Hate is a strong word. Stronger than disapproval. Stronger than finding someone's actions immoral or deplorable. It suggests a level of personal emotional investment.
Recently it was announced that Netaji Subash Chandra Bose's statue would be installed at India Gate. And a certain prominent voice on twitter called it as the "sullying" of India Gate by a man who was "pals with Hitler". Honestly, all I know about Netaji is pop-history, the regular, fan-fictionalised, hagiographical accounts that we hear from everywhere around us. But it's quite clear that he had even met Hitler. He was firmly on the side of the axis powers in World War 2.
Even more, I am under no illusions about the imperial Japanese. I have read about how their army treated prisoners of war, who traveled with their army camps and their actions in China. Does this mean Netaji shouldn't be honoured in India?
(A small aside - the presence of the Japanese in Indonesia actually greatly hastened their independence from the Netherlands. The Japanese saw themselves as the liberators of Asia from European colonialism. Again, everyone claims great moral end-goals for their self-interest, so there's no need to get too carried away by such pronouncements either).
Essentially, Netaji wanted to get rid of the British so badly that he was ready to join the camp of whoever was willing to promise that end-goal to him. Today, it's considered improper to even approve of, never mind glorify, the actions of someone associated with Hitler. Here was a man who actually carried out some of Hitler's plans in the name of freedom from the British.
There's a stronger point to be made here. To an Indian, especially looking at it from the lens of today rather than the 1940s, the British and the Japanese and the Germans and the Soviets were all mass killers and perpetrators of genocide. There are several complications when it comes to the relationship between the British and independent India. For example, the Indian armed forces, their traditions and legends are inherited from the British Indian army. This was an army commanded by Britishers to serve British imperial needs and interests and even became bullet fodder across the world as a "voluntary" army.
Certain divisions and the regiments of the army may glorify the deeds of valour by these Indians. It's unimaginable today, but an army comprised of a majority of Indians sacked Beijing 120 years ago. Certainly, individuals may have shown exemplary courage, but must an Indian feel proud of this? When it was never our war and we never had any cause (until the 1950s) for enmity with the Chinese? I totally agree that India Gate and the names of the soldiers who were killed in action during the first World War is a symbol of our colonial past. It's natural that we are only slowly developing a national consciousness that points out things like these. It isn't that those who came before us were insufficiently patriotic, it's hard to point out something omnipresent and given as received wisdom. Before we were told to salute all those who died fighting "for India" in world war 1. Today we say, "Ummm, yes, they were our brave countrymen who performed great deeds, but weren't they just pawns of the British?"
Coming back to the question of who to hate - there are many deplorable characters in history. Hitler. Churchill. Aurangzeb. They say Gengis Khan killed so many people that his exploits led to an increase in the green cover across the world and had an impact on reducing greenhouse gases.
But today the name of Gengis Khan doesn't evoke hatred, just mild historical curiosity and wonder. It's not admiration, it's just "Oh yeah, he did some terrible stuff" or a dispassionate "he was barbaric". What separates this from hatred? For example, to the extent that mere association with a person is a terrible sin? No one gets called "literally Gengis Khan" on the internet.
I think the distinction comes from cultural sensibilities and the living memory of people. What historical memories have people (and education systems) chosen to enshrine in their collective memories. The elevation of Hitler and his actions as some kind of original act of genocide is in my opinion totally unfounded. There are so many characters in history who, if they had access to the chemicals that the Nazis had, would have happily used it on large populations. To pretend this was never the way of the world until Hitler did it is disingenuous. It means internalising the (well-justified) horror of Europeans by the whole world. I'm not European. My lens is different.
If there's a historical character I hate, it's Winston Churchill. His actions killed millions of Indians. Of course, today he's a hero in the eyes of the British. I think a discerning person, not given to constant outrage, should be able to digest that quite easily - that a person can be a tyrant for one set of people and a hero for another set of people. Ahmad Shah Abdali is a known as a great conqueror and the father of the modern Afghanistani state. In India he's an invader, a looter and a destroyer. Same with Nadir Shah.
I would never demand that the British cease to glorify Churchill or that Afghanistan stops calling Abdali the father of their nation. I think the state of the world where everyone unanimously agrees on one set of good guys and one set of evil guys is not only artificial, it will end up imposing the emotions of one set of people (northern and western Europeans) on everyone else. A mature person should recognise this simple fact. So yes, while I do not demand the take-down of Churchill's current-day statues, I also do not hate Hitler. He was one man among many tyrants of the past who committed gruesome, deplorable acts.
I could never put him in the same bracket as Churchill or General Dyer or Aurangzeb. And I have absolutely no problem glorifying someone who worked with him - he worked against the British to get them out of India and established self-rule - and that is most important for me, not some alleged overarching morality of the allied powers.
Jai Hind!
Azad Hind Fauj zindabad!