees and weep in remembrance of better times long since gone. Deep inside one box in the darkest corner of my basement was my teddy bear. It doesn’t matter to me that he is cross-eyed and mangy. His name is Bearhug. I named him that because that is what it said on his shirt. The name has long since been wiped off the shirt because of years of excessive hugging, but I still remember. Maybe I’m not a perfect man. Maybe I have a lot of flaws. Maybe I have a shadowy past (as evidenced by the cricket bat). But at least Bearhug loves me…still.
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Whole again |
I’m not sure what’s up with Indians and Hitler. Telugu megastar Chiranjeevi had a film named Hitler, based on a Malayalam film of the same name. He also came out with a film titled Stalin last year. Neither of them have anything to do with Hitler or Stalin; his film titled ‘Tagore’ had nothing to do with Bengalis either.
Was your mother/her family expelled from Uganda in 1972?
Mein Kampf is sold at every outdoor book stall in Delhi. I asked “Who is buying these ?”, the response was European backpackers (the books is illegal in much of Europe I believe) and some Indians. Indians are poorly educated about the Holocaust. When they say “He is like a Hitler”, they mean a strong willed autocrat rather than a racist, evil mass murderer. Disturbing and another sign of substandard education even at the secondary schools that turn out successful engineering and science bound graduates
Well this true of people of other nationalities too, who will say anyone they don’t like is akin to Hitler (see: infantile American liberals likening Bush to Hitler). Though I agree with you that there isn’t enough of an emphasis on a more ‘well-rounded’ education in India. But I read an article recently about Delhi secondary schools offering more classes in history and political science, encouraging debate, and so on. I’ll have to search for it.
In 8th grade I had a teacher who praised Hitler by saying, while discussing German geography, “This is where that great soldier, who tried to win back his country from the British and the Americans, was from.” I also remember Hitler being praised in a (Bengali) biography of Subhas Chandra Bose. I didn’t even know what the Holocaust was till I saw Schindler’s List, and understood what it truly was only after coming to the US.
Hitler’s image in India is closer to Napoleon or Genghis Khan compared to the Satanic image he holds in Europe and America. A man who set out to rule the world but fell short of his ultimate goal. I was in India last summer when someone opened a restaurant called the “Hitler cafe” in Mumbai. There was a picture in the paper of two people sitting in the restaurant with all sorts of Nazi insignia everywhere. No hint of controversy until a couple of days later when the news spread to the western media. I don’t remember what ended up happening but the readers comments were ambivalent about whether it was in poor taste (sic).
Nala: You make a good point. But what I am saying is that it is often a compliment in India. For example, if a cop chases out criminal elements using strong arm/illegal tactics people will say “He is like a Hitler only”. This is said approvingly…they would absolutely not make the comparison if they knew what Hitler did. The Western Left on the other hand knows what Hitler did and chooses, without reason IMHO, to draw the comparison with Bush over Iraq
What people have said. I don’t think there is anything wrong with Mein Kampf being sold in bookstores, but people truly do not have a conception of the horror of the holocaust and having politicos name their kids Stalin and Lenin does not raise even an eyebrow in India. I remember the Amar Chitra Katha on Bose describing his alignment with Hitler’s Germany with nary a hint of disapproval, and the descriptions of the communist revolution and Soviet Russia in history textbooks are ridiculously sugarcoated as a legacy of decades of “non alignment”.
That said, there is at least a greater coverage of the broad sweep of world history than in the U.S. educational system.
Hahaha. I wonder if this is sort of like ‘Engrish.’
Really? Perhaps my perspective is biased since I went to a really good public high school, but it seems to me that if so many people don’t recognize the historical significance of Hitler, there is something missing.
My experience has been other way around because I have found that historical knowledge of most westerners greatly lacking in anything that didn’t include europe/middle east. For example one might have heard about the Irish famine but not how Britain contributed to the Bengal famine in which millions died. Mesopotamia is known but nothing about indus valley civilization. While Indian education is really lacking in ways to creatively stimulate the mind, there is no dearth of information to be crammed in the mind of the young ones.
I agree with this to an extent. The Indian syllabus is uniform and broader than what most US high schools offer. But most Indian government schools are dysfunctional, the teachers are often AWOL. Secondly, history is an after thought even in functional schools. Just “mug” for the exam and let it all out afterwards. Economic realities mean that history is for the wealthy “St. Stephens” crowd
The text books as such do a definitive job to tell that under Hitler millions of Jews were killed, that Japanese bombed the pearl harbour and also that America nuked Japan. They also talk ‘more’ dissapproving of the Hiroshima&Nagasaki than Pearl harbour, but thats about it.
