*Akhand Bharat?*
*L.S. Hardenia* 06.01.2016 After the unscheduled visit of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi to Pakistan, Ram Madhav, former RSS spokesman and general secretary of the Bharatiya Janta Party has expressed hope that a day will come when India, Pakistan and Bangladesh will be reunited and form what may be called Akhand Bharat. He clarifies that this was not the view of BJP he was making this suggestion as a RSS activist. He further clarified that Akhand Bharat will be formed with the consent of all the three nations and not through aggression. In this context I will like to recall my own experience. In the year 2013 I visited Pakistan. I went to Pakistan to accept an award conferred on me by a USA based organization for my contribution to the cause of peace, harmony and journalism. During my visit I was invited by the Karachi University to interact with the students of the Department of International Affairs. During my address I discussed the ways and means to improve relations between India and Pakistan. At the end of my lecture I suggested that enduring relations are possible if we decide to form a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. On this one of the students asked me to explain the idea of confederation. I said that the basic concept of confederation will be similar to the European Union Like European Union all the three countries will continue to be sovereign nations having their Parliament, Judiciary Ministry, executive and defense forces. Though Pakistan, Bangladesh and India will retain their independent identity, but after joining the confederation, they may abolish passport, scrap visa will enter into non-aggression treaty. There will be free exchange of cultural activities and personalities. After spelling out the main features of the confederation I asked students to give their reaction. I said if you like the idea of confederation you should say so by raising your hand not one but two. On this all the teachers and students present in the hall welcomed the idea with great applause. I am sharing this experience to suggest that confederation, not Akhand Bharat has the potential to provide permanent solutions to Indo-Pak-Bangladesh problems. Under the present situation the ideal of Akhand Bharat gives ground for suspecting the motive of the persons who are advocating it especially so when the idea is floated by a RSS activist. Citizens of Pakistan and Bangladesh will suspect that the idea of Akhand Bharat is being floated with the objective of the annihilation of Pak and Bangladesh. In order to rule out such a possibility the best course is to think in the terms of creation of a confederation of the three countries. It is very clear that nobody will agree to give up their sovereign power. Everybody knows that the thinkers like Veer Sawarkar believed that India consisted of two nations-one Hindu and the other Muslim. They also believed that only they can live in India, whose “Janm Bhumi (place of birth) and Punya Bhumi (the place of the birth of the religion they follow)”. By this criterion only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains can live in India. The implication of this theory is that Muslims, Christians, etc. have no right to live in India. Ram Madhav, who is a diehard RSS volunteer, is among those who upholds this theory. How one can imagine the formation of Akhand Bharat unless the organized groups like RSS disown this theory propounded by Sawarkar and others like him. The greatest RSS ideologue MS Golwalkar holds, the view that Muslims and Christians can live in India but as second rate citizens. Before floating the idea of Akhand Bharat Ram Madhav and others like him should make it clear that they no longer follow the ideals of Golwalkar and Veer Sawarkar. Similarly Akhand Bharat will remain a distance dream if the anti-Muslim organizations like Shiv Sena continues to exist in our country. Shiv Sena’s anti-Muslim bias is so deep that they are not prepared even to listen to melodious voice of internationally known gazal singer Ghulam Ali. Ghulam Ali was invited to participate in a memorial programme at Mumbai for Jagjit Singh, also a equally well-known Ghazal singer. Shiv Sena held out the threat that it will disrupt Ghulam Ali’s programme. Because of Shiv Sena’s threat Ghulam Ali’s programme was cancelled. Shiv Sena also warned that it will not allow Pakistan cricketers to play in Bombay and also in other places in India. I hope Ram Madhav is aware of the fact that Shiv Sena is the closest ally of the BJP. Before talking about Akhand Bharat Ram Madhav should control organization like Shiv Sena and also Bajrang Dal and Vishva Hindu Parishad. They never tire in making anti-Muslim utterances. Besides RSS controlled periodicals invariably carry articles and news doubting the loyally of Muslims to India. Before talking about Akhand Bharat let us take some remedial measure which may inspire confidence of our intentions Ram Madhav justified his vision by saying that when Vietnam and Germany could re-unite why not Pakistan and India. Ram Madhav must remember that Vietnam’s and Germany’s division was the handiwork of the powers which won Second World War. Cause and circumstances of our division were entirely different. Hatred for each other, based on religious affiliation was main cause of our partition. These factors are still in existence largely due to the acts of commissions and omissions by the communal organizations in India and Pakistan. Unless we put down diehard communal elements the idea of not only Akhand Bharat, but even the idea of forming a confederation will remain a distant dream. But despite this we must continue our efforts to form a confederation of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
