Purandare’s volume is extremely readable... Finally, someone has written the decisive book. – C. Christine Fair, Professor, Security Studies, Georgetown University ‘The Indians can think themselves lucky that we do not rule India. We should make their lives a misery!’ – Adolf Hitler in 1942 Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf, is a perennial bestseller in India, with even street-side bookstalls prominently displaying stacks of it. The name ‘Hitler’ —anathema almost everywhere else in the world—is tossed about casually in the Indian subcontinent, not infrequently invoked in praise. Many Indians still harbour the notion that the Führer was a friend of the Indian people and had extended wholehearted support to their freedom struggle. To journalist and historian Vaibhav Purandare, this clearly suggested that Indians continued to be largely unaware of the German dictator’s views on India, in spite of the fact that they are unambiguously expressed in his own writings. This lacuna spurred him on to delve into the archives—in Germany, India and elsewhere.