With the start of the football World Cup there has been a lot of talk about how the fans from various countries are going to behave in Germany. In particular, there has been quite a bit of news about England fans singing and chanting about World War II and poking fun at Germany's Nazi past. To glorify Nazism is illegal in Germany and people there still tend to be a bit cagey and reserved about expressing their Nationalism.

Now, I'm not sure how much politics and history the average Hindu reads or cares to read but I for one take a big interest in these subjects. One thing that has struck me over the years is how a lot of Hindu groups and individuals get called "Fascists" or "Nazis" in the media even though, growing up in London, I had always associated the terms with "white-supremacy" or racism. Anyway, all the arguments aside, it is worth finding out what Hindus thought of the Nazis when they were a dominant power and seemed as if they were going to take over the world.

To do this, I'm going to look very briefly at the views of four major Hindu leaders and thinkers of the time and to try and see what we can learn. As this is a very short piece I'm not even going to pretend that I'm doing justice to the individuals and issues involved and recommend that everyone who is interested tries to learn more for themselves. The four people I'm going to look at are: Sri Aurobindo, Veer Savarkar, Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose. Most likely you will have heard of some of these personalities if not all of them. All four were major figures in Indian/Hindu politics and had big followings in the inter-war years. Indeed, even today all four of these personalities are revered by some and hated by others. Whatever your views on them, it's beyond doubt that each of them had something to say and that they led the way for many common Hindus.

Sri Aurobindo spent the vast majority of his later life in exile and outside of British controlled India due to the fact that he was a wanted man by the colonial administration. He was extremely outspoken about his views on a number of things even when he had retreated out of public life and into spiritual life. When Hitler came to power in Germany and started threatening neighbouring countries, Aurobindo was openly saying that Hitler should be stopped. At the outbreak of World War 2, Aurobindo made a speech saying that every Indian should support the British war effort against Hitler and the Nazis. He often had to castigate many of his followers who wanted a Nazi victory (believing that a Nazi victory would help India's Independence). Many people found this surprising, because Auribindo had been an advocate of the use of force to remove the British from India. But Aurobindo knew that no matter what the faults of the British Imperial government, that Hitler was far worse and that all Hindus should join in the fight against him first and foremost for moral reasons.

Veer Savarkar is often called a Nazi nowadays for his writings and views of Hindu nationhood. Without going into details, it is worth saying that nationalism was a pretty dominant ideology in those days (just as communism was to become dominant later) and being a nationalist didn't necessary make someone a Nazi. Of the four, Sarvarkar's writings are hardest to get hold of and he is probably the least well known. But in his time he was a very well known and respected personality. He was sentenced to 50 years of imprisonment for his part in the Indian Independence movement but interestingly when the Second World War begun, he encouraged Hindus to join the British army and fight the Nazis. Unlike Aurobindo his main reason to support the British war effort was not for moral reasons against Hitler but because he believed that the British desperation for military resources was the best way for Hindu men to learn how to use modern weapons and fighting techniques. He argued that when these men returned to India they would be equipped to fight for Indian Independence and also make up the armed forces of a free India. Back to Nazism, Sarvarkar was one of the first Hindus to argue for friendly relations between India and Israel and often saw common interests between Hindus and Jews. That much alone shows that his views were far removed from any Nazi affinity.

Mahatma Gandhi is probably the most famous Hindu leader of that era, and I doubt that anyone reading this will not have heard of him. Gandhi is famous for his non-violent struggle against the British rule in India and also had his own views about Hitler and Nazism. Of course he was not a fan of Hitler but he did say that no one should join the British war effort as it was against his non-violent principles. Gandhi was also painfully aware of the realities of war - he was the only leader of the Indian National Congress who had actually served in the British army and served in the Boer War (in the Ambulance Corps) - so he had every reason to be anti-war. Indeed, Gandhi even wrote two letters to Hitler to urge him to desist from war. Interesting, he addressed the Nazi Furher as "my brother", but however despicable we find Hitler, we can't hold that against Gandhi as he tried his best to see the humanity in everyone. Famously, his advice to the Jews of Europe was to give themselves over to Hitler and willingly let the Nazis kill them as such an act would melt the Nazi hearts. Gandhi was imprisoned for his anti-war views during the Second World War and was only released under house arrest because of his poor health.

Subhash Chandra Bose was an immensely popular figure in India and remains so to this day. He was a leader of the Indian National Congress and famous for clashing with Gandhi on the best methods for gaining Indian Independence. He fled India during the war and made alliances with the Axis powers. He headed the Indian National Army and fought alongside the Axis forces against the Allies. His eventual aim being the military invasion of India and subsequent Independence. In this way, Bose is the one of these four famous Hindus who did indeed help the Nazis [given that he even went to Germany to meet Hitler and] for fighting alongside the Nazis. However, as I already mentioned, Bose is regarded as a national hero especially in the Bengal region of India which has been politically dominated by the Communist Party of India. Bose is regarded politically as more of a Socialist rather than a Nazi. It should also be noted that Bose was indeed openly critical of Hitler's treatment of Jews, the destruction of democratic institutions in Germany and his aggression against pacificist nations.

So as we can see, Hindu political opinion spanned quite a spectrum in the 1930s and 40s. It might surprise us today, but in those times there were many Indians that wanted the Nazis to win the War but more so through anti-British feelings rather than any doctrinal affinity with Nazism (very few Hindus in those days would have been able to read Mein Kampf, for example). It should also be noted that people didn't know about the Jewish Holocaust until after the war.

Aurobindo famously reacted angrily to this sort of "my enemy's enemy is my friend" type thinking and said all Hindus should fight the Nazis. Sarvarkar also argued that Hindus should fight the Nazis, albeit for different reasons to Aurobindo. Gandhi, like Aurobindo, expressed a moral argument but in favour of not fighting rather than joining the War. Bose, though not really accused of being pro-Nazi, is probably the closest any Hindu can be called a Nazi. The fact is that even under colonial rule, Hindu political thought showed a unique maturity and spanned quite a range of opinion. The thing to note though is that all four of these Hindu figures were united in their goal of seeing an Independent India and three of the four lived to see this goal achieved. But all four clashed publicly, expressing very divergent views on Indian Independence as well as "foreign policy".

Looking back we can all have our own views about who was right and who was wrong. We can all criticise each of the four or praise each of them. In my opinion, we should learn the lessons of our history and see that far from being black and white the approach to problems of foreign policy needs to be well thought out and guided by real principles. From that perspective we can have respect for all four of these great figures and their efforts for freeing Hindu Society from Imperialism. Most importantly though, wherever possible we should learn about our own history to see what Hindus actually thought about Nazism and when we do this we can see that when people start labelling Hindus as Nazis they aren't necessarily telling you the whole story.