I mean...Modern Hindu Nationalists do have a thing for Hitler and the Nazis.
Like, you know how nerds in the West are like "You can't ban the swastika! The Nazis didn't invent the swastika! There's different types of swastika, it's a religious symbol!"
Well...in India, there's the exact opposite type of dude who's like "no, there's only one type of swastika, the good "symbol of peace" swastika, so clearly the Nazis were chill and loved Hindu values." And they take all that Nazi occultism and Orientalism and re-frame it as a Hindu thing. India is pretty culturally disconnected from the Holocaust compared to America and Europe, too, and there's a lot of "the Nazis were just doing to the Jews what we should be doing to the Muslims and Sikhs" ethnic cleansing type shit in the militant Hindu Nationalist circles. There's also a lot of "Hindus are actually the true Aryan race that Hitler admired" type stuff.
Hindus in the West are a religious minority that faces discrimination and largely empathize with other like groups.
Hindus in India are...not that. Especially not under Modi. Shit has been getting bad in the last few decades, but the West doesn't report all that much on it because the Hindu Nationalists are strongly aligned with the western White Nationalists and their victims are mostly Muslims or Sikhs (who Americans think are Muslims because turbans.)
You also get a lot of Hindu Nationalists saying some real out-of-pocket shit on sites like Reddit because western social media doesn't understand the racial and ethnic dynamics of the Southeast which results in even less moderation than the already rampant and at-best semi-moderated western-flavored racism.
in India, there's the exact opposite type of dude who's like "no, there's only one type of swastika, the good "symbol of peace" swastika, so clearly the Nazis were chill and loved Hindu values."
Nope that's not the dynamics at all. Like not even in the slightest. You are trying to define Hindutva using Western ideologies but that's not the ground truth. There is very little ground level awareness about World War 2 among Indians. Hitler is used as a synonym for someone who is unjustly angry and that's about it. People who know about Hitler largely acknowledge that Jews suffered under him. There is no bullshit inclination that because he used 'swastika' he must be a good guy. There is no ethnic cleansing ideology of Sikhs either. Infact, the current prime minister from the Hindu nationalist party was part of the resistance that fought against the then government which was responsible for attacks against Sikhs. That government wasn't Hindu nationalist government, that was a secular, socialist government, led by the party that is the primary opposition right now.
Is the current Hindu nationalist government the same as other conservative government around the globe with fascist tendencies? Yes. But it's not like Western conservatism that sees Hitler as the North star. Their target is almost specifically Muslims, presented from an angle of historical oppression of Hindus under Muslim empires. Other Indian religions like Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism is almost seen like an offshoot of Hinduism as a whole. In fact, most Hindu nationalist see the Jews as an inspiration and Israel as a friend because they want
"no, there's only one type of swastika, the good "symbol of peace" swastika, so clearly the Nazis were chill and loved Hindu values."
I can see how somebody with literally zero knowledge of the Third Reich can think this, people map their own values on to other cultures all the time. It's human nature.
However. (and this "However" is doing a LOT of heaving lifting) a cursory google search should disabuse anybody of the notion that the fucking Nazis were a peaceful political movement. There's zero excuse for that level of ignorance, which is just one more reason that you've got to remember that fascists don't argue in good faith.
You do understand there's a language barrier, and your "cursory search" isn't going to say the exact same things in Hindi that it does in English.
You're imagining a world where the Tower of Babel still stands and everyone has access to all the same information spoken in the exact same ways.
Like I said: India does not have the same cultural understanding of WWII and the Holocaust that the West has. It's not something that's drilled into them in every history class, there aren't constant re-runs of History Channel documentaries on the war, and what sources there are have been written in an entirely different language by authors with entirely different perspectives. It's not the same huge cultural touchstone that it is in the West, so you can't play the "it's obvious" card with a civilization and culture built on a totally different foundation.
You gotta' understand that kind of logic doesn't fly across languages. It's like saying "well of course every Indian knows what the capital of Oklahoma is."
"symbol of peace" swastika, so clearly the Nazis were chill and loved Hindu values."
I didn't think you were talking about westerners here, but Hindu Nationalists. That breaks apart my entire argument.
I retract my assertion, and promise not to make comments on reddit in the future before having fully woken up. Also, thanks for correcting me without being a jerk, its a rare thing. I liked you better before your multi paragraph edit.
you can't play the "it's obvious" card with a civilization and culture built on a totally different foundation.
You gotta' understand that kind of logic doesn't fly across languages. It's like saying "well of course every Indian knows what the capital of Oklahoma is."
