Swastikas, Hate and Confusion

A student disciplinary process at George Washington University might not seem like hot news in India, but this weekend it was receiving attention in The Times of India, The Hindustan Times and elsewhere.

The case is being interpreted by some law professors as a move by the university to effectively ban the swastika from the university's campus. And the reason the case is attracting interest in India is that a student who posted a swastika on a fraternity bulletin board was Jewish -- and the symbol he posted was not a Nazi one, but something he had picked up on a trip to India to learn more about religions there, including some that used the swastika as a holy symbol for centuries before the Nazis adopted it.

As shown in the illustration above, the Nazi swastika was typically black on white, surrounded by red, on a 45-degree angle. Those of Eastern religions typically feature horizontal and vertical lines, sometimes with dots added and different color arrangements. ...