Also, talking about well roundedness (and learning history perse), Indian students have an obligation to learn about their own history and inspite of that we do learn Alexander (the mof*in great), Mayans, Incans, American, European etc while also learning about Mughals, Chandragupta, Ashoka (Kalinga kingdom), Satavahanas, Chalukyas, Kanishkas, Vijainagar empire, Kakatiyas…and this list goes on.
Not disputing that in the least, but world history is more than just Western history.
louiecypher:
I wanted to reply to you saying the same as what you said, but you said it before. Yes, the textbooks/courses are well balanced, but its the teachers who doesnt do their job. Especially the government teachers. It is quite shameful to relate how they skip their classes and make their students attend to ‘private’ tuitions (talk about “working from home” back in the 80’s). All they are ever worried is about the district eduction officer (DEO) making a surprise visit to the school. They used to have the clerks who work in the main office on their ‘payroll’ to get a tip off…
I’m guessing that a lot of the Hitler neutrality or ignorance initially arose out of the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach. I’m guessing that WWII is seen in India as the battle between empires rather than an ideological battle and I believe that there is fair bit of merit to that view (anyone with a solid grasp of U.S. history knows that it wasn’t the rumours of the Holocaust that propelled the U.S. into war and there were a good number of U.S. leaders (John-John’s grampa for one) who were impressed with Hitler’s achievments and at the very least indifferent to what we these days in the West consider his failings). So, from the general Indian perspective, not so much a direct impact issue as colonialism, imperialism etc. And since the Germans never colonized India…
I’m sensing that the Holocaust in India has about the same or slightly more awareness as the Armenian genocide does over here–sort of a tsking “but what does that have to do with me?” view.
Yes, this is the big problem. History is taught in India as an immutable collection of facts, rather than what it is: an inferred narrative in the light of the values and messages that are dominant in a society. This leads to a rather poor understanding of the complex factors and interactions that really determine the course of history, while still knowing that the third battle of Panipat was fought in 1761, and that Kenya elected its first president in 1964.
Very funny, Abhi.
Indeed that bat qualifies as a figurative skeleton in the closet (or the basement). But your suspicion of Hitter morphing into Hitler by a poor speller is entirely plausible. Don’t throw away that bat. It’s an heirloom due either to its sinister implication or in its freak value like a misprinted postage stamp. As many have pointed out before me, Hitler’s image is indeed quite a bit more benevolent in India than in Europe or the US. The nickname of an older relative of mine is Hitler. His Bengali parents were fervent Indian nationalist and a fan of “Netaji” Subhas Bose. They lovingly bestowed the name on their son during WWII when Netaji attempted to strike an alliance with Hitler as a tactic to weaken the British Raj. The fact that the son grew up to be a communist activist and a fervent anti-fascist in his adulthood was another ironic twist in the saga of weird nomenclature.
My husband is not quite as bad as Yo Dad. In fact he is quite merciless with the kids’ childhood toys. A couple of years ago he threw out some priceless (in my opinion) Nintendo games including all three Super Mario Brothers. I was able to salvage the Tetris, thankfully. His weakness happens to be paperwork – decades old insurance and utilities bills, check books, travel receits, science papers and out of date text books. I would love some help with cleaning parts of my home of this detritus. I was thinking now that you live in the same town as me … etc.
Rahul:
In a complex and diverse country like India, it would be impossible to offer an inferred narrative. I’d rather keep it way it is – history as it happened. Beat it around the dates and place and the leaders.
Its not like I havent been accused of not being well rounded enough to not know any MJ’s songs. I was busy with Chiru and Rajni(who)cant’s songs.
This misses the point. History textbooks in India are not objective by any stretch of the imagination. The facts in India are presented exactly as the existing norms in India see fit: examples are the descriptions of China without really describing Mao’s atrocities during the cultural revolution, Stalin’s gulags, Indira Gandhi’s emergency, or even the Kashmir fiasco during independence. Of course, I quote the last one only as an extreme – I don’t think it is reasonable to expect objectivity on such a lightning rod of a subject, just as the narratives about the original pilgrims soft pedal the entire Native American issue.
No history education will be complete or unbiased, but an education that presents it as a combination of facts and interpretation will make its recipients more willing and capable of absorbing new facts and information. Not to mention that it makes history much more lively and exciting.
Especially if inferred in the ‘Fox’-way: verrry fair and balanced ;). Historical dates might be confusing, but I also prefer hard facts rather than history being tinted by views/beliefs of different religion/civilization/culture.
Indeed I do. I’m shocked, shocked that anyone would advertise Gavaskar as a captain in 1982/3, given his boring record as captain.
