U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, donned a T-shirt featuring the face of former Indian leader Subhas Chandra Bose, who supported Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
He wore it in a video produced by the left-wing outlet NowThis News, titled “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Chief of Staff on Acting Fast in Congress,” in December 2018—one month after his boss became the youngest woman elected to U.S. Congress. The issue came back into the spotlight after the congresswoman admirably quoted Nazi sympathizer and former Argentinian first lady Eva Perón after U.S. President Donald Trump compared the two.
Bose lived in Berlin from 1941 until 1943.
He founded the Free India Center in Berlin and created the Indian Legion (consisting of some 4,500 soldiers) out of Indian prisoners of war who had previously fought for the British in North Africa prior to their capture by Axis forces. The Indian Legion was attached to the Wehrmacht, and later transferred to the Waffen SS.
Its members swore the following allegiance to Hitler and Bose: “I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose.”
Twitter users spotted and criticized Chakrabarti’s choice of outfit.
I keep coming back to this @JYuter tweet on the partisan hypocrisy ppl engage in when it comes to antisemitism https://t.co/nCi0sZr8VM — Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) July 8, 2019
In case it’s not clear, AOC’s chief of staff is wearing a T-shirt with Subhas Chandra Bose on it—the Indian nationalist whose plan for fighting British colonialism involved sucking up to, uh, Hitler. https://t.co/Mvgcoa1R6a — Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) July 8, 2019
