July 2008.
I was on a cycling expedition, from the southernmost tip of India to its most northern state. Along the way, I took a pit stop at Nagpur, the geographic centre of India and the epicentre of Hindu nationalism. Here, I saw a building with a bizarre name: Hitlers Den. A pool parlour, its walls were emblazoned with tacky Nazi insignia, and on its shopfront – a swastika on full public display.
The swastika is not an unusual symbol in India. It’s ubiquitous. Markets, shops, homes, temples, vehicles, notebooks, property documents and even shaved heads are smeared with vermilion or turmeric swastikas, often with the words ‘Shubh Labh,’ meaning ‘good fortune.’
But this was most definitely Hitler’s Nazi swastika – a tilted version of the Hindu swastika on a black background. This blatant display of Nazi symbolism was odd. What is Hitler’s Den doing in the middle of Nagpur? I wondered. I brushed it off as stupidity and cycled on.
Ironically, Hitler – the genocidal maniac who murdered more than six million Jews and propagated the Nazi ideology that promoted hatred, Aryan racial puritanism and white supremacy – continues to find many followers in India, a nation of predominantly brown-skinned people.
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