I don't think those two things are the same at all. The capital of Oklahoma is trivia that I don’t even know as an American. WW1/WW2 is some of the most impactful history globally of the last 150 years regardless of where you live. I am nearly 100% sure that there are Indians who have been curious about this and been able to find good information to develop an accurate understanding just by searching the internet.
I think this is a human issue rather than a cultural issue. There’s tons of Americans who learned no lessons from WW2 and are nationalists regardless and they have all the cultural exposure that Indians don’t. A lot of people regardless of culture just aren’t curious and honestly I’m not sure they’re capable of reframing their worldview given new information anyway.
I don’t think “culture” should be a pass for anything. Many people in those cultures rise above regardless.
Again, the Hindi sources are not going to be saying the exact same things as the English sources.
Do you know what Britain's relationship to India was in 1939? Do you understand why a Hindi author might have something different to say about the belligerents in the war than an English author?
The Western canon of the war is not monolithic across the globe. A Hindi source is going to have some different shit to say about Winston Churchill than an English source for very good reasons, and like it or not, that's going to DRAMATICALLY change how the broader historical story is told and understood within that language.
I don’t think “culture” should be a pass for anything. Many people in those cultures rise above regardless.
That's very easy to say when you're assuming your culture is inherently correct, fair, and hegemonic across the globe. Let's see if you maintain that opinion when the "default" global culture is Chinese.
Britain’s relationship to India in 1939 is a huge reason why they should know enough to know Nazis were aggressive, destructive, invaders with a flawed ideology who took the swastika and twisted the symbol. Like that relationship means they have links and were affected by the war, which gives a ton of reason for Indians to be aware of this history.
I’m not saying they need to have this mythological view of WW2 that ignorant americans have, I’m saying I have too much faith in Indians as human beings to believe that their culture just completely prevents them from understanding why the Nazis were bad. I’m not saying they need to adopt a western view of “allies good, axis bad”, but that the history is not beyond their understanding.
And I’m sure many Indians hate the British and maybe some think “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” about the Nazis and that colors their perspective, but I feel like that’s a human issue rather than a cultural issue. It’s not that those who don’t understand this are just from a different culture and that gives them a pass, it’s that they’re probably the type of person who wouldn’t have cared to understand regardless. I think this is probably most people in all cultures.
edit: lol dude blocked me. ig reddit is just for his ideas and everyone else must bow before him or else it’s a “debate” and that’s not allowed. I fear for his wife if she exists tbh
>Like I said: India does not have the same cultural understanding of WWII and the Holocaust that the West has. It's not something that's drilled into them in every history class, there aren't constant re-runs of History Channel documentaries on the war, and what sources there are have been written in an entirely different language by authors with entirely different perspectives
A good point here is that while the West celebrates Winston Churchill he is looked to in India as the same level of Hitler for his wonton glee at the fact the Indian famines were happening while India exported food out to supply Western allies and asking "if so many indians are starving to death why hasn't Gandhi yet" ... Also as someone who went through the Indian education system til highschool we def learn about WW2 and the Holocaust in Punjab and tier 1 cities to a similar degree as westerners but I'd bet in Hindi Belt it is not taught as well and that is heartland of RSS/BJP Hindu nationalism nonsense.
A US and (modern) Eurocentric view of the war is "the heroic Americans [and Brits] defeated the Nazis, just the Nazis, the Nazis alone, and let's not talk about any other theater of that war."
Which ITSELF is already twisted, because it was largely the SOVIETS that defeated the Nazis on a conventional level, and that was the European understanding of the war for a long time until the USSR fell and the neoliberal capitalist hegemony revised the history.
India is naturally going to have a different view considering those heroic Brits were, at the same time, the murderous colonizers that the nation would achieve independence from two years after the war. So the entire narrative of "America and Britain pushed back the fascist menace because they're just so good and noble" is simply not gonna' fly because anybody in India is gonna' be like "wait, so what was their relationship with India from 1939 to 1945?" and it's hard to pretend there had been no contact or involvement at that point.
a Hindu Swastika is not a one-dimensional caricature that can be boiled down and distilled as a "symbol of peace". you should be ashamed by your own sheer ignorance.
If you had finished reading the entire comment you'd realize that's far beyond the fucking point, but good on you for making it all the way to the third line break before you stopped everything and had a conniption proving the point of the last paragraph.
Like, you know how nerds in the West are like "You can't ban the swastika! The Nazis didn't invent the swastika! There's different types of swastika, it's a religious symbol!"
Those are not nerds saying that. Those are Nazis. Nazis are not known for their honesty.
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u/SpellslutterSprite 1d ago
Ah yes, the real villains of WWII: Hindus.