Why Revanth Reddy’s Hitler remark poses a challenge for Congress

At a time when the BJP has managed to break yet another Opposition party—the Trinamool Congress in Bengal—and the Congress’s Meenakshi Natarajan has lost her Rajya Sabha nomination because of a controversial decision, Telangana Chief Minister Anumula Revanth Reddy’s declared admiration for Adolf Hitler has cast fresh doubts on where his loyalties lie.

Revanth’s admission, which came during an interview to N Ram, former editor of The Hindu, shocked many. The Congress chief minister of Telangana was talking about the HYDRAA (Hyderabad Disaster Management and Asset Management Agency), an administrative wing of his government that has sparked many a controversy by demolishing structures belonging to the rich and the poor alike.

The HYDRAA has been ruthless, allegedly not even bothering to serve notices to lower-middle-class Hyderabadis before tearing down their structures. Of course, it has managed to protect government property, such as lakes and other waterbodies, by demolishing unauthorized occupations, but it has also left middle-class Hyderabadis in terror.

Does that ring a bell—of the so-called “bulldozer justice” in BJP-ruled states?

Revanth Reddy’s evolutionary history

However, what made things worse is that Revanth told N Ram during the interview that he named the wing HYDRAA inspired by the German dictator. While the Congress high command did not make any public remark on Revanth’s open declaration of inspiration from a fascist leader, the million-dollar question is why—and how—a Congress chief minister can say that his inspiration came from Hitler.

This brings another incident to mind. Revanth once joked that he was “schooled in Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP, the student wing of the RSS), studied in Telugu Desam College (trained by TDP), and is now working in Rahul Gandhi’s University”.

Possibly nobody took Revanth’s evolutionary history seriously at that time. But his admission of drawing inspiration from Hitler raises doubts in observers’ minds whether his ABVP schooling left a permanent mark on him. After all, the RSS has historically had a very adoring view of Hitler.

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MS Golwalkar, the RSS’s second chief, expressed strong admiration for Hitler and Nazi Germany in his 1939 book, We or Our Nationhood Defined. He praised Hitler’s efforts to maintain the “purity of the nation” through the persecution of Jews, presenting it as a lesson for India regarding its own minorities.

RSS’s understanding of Hitler

Revanth must have recalled his “school-day” lessons on Golwalkar as he was talking to N Ram. But for a chief minister to make such a remark should be worrisome for the Congress. The party made him the PCC chief and later chief minister of the state with the hope he would remain committed to its ideology — particularly that of Rahul Gandhi in the present context.

The Congress, as the oldest ruling party, has a very formulated understanding of Hitler, in the writings of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi viewed Hitler as a “monster” and unequivocally condemned his militarism as an “act degrading humanity”. Gandhi wrote two letters to Hitler (in 1939 and 1940), urging the dictator to renounce war and abandon the path of violence.

Nehru viewed Hitler and Nazism as a brutal, fascist threat to global democracy and peace. He explicitly condemned Hitler’s anti-Semitism, suppression of Left-wing movements, and violent authoritarianism, famously refusing personal invitations to meet the dictator while traveling through Europe in the 1930s.

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Nehru recorded his assessments and historical perspectives of the Nazi regime in his famous work, Glimpses of World History, a collection of letters originally written to his daughter Indira from prison.

Is Revanth becoming a challenge to Congress?

Revanth Reddy may or may not be a calculating leader, but he knows who and what Hitler was. Yet, why did he make such a statement? The doubt becomes deeper since he was schooled in RSS politics in youth. That arouses the suspicion: Is he going the Himanta Biswa Sarma and Suvendu Adhikari way and moving away from the Congress and its ideology?

This question certainly bothers one given the political environment in the country. Though there is no consistency in Revanth’s ideological proclamations, his relationship with N Chandrababu Naidu and Narendra Modi has significantly changed in the recent past. His body language in Modi’s presence is an indicator of that change.

Creating more trouble for the Congress, he inaugurated NT Rama Rao’s statue in Hyderabad and praised him to the sky, sparking anger among the Telangana people, who consider Rama Rao an “anti-Telangana” Kamma leader. During his time as chief minister of the undivided Andhra Pradesh (1983–1989 and 1994–1995), rich migrants from what is today Andhra exploited to the hilt the region that later became the Telangana state. That was the main reason for the second phase of Telangana agitation and the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.

What’s on Revanth’s mind?

In such circumstances, Revanth’s act might help Telangana’s BRS party headed by K Chandrashekhar Rao. And he seems to be doing these particularly to annoy the Congress high command.

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Some of these strategic moves by Revanth are taking place in a highly politically disturbed environment. The BJP has broken the Trinamool Congress with a master plan of mustering a two-third majority of the rebel faction in parliament. On the other hand, Meenakshi Natarajan lost her Rajya Sabha nomination with the deceptive passing on of information from the Telangana Congress that she did not disclose a court case against her. Who did this, how, and why?

Only a detailed clarification from Revanth Reddy can calm down the fears.

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