Editorial Desk :
Recently India opened its new parliament building complex with a mural of “Akhand Bharat” that sparked angry reactions from the countries whose geographical territories have been erased on the map of India as depicted in the mural. This is a clear affront to the sovereignty of these countries that not only include Pakistan and Bangladesh, the countries that were parts of British India but also the lands of present Myanmar, Bhutan, Tibet, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan with their ancient names.
In the face of protests and criticisms from countries involved, Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar recently came up with an explanation and said the mural should not be taken as a ‘political’ thing as it depicts India’s Mauryan Emperor Asoka’s kingdom as a historical article. The mural should be taken as one of the cultural motifs that are inscribed on the new parliament building’s wall.
No, this is not as simple as what Mr. Jaishankar has said. While there was no geographical territory with the name of Akhand Bharat in the time of Ashoka –Magadha was the name of land Ashoka ruled –or any other periods of India’s ancient history for that matter, the idea of it only appeared as a recent construct of Hindutwabadi politics that wants to build up a Hindu state where only the Hindus will have voting power downgrading the people of other religious minorities as second class citizens.
This Hindu state, according to the ideologues of this politics, specifically includes the area of the pre-Partition India. Hence, Pakistan reacted very sharply calling the setting up of the mural as something that reflects India’s ‘revisionist and expansionist’ mindset. Nepal also scathingly criticised the mural. Though the government of Bangladesh takes the mural only as a cultural thing which has nothing to do with politics as what Jaishankar said, the opposition political party BNP as well as the decorated freedom fighters angrily protested the mural and called it