Booktalk The Nazi Study of India and Indian Anti-Colonialism: Knowledge Providers and Propagandists in the ‘Third Reich’

This monograph examines four organisations in Nazi Germany which used different kinds of knowledge pertaining to India for conducting pro-German, and as the Second World War approached anti-British propaganda among Indians. The aim was to destabilize the British Empire by instigating unrest in India, its most profitable colony. Such efforts gained momentum after the Indian anti-colonialist leader Subhas Chandra Bose arrived in Berlin in 1941, seeking Germany`s help to liberate India through military means. Together with Bose, a number of organs of the Nazi government became involved in carrying out virulent anti-British and pro-German propaganda aimed at Indians. This entailed acquiring knowledge of India`s past as well as present. 

My book reviews four German organisations which deployed various categories of knowledge of India for fulfilling Germany`s propaganda objectives. The work studies the knowledge discourses that were used as well as the ‘knowledge providers’ working for these four organisations. Such knowledge providers included German academics specializing on India, non-academics who had some knowledge of the country as well as Indian anti-colonialists living in Germany and France.

Link to the Book