Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Indian Publishers Tout Hitler As ‘Visionary Leader’

Gandhi, Obama, Mandela and — Hitler?

Those are some of the faces of “skillful visionaries” on a children’s book called “Leaders” published by Pegasus Books, an imprint of B. Jain’s publishing house in India.

The “Leaders” book includes Mahatma Gandhi, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Adolf Hitler.

The sales pitch runs: “In the time that feels devoid of great leadership, we have found men and women who will inspire you. Some of them are famous, others little known, but all of them energize their followers and try to make the world better. The book talks about 11 leaders who have devoted their lives for the betterment of their country and people and emerged with a great leadership at the time of crisis.”

It continues:

The book features amazing leaders, including:
Adolf Hitler – Barack Obama – Mahatma Gandhi – Napoleon Bonaparte – Narendra Modi – Nelson Mandela – Winston Churchill

The book was strongly condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center who received a copy of the book at a Cochin book festival.

“Placing Hitler alongside truly great political and humanitarian leaders is an abomination that is made worse as it targets young people with little or no knowledge of world history and ethics,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center’s Associate Dean.

At the time of writing, B. Jain publishing has not responded to our inquiries and the book is still on sale in India and the United Arab Emirates.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.