HIRLER'S PRIESTESS: SAVITRI DEVI, THE HINDU-ARYAN MYTH, AND NEO-NAZISM By Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Oxford, Rs 495 In the wake of genome-mapping projects making startling discoveries regarding genetic similarities across races, this book may find itself a lonely crusader championing the cause of racial segregation. It would be interesting to set up a dialogue between Craig Venter (of genome-mapping fame) and the protagonist of this book, Savitri Devi. The polemics of their conversation would follow the classical patterns of a debate on racism, with Venter contending that few racial differences are actually genetic and Savitri Devi upholding the myth of Aryan superiority and its significance in the progress of mankind. As the genome-mapping project is all set to belie recalcitrant racial and ethnic stereotypes, the provocative oeuvre of Hitler's Priestess brings us in close contact with layered ideologies of racial hierarchy that make imaginative connections between Hinduism, Hitler, and, environmental and animal rights. Savitri Devi was born Maximiani Porter in Lyons, France, in 1905. Her mother was English and her father was of mixed Italian and Greek descent. Perhaps this was the reason behind her life-long search for a homeland. She was initially attracted to Greece but abjured it for a more lasting loyalty to the Third Reich. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's exploration of Savitri Devi's life takes us through the lanes, by-lanes and crossroads of her controversial life, at a leisurely pace, while paying close attention to details. The broad spectrum of his research includes the lives of Hitler, Subhash Bose, V.D. Savarkar, Zundel. The author maintains a dispassionate tone which is necessary because Savitri Devi's charisma has a life of its own - her enthusiasm spills into the pages of this book. Her zest for activity and passionate beliefs are almost hypnotic. Through Goodrick-Clarke's analysis it becomes clear that Savitri Devi's is a passionate nature that wanted to believe in and die for something grand and noble. The cause closest to her heart was that of Aryan superiority - the myth that the fair-skinned, light-eyed Aryan was, in every way, the true man. By extension, she believed that only the true man deserved to survive while others should be destroyed. Savitri Devi's interest in India was linked to her reverence for Hinduism although she culled from palimpsestic Hindu philosophy only those concepts that fitted her race-centric beliefs. The caste hierarchy and segregation of races, promoted in order to maintain the ostensibly pure blood of the upper castes, earned her respect. Her travels throughout India were guided by her desire to explore the Aryan heritage of India. In her book, L'Etang aux Lotus, she records her admiration for Hindu India. She spent most of her life forging connections between Hindu religion and Hitler's pan-Aryan dogmas. For Savitri Devi, Hitlerism and Hindutva were the joint heirs of Aryan wisdom. The dangers of a partisan reading of Hindu philosophy are as evident in Savitri Devi's works as in current electoral politics in India. Savitri Devi met and married Asit Mukherji, an educated Brahmin from Calcutta's elite society in 1940. Like Devi, Mukherji was deeply impressed by the Aryan ideology of Nazi Germany. Marriage to Mukherji gave her access to a British passport as well as a publisher for her prolific writings. During World War II, their marital home was a hub of spying activities. British and American servicemen stationed in Calcutta were invited for dinner and drinks and whatever information could be gleaned from them was passed on to Japanese intelligence officers. It was Savitri Devi's life-long regret that she could not be in Europe during the World War II. However, she reached Europe later, and kept alive the embers of Hitler's cause in the Europe of the Forties and the Fifties. Books that she had previously published for a small coterie in Calcutta were reprinted for Nazi circles. Her writings reflected her courage of conviction - she hailed Hitler as an avatar comparable to Ram and Krishna. Her impassioned defence of Hitler, it is conjectured, influenced Ernst Zundel in the direction of the notorious Holocaust denial. She established networks with the British and American neo-Nazi leaders. Britain in the Sixties was conducive to racist ideologies; the complex repercussions of colonialism had caused an influx of 60,000 immigrants from ex-colonies. The extreme right campaigned actively to send these immigrants back. Savitri Devi was arrested for Nazi propaganda. She hoped for martyrdom but was released after three months. At some points in his book, Goodrick-Clarke seems to suggest that the racist ideologies that underpin Savitri Devi's world view evolved from her excessive love of animals. She was uncomfortable with the unquestioned anthropomorphism embedded in all thought-systems and her extremist nature turned it into a battle for eugenics that ensured the survival of only the fittest human being. Her derision for the common man added substance to her anti-man and pro-nature protests. She wrote prolifically on the cruelty being inflicted on animals and nature. In her book, aptly titled Impeachment of Man, she records her abiding concern for animals and nature and something she enigmatically calls life. Modern day animal-rights activists and environmentalists will find much in her works that will resonate with their concerns. A biography of Savitri Devi can help trace a continuum between Hitler, Hindu ideals of the purity of castes, the pan-Aryan charter of beliefs and the modern day proponents of racism - such as, neo-Nazis, skinheads and soccer hooligans. These links, further probed, could offer food for grave thoughts on the nature of xenophobia. They bear evidence of the strong hold that ideologies of racial superiority have on the the individual psyche. An intrepid and capable person like Savitri Devi could be an asset to any movement; yet her dynamism and hunger for achievement were co-opted by forces that promote internecine conflicts for destructive ends. Vacuous ideals of political correctness and half-chewed thoughts on secularism, communicated through pithy sayings and righteous television commercials, cannot fight xenophobia and communalism. To mobilize the Savitri Devis of our times towards positive ends, a systematic understanding of identity needs to be constructed, which does not equate difference with superiority or inferiority and rewrites the tired ideals of equality and democracy.