Originally Published in Madras Courier
Editorial Note
The citadels of ultranationalism are built on propaganda, lies & attempts at historical revisionism.
Heinrich Heine, the German-Jewish poet and playwright, in his 1821 play, Almansor, offered a chilling forewarning, “It was just a prelude…Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people too.” Hundred years later, on 10 May 1933, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, orchestrated the notorious first book burning event near the German Opera House. The conflagration that punctuated the Berlin skyline devoured more than 25,000 books that night.