Gandhi to Hitler

<p>The film is set during and centres upon the letters written by Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, and around the relationship of Hitler with his long-term lover Eva Braun, whom he married in his final days in the in which they died. The film depicts the difference between the ideologies of Gandhi and Hitler and claims the superiority of over . Another plot within the film concerns a young Indian couple who, while both dedicated to gaining independence for India, turn to greatly different paths to achieve that goal. The wife chooses to follow Gandhi, while the husband ultimately joins the , leading to dramatically divergent outcomes. Even though the wife’s ultimate fate is not clear, the scenes towards the end show that the husband fails to return to India alive after trying to flee the collapsing Third Reich. The film concludes with the Indian flag flying high and a note stating, “15 August 1947: India wins freedom”, demonstrating the superiority of civil disobedience and nonviolence over militancy and terrorism. had originally agreed to play the role of Hitler, but he backed out after Jewish organisations in India condemned him for playing the part because of Hitler’s . The filmmakers accused Kher of not returning the 4 (400,000 rupees) he had been paid after signing the contract and consequently sued him for 2.5 (25 million rupees). However, Kher perceived it as a way of filmmakers to promote their film before the release. It is the only mainstream Bollywood film to refer to the , a unit recruited from Indian volunteers. British newspaper, , declared the film to be profoundly misguided and to show a shocking ignorance of history. Noah Massil, president of the Central Organization of Indian Jews in Israel (COIJI) stated that “he would write to and to intervene in order to prevent bringing disrepute to our entertainment industry”, but the filmmakers claimed that the film does not glorify Hitler, but rather juxtaposes him against Gandhi’s ideology of peace. We clarified that the movie is not about Hitler’s ideology, but how his ideology of violence conflicts with Gandhi’s ideology of peace. There is no glorification of Hitler’s character. — Anil Kumar Sharma, The film was met with negative reviews. gave the film 2 stars out of 5, calling it an “unnecessary play with history”. The gave the movie one star. criticised the movie for using Indian actors to play all non-Indian characters, using India itself as a stand-in to Europe, and for its “strands”.</p>