Mein Kampf

If ever history was stranger than fiction, it is the rise, phoenix-like, of modern Germany out of her post-war ashes, as it were. The treaties that were manufactured by the united ingenuity of her foes to crush her soul were torn to shreds and those shreds scattered to the four winds for all the world to behold. Not only did she break the shackles forged for her at Versailles and elsewhere. With meteoric suddenness, she leapt to prominence, and became a force that holds the destinies of the entire civilized world in the hollow of her hands.

Mein Kampf – My Struggle – autobiography of the German Fuhrer is the story of this greatest miracle of contemporary history. No one in any way engaged in a nation-building struggle can afford to miss this wonderful drama of dare-devil determination and dogged tenacity, in the face of overwhelming odds, to weld Germany once more into a compact nation, infuse life into her dead bones and quicken her to a national life never before known to her history.

A perusal of the book reveals three factors that were mainly responsible for working this miracle. In the first place there looms large the personality of the leader, fired with the fanatical zeal of the Crusader for the realization of a Greater Germany knowing no compromise, giving no quarter, ever ready to stake his very life on the issue. When he started his National Socialist movement, he had to face bitter opposition from his own people. Gradually as he imparted something of his zeal to some of the youths, he organized them into a corps of volunteers, which later on came to be known as the “Storm Troop.” With the help of this handful of devoted men he was able to address public meetings to preach his new political gospel. At one important meeting, he tells us, which was to be held in one of the biggest halls of the town, he found on his arrival that the hall had already been captured by his opponents who had mustered strong to crush the infant movement. His supporters were all outside the hall. Taking his little ”Storm Troop” of hardly a dozen or so aside, he impressed upon them in a fiery little speech that rather than quit the hall, their dead bodies must be carried out of the hall. This fired them with such enthusiasm that they fell upon the hostile gangs like hornets. Chairs flew in the air. Blows were exchanged thick and fast. Many were the heads broken and many the eyes made blue and in half an hour the hall was cleared of hostile elements and the lecture, as announced, duly given.

Herein, by the way, is a lesson for the arm-chair politicians of Muslim India. The goddess of Freedom can never be wooed by half-hearted measures. Unless there are men, even though a handful, out to champion the cause at the cost of life itself, all national regeneration must remain an idle talk. The Prophet’sﷺ saying in this behalf is grounded in profound wisdom. Even if there are just forty men of faith, so goes the saying, they can shake the whole of the world. Musalmans are forty crores to-day. But rather than shake the world, they are everywhere rotting in shackles. Hitler and his gallant band have however put a seal of confirmation on the Prophet’s ﷺ saying. A bare handful, as they were, they have literally shaken the whole world. Why? Because of the Faith in them – Faith in a Greater Germany and a determination to live and die for that Faith.

The second great factor that strikes one as shaping the drama of German regeneration is the fire of a big glowing ideal. The writer of the story; Herr Hitler makes it perfectly clear that nothing great could be expected of any little reforms here and there in the existing political organizations of the country. What was needed was an entirely new worldview, no tinkering with the existing political theories. And his National Socialism supplied that new out-look, entirely new political world-theory. He dwells at considerable length on this point. He takes pains to explain that National Socialism is no political party or society, like the mushroom of parties and societies that were already there. It is a Movement rooted in an entirely different philosophy of life.

Here again is a leaf for the Indian Musalmans to take out of the Nazi’s book. For half a century, they have been trying to revive the dead bones of Muslim body-politic with Anjumans, Leagues, Conferences and little things of that sort – things conceived by little minds on a little scale. This has been at best tinkering with a great cause. National regeneration is no child’s play. It can come only in the wake of an entirely changed outlook on life. The Quran means the same thing when it says:

” God does not change the lot of a people unless they change their own outlook.”

(Ar-Ra’d (The Thunder) 13:11)

إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُواْ مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ

It is the overhauling of the entire outlook on life that can bring about national regeneration. The Anjumans, Parties, Societies, Leagues, Schools, Colleges, are but artificial ways to restore respiration. The true warm throb of life can come only when springs of life deep down in the soul are touched. And that can only be done by a Movement aiming at overhauling the entire mental make-up of the Musalman.

Last but not least comes a principle that deserves the serious consideration of Musalmans. Mein Kamf mercilessly denounces the parliamentary system of managing public affairs. The parliamentary system means no man’s responsibility. National interests of vital moment may be sacrificed by sheer incompetence or lack of resolution, because under this system it would entail no further worry to the leaders than change of cabinet. National interests can be safe only in the hands of leaders who have staked their all on the national cause. Hitler has no patience with the rule of the majority. He considers it a mark of and a sure road to national decadence. The republican form of Government, he thinks, is the mischief of the Jews who, in order to throw confusion into the ranks of those whose hospitality they enjoy have, by subtle methods of propaganda at which they are adept, injected this poison into world politics. The multitude is in no way fitted to guide national destinies. Brains must we put above multitudes. ”The multitude does not invent; majorities neither organize nor think; it is always only the one man, the individual.” Personality, according to the author of Mein Kamp is the only force that should be the undisputed head of the State. All other State forces must be subordinate to and responsible to that one personality. It is Jewish mischief to have abolished this healthy principle of organic life and substituted the mass of numbers instead.

He concludes:

” The best form of State and Constitution is that which with natural sureness of hand raises the best brains of the community to a position of leadership and predominant influence. There must be no majority making decisions but merely a body of responsible persons. Every man shall have councillors at his side, but the decision shall be made by the one Man.”

This in a nutshell, has according to Mein Kampf been at the bottom of the German regeneration – the creative force of the best individual personality. We say this new social philosophy deserves the special consideration of Muslim savants, because apparently it runs counter to the received notions of Islamic democracy. The theory ought to be considered in the light of the Quran, the Hadith and Islamic history. Were the four early Caliphates democratic institutions in the modern sense of the word? Were vital State decisions really taken by counting heads or hands during the reigns of Abu Bakr, Umar, Usman and Ali? What is the intention of the injunction: “Entrust responsibilities to those fitted for them?” Does it at all admit of a parliamentary system of Government?

These are questions of vital social importance that have not, so far as we are aware, received much attention at the hands of Muslim savants. In view of the experiment in Germany and several other countries of Europe it is no doubt worthwhile studying the whole question anew to see what exactly the Islamic viewpoint is.

Already two schools in Islam have adopted the Hitlerian view of one man’s show – the Qadian and the Khaksar movements. They stand for unquestioning obedience to one man’s authority, and they quote in their support the Quranic verse:

” Consult them in the affairs of State. But when you make a decision, trust in God.”

وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِي الأَمْرِ فَإِذَا عَزَمْتَ فَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللّهِ

Al-Imran (The Family of Imran) 3:159

This is the same as Hitler’s dictum that the leader must have a council of advisors, but the decision must lie with him alone.

Iqbal has also thrown a passing fling at democracy:

از دو صد خر فکر انسانے مہ جو

”Do not seek the thought of a man from two hundred asses.”

We feel it is high time the whole question were thoroughly thrashed from every angle of vision. As regards the other two lessons contained in the triumph of German struggle for regeneration, there can certainly be no two opinions. A burning glowing ideal that should warm up the bosom of every son of Islam and a leadership prepared to stake its all for the cause – this is the sine qua non of any struggle for national revival. This is the lesson writ large on every page of Mein Kampf.

M.Y.K.

(The Light – June 16, 1939)