MUMBAI: A new restaurant in India's financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country's small Jewish community.


Hitler's Cross, which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

"We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people's minds," owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

"We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different."

But India's remaining Jews - most migrated to Israel and the West over the years - say they are outraged by the gimmick.

"This signifies a severe lack of awareness of the agony of millions of Jews caused by one man," said Jonathan Solomon, chairman of the Indian Jewish Federation, the community's umbrella organisation.

"We are going to stop this deification of Hitler," he said without elaborating.

The small restaurant, its interior done out in the Nazi colours of red, white and black, also has a lounge for smoking the exotic Indian water pipe or "hookah".

Posters line the road leading up to it, featuring a red swastika carved in the name of the eatery. One slogan reads: "From Small Bites to Mega Joys".

A huge portrait of a stern-looking Fuehrer greets visitors at the door. The cross in the restaurant's name refers to the swastika that symbolised the Nazi regime.

"This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal," said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery's name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.

The swastika has its roots in ancient Indian Hindu tradition and remains a sacred symbol for Hindus. Nazi theorists appropriated it to bolster their central hypothesis of the Aryan origins of the German people.

The city of Bombay did not exist before the English built it, moving from the Mughal concession of their Surat 'factory' (precinct or compound) to the isles of Bombay which the Portuguese ceded to them as dowry for the marriage of a Portuguese princess with an English prince.

The Portuguese had conquered it in 1508 A.D. from the Arab Sultanate of Gujerat. The Arabs called it 'Al Omanis'. The Portuguese renamed it as 'Bom Bahia', the 'Good Bay', in appreciation of the excellent and deep harbour that it possessed on the east side. This bay is now called the Front Bay, a name given by the English, although, it is nowadays more commonly called the Harbour. (The Gulf on the south-west they called the 'Back Bay.')

The English developed Bom Bahia into Bombay.

The name Mumbai on the contrary, is derived from the temple of Mumbadevi, the Goddess Mumba. It is alleged that 'Mumba' is a shortening of 'Maha-Amba,' the Great Amba, Amba being one of the more famous Hindu goddesses.

However, there is no historical evidence available or offered for the claim that the name Mumbai in any form was ever attached to the territory before the advent of the English.

Both very bad ideas.