Also, I can find no reason for Hitler’s name to be on a cricket bat. Hitler is said to have hated the game so much that he apparently had the German cricket team executed. Yes, that is a made-up story.
In Pakistan I’ve seen Hitler used as slang for someone who is dominating. ‘Hitler ha wo’.
Hitler bats. My assumption is that some cheap batmaker thought of the word hit, and on a play on words thought of Hitler and the thinking was it conveyed a mean image for a tough batter. So Hitler. I lived in India too despite being an ABD and the perception even among those who knew he was a bad guy was that he was a mean but famous dictator who was accomplished in something. I dont think many view him as a good guy. I just dont think the extent of the horrors of the Nazi regime has sunk in. While it is an indictment of the Indian arrogance that their educated get a more accomplished education than Americans, I dont think Westerners are in a position to laugh at them because many in the West are ignorant of Indian things too.
But the Bose collaboration with Hitler, in my view, is not to be condemned. The US and UK have allied with just as despicable people as Hitler to further their needs. Bose was desperate. Can anyone blaming him name a single other country that he could have gone to?
I just finsihed reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s story in the NYer about a Indian returning to his parents home and exploring the basement. Now this…
Abhi, I found this post a pleasant surpise, really helps the DBDs to “see” your parents, which we probably have much in common with.
A C. B. Fry bat ?
I think Bose and the INA were good people, but I am happy they lost. Mein Kampf has some specific language about Indians and from what I recall Hitler, who was an Anglophile in some weird pan-Germanic way, stated that India benefited from Brit rule. I also believe he stated that his rule would be more harsh than the Brits should he come to control India. I am not sure what the Germans ,who were reaching out to Indians, did to quell the skepticism I am sure Bose and others felt about the hand being offered to them. I guess at the end of the day, inequality and insult during the Raj left a stronger impression for the INA partisans than a book that was speaking in hypotheticals vis a vis Indians. Interestingly the Left will talk about philosophical connections between the Hindu Nationalists of that time and the Nazis, but it was the Communists who took the bait
Here is a relevant quote from Mein Kampf:
“England will never lose India unless she admits racial disruption in the machinery of her administration (which at present is entirely out of the question in India) or unless she is overcome by the sword of some powerful enemy. But Indian risings will never bring this about. We Germans have had sufficient experience to know how hard it is to coerce England. And, apart from all this, I as a German would far rather see India under British domination than under that of any other nation.”
Interesting. Winston Churchill evokes revulsion in me for doing nothing to stop the Bengal Famine of 1943 and in fact it was his government’s policy to export food for use by Allied troops while the natives starved. 2.5 million people died in that famine.
Should I be positively appalled that the west seems to adore the man?
Hitler seems to be pretty popular in India. There was a poll done in India of students in the top colleges in either Delhi or India. They were questioned on who was their ideal leader. The number one person on their list was Adolf Hitler. ( Gandhi was No.3)
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2003-02/20d'souza_.cfm http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_go1658/is_200310/ai_n9171786 http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=2951 http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2003-09.html
I am presuming these are the same people who tell us that there is nothing wrong in voting for Modi because he has attracted a lot of foreign investment.
Not completely true per the stats that you link to. Read it again and you will find: a) Gandhi #1 at 23% b) Hitler at #3 at 17%
I agree that its disturbing, but we’ve already established that most Indians don’t have much knowledge about the Holocaust.
Maybe the bat is just supposed to be incredibly scary? Bad idea.
I’m glad you found Bearhug, Abhi! My Tickly is safe on a bookshelf in my parents house.
I won’t bore you with descriptions of 20-year-old used shower curtains or “Indian luggage bags†filled with spiders.
Heh.
I agree that its disturbing, but we’ve already established that most Indians don’t have much knowledge about the Holocaust.
I am not so sure about that. There is a lot of love in India for strong leaders (see the Modi re-election). The butchers of both Delhi and Gujarat did get re-elected.
Good point Saheli–how could I have overlooked Bearhug? He’s no Mr. Bear, but he’s still pretty awesome.
louiecypher: Bose felt very humiliated by the reception he was meted out by the Nazis. Third Reich’s racist philosophy was more important to them than any “the enemy of my enemy” tactical consideration. Remember Bose eventually turned to Japan where he was welcome. I have met older Japanese men during my travels in Japan who have approached me and spoken excitedly about Bose and Tagore.
