Akhand Bharat – who ruined it?



For a change, and comfortingly, the India media is not debating about some famous actor’s megalomaniac ego being bruised in an American airport, or some spent item girl’s televised dating treasures. For a change, and comfortingly, they are debating furiously about who was responsible for the Partition, about who made the first move.

It is heart warming because Partition has been the subject always relegated to the backburner, and never been an idea even for Indian films, except some teeth grindingly dumb Hindi potboilers such as Gadar. The only warm reminiscence was The Outlook magazine releasing special edition for 50th year of Partition while the rest of the nation celebrated 50th year of Independence and was busily belting out ‘Maa Tuhje Salaam.’ Sample the staggering stats: An estimated 25 million people were migrated across the border, 10 million rendered homeless, and about a million perished. That such a huge event in the history, the largest forced migration of humankind, and the slaughter and genocide that was bettered only by holocaust should be so easily forgotten by its own people is one of the ghastly wonders of the world. Human memory has been parodied before. But never in the history had a whole nation been afflicted by such serious selective Alzheimer’s. Thank you Mr Advani for that phrase.

And thank you Mr Jaswant Singh for dusting out the memories, and opening the debate. More than ever, India today needs this furious debate about one of the most brutal, gruesome events in the world history. Whether we agree with Mr Singh or not, we agree with his intention.



Now finally, yes finally, returning to the correct question. Akhand Bharat – who ruined it? For starters, Akhand Bharat has been one of RSS’s dreams, the whole, undivided India that comprises err... India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, some part of Afghanistan, and China?

Well, never mind, now, who ruined it? The answer could be that for the first time Akhand Bharat was ruined when the first divisive forces in the form of Islamic invaders entered the land. And when the second divisive force The British landed our shores. And then a few times in between. And then, to return to a basic question: Was Bharat ever Akhand? Suppose not.



And now, who split it into three when the British decided enough is enough? It was when poet Iqbal made a decisive cry in 1930. The baton was lying untouched for years after that and somebody was bound to pick it up. It just happened to be Jinnah. What if Jinnah had not gone for it? Is there a second opinion that somebody would have made a call? Now who was responsible for the creation of Bangladesh? Who for the divisive cry heard now in Balochistan? In Chechenya? In Kashmir? In Palestine? Okay, Israelis are a brutal regime; Indians are brutal in Kashmir and Russians in Chechenya…

Poet Iqbal believed that ‘displacement of the Islamic principle’ and ‘construction of a policy on national line’ was ‘unthinkable to a Muslim.’ He felt that Muslims blending with wider communities was undesirable. This was years and years before Jinnah took up the baton. Jinnah was secular, cherished western values, was non-religious, and disliked Khilafat movement. And why would such a savoir faire lead a movement so religiously divisive and fundamental?

So he was threatened by Nehru’s leadership. So he was aggrieved that Nehru, a junior politician, gaining prominence. So he didn’t like the Delhi weather!

How many more years are we going to continue to justify or assuage the crimes of somebody else because we want to be politically correct and we want to come as clean a secular as possible? How many skeletons are we going to bury inside our closet, how much ever they may be rattling inside? How thick is our carpet going to be to cover the faeces of our past leaders, despite the claustrophobic stench clogging up our nostrils!

Go figure!