दुर्गाबाईंना तिरस्कार असलेली आर्यत्वाची मोहिनी...Durga Bhagwat@110

Today February 10 2020 is 110th birth anniversary of Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत)  

BBC, January 27 2020: “Auschwitz 75 years on: Holocaust Day prompts new anti-Semitism warnings”

Tom Sykes, The Daily Beast, July 21 2015: "...there was widespread sympathy for Nazis and Nazism in the early and mid 1930s in the very heart of the British establishment...While many were disgusted by Hitler’s naked anti-Semtism and his abolishment of democracy, right up until the outbreak of war in 1939, upper class British girls were still doing ‘the season’ in Germany, attending balls, learning about art and hunting for husbands...Germany seemed to be thriving under the man who had abolished democracy and declared himself dictator in 1933. And although few could claim to have been unaware of the official German policy of anti-Semitism after the 1936 Olympics in which Jewish athletes were banned from the German team, many were prepared to turn a blind eye in the face of the country’s extraordinary economic and psychic revival from the crushed and humiliated shell of a nation state it had been for all of the 1920s. By 1938, unemployment was virtually nil—it had been 30% when Hitler took power.  Many of the British upper classes—not, it must be said, universally famed for their racial tolerance at the best of times—were impressed..."

David Crossland, Spiegel Online, April 11 2012: "...Germany has won praise for collectively confronting its Nazi past, but the subject has remained a taboo in millions of family homes -- with children and grandchildren declining to press their elders on what they did in the war.

At least 20 to 25 million Germans knew about the Holocaust while it was happening, according to conservative estimates, and some 10 million fought on the Eastern Front in a war of annihilation that targeted civilians from the start. That, says German historian Moritz Pfeiffer, makes the genocide and the crimes against humanity a part of family history..."

My father (1936-2019)  lived in Aundh, Satara (औंध, सातारा) until just after India's independence where his father was a political secretary to the ruler of Aundh state. His mother's family lived in Pune and he and his siblings used to travel to Pune for vacation.Some time during WWII years, my father once told us, his maternal uncle showed the kids a large image of Adolph Hitler that was adoring his room...

The late Ms. Durga Bhagwat never minced words.

The following is a small para from her essay on the late Dr. Irawati Karve (इरावती कर्वे), from her Marathi  book "Aathavale Tase", 1991/2014 (आठवले तसे).

सौजन्य: दुर्गाबाई भागवत यांच्या साहित्याचे कॉपीराईट होल्डर्स 

Before I read Durgabai's book,  I had written this on December 15 2014:

"...Every time I read words like 'disintegrating Weimar republic', I think about the late Ms. (Irawati) Karve who was in Germany from 1928-1930 or so.

I am NOT familiar with all the writings in  Marathi of Ms. Karve but I have not read or heard anything she has written on the subject of  'Weimar culture' in general or specifically on 'disintegrating Weimar republic'.

Ms. Karve is still famous for her Sahitya Akademi award winning book 'Yugant' (युगांत),  1967/68: a commentary on Mahabharata.  I like the book and have read it several times. However, a few others too have written in Marathi on Mahabharata, most notably Durga Bhagwat (दुर्गा भागवत), and I am sure more will do so.

But no Marathi writer of any substance has written on the last days of Weimar republic and the rise of Nazism because no one had the kind of  opportunity to experience it first hand like Ms. Karve..."

Now read what Durgabai says on the pride felt by some people, further in the same essay that has been quoted above ( page 213):

"...पण जेव्हा हा अभिमान परछळाचा पाया होतो, अभिमानाचे रुप अहंगंड घेतो, अस्मितेला असहिष्णुतेचे स्वरूप येते, तेव्हा मात्र हा अभिमान रास्त राहत नाहि. या अभिमानापोटी काही मंडळी इंग्लंडात न जाता जर्मनीला गेली. त्यावेळी हिटलरने आर्यस्तोम माजवले होते...पण आर्यत्वाची मोहिनी असणारे कित्येक जण जर्मनीत गेले. तिथल्या पदव्या त्यांनी घेतल्या. इरावतीबाई (व त्यांचे पतिराज) त्यांपैकीच होते. वास्तविक इरावतीबाईंनी एम. ए. चाच प्रबंध जर्मनीत थोडा बदल करून पीएच. डी. ला दिला… "

Is it really the reason Dr. I. Karve went to Germany for higher education and did not write intensely on the happenings in Germany, immediately on her return? Deeply troubling questions for me.

 

courtesy: The Sun