As for the INA, it is comforting now to remember (especially for the west) that Gandhiji’s non-violent non-cooperation was the only political opposition against the British Raj. The fact is that the INA enjoyed almost an equal level of respect and support among the Indian citizenry. Among my parents’ generation there were quite a few INA veterans whom I met as a young girl. They were respected as much as those who marched with Gandhi. Even many Gandhians (not Gandhi though) saw the INA as a legitimate, albeit misguided, arm of the Indian freedom movement. At the famoust Red Fort Trial of Colonel Prem Sehgal, Colonel Gurubaksh Singh Dhillon and Major General Shah Nawaz Khan, there was enormous outpouring of public sympathy for the defendants. The protest marches and threats of riots prevented the British from carrying out the sentence of deportation. One of the attorneys defending the INA Three was Jawaharlal Nehru. Shah Nawaz Khan later went on to become a minister in Nehru’s cabinet.
You can’t blame your parents. They are not Jews with Jewish sensibilities.
Bad, bad indians ! They are so ignorant they dont even know who hitler is !! Chee, chee. And they also worship the swastika! And dont get me started on the ear hair problem….
On the other hard, in the west, knowledge of indian history is widespread. Every schoolchild in US or Europe has full knowledge of Ashoka and Akbar. The economic destruction of india at the hands of the british is taught in every high school as is the history of the indian freedom struggle. Even middle-schoolers are aware of the conditions that led upto “partition” in which perhaps a million people died in South Asia.
Well, we all know how these polls work, don’t they? Who among us hasn’t received bevies of emails from “friends” near and far, requesting us to ACT NOW! RESTORE INDIA’S PRIDE! VOTE AMITABH BACCHAN WORLD’S GREATES ACTOR!!!!! TAJ MAHAL ONLY WONDER OF UNIVERSE! PLS TO MAKE FRANSHIP WITH ME!!!!
so whoever bought these bats (yo dad?) didnt notice this? Apparently you didnt use these bats a whole lot either..
@al-chutiya? modi warrants a separate post/thread
Al Beruni, what’s your point? That Indians should ensure that they are in the pole position in the competitive ignorance game?
Rahul
European history does not equal world history. I would like greater knowledge of world history to be more broadly accessible in all countries. Most westerners know squat about asian history. Its consequences have been DEVASTATING. Most americans do not know that 2 million vietnamese were killed during the conflict there.
Lets talk about the problem in an appropriate framework, not in this silly “oh my god, the indians dont know much about the holocaust, there must be something wrong with them” model.
Al Beruni: “And they also worship the swastika! And dont get me started on the ear hair problem….”
I don’t see anyone questioning the swastika, we were just talking about how it understandbly has a different meaning in the West where many of us live.
Man, Papo. I smell some trouble brewing. Yo Dad is NOT gonna be pleased. I won’t be sayin’ I tole you so though.
Abhi, it’s slightly OT but your mother’s passport photo is beautiful.
^__^
The education system in India has its inadequacies as others have pointed out. But let us not ignore the almost parochial aspect of how US schools teach students about anything other than US history. For the average American student – and for that matter the average American – the world revolves around the US. Even the British system, perhaps because of the country’s colonial past, does provide some some perspective to students about world history. When it comes to world geography, the knowledge of the average American – who, after all, is a product of the US system of education – is abysmal.
In the field of mathematics, very little is ever said about the contributions of other countries and cultures to the knowledge gained over the centuries. The emphasis is on the contributions by Western mathematicians.
There is much that is wanting when it comes to the Indian system of education, but let us maintain some perspective as we laud the accomplishments of the US education system.
http://www.samarthbharat.com/bengalholocaust.htm
THE GREAT HOLOCAUST OF BENGAL
Churchill’s role in creating this famine is not at all discusses in the ‘western’ world. He’s revered as a great leader and a great statesman!
discussed
Aww … My brother had a bear called John, a soft velvet bear from the 60s, who became Johnny a yellow bear, a bit patchy with an eye and an arm always threatening to come off at the end of the 70s, and has now become … Johnny, an old bear somewhere under the masses of toys my nephew and niece have … I’m going to go find him …
That aside, I’m with Coach – when Yo Dad finds out you threw out his stuff … boy do I not want to be you … ooh, you didn’t actually throw out the suitcases did you? My mum still talks about when she got such and such suitcase and the memories of the trips she did with them …
I don’t think anybody here has been lauding the accomplishments of the US education system. That said, I don’t think we need to justify our ignorance by pointing at somebody else’s either.
As for Churchill, he’s a disgusting racist, and I can’t believe that the tomes he wrote advocating the decimation of all able bodied young men in Germany, and expressing contempt for the dark skinned people, were deemed worthy of a Nobel.
Actually you are one of the only ones ON topic. Thanks 😉
Ve haf ways of making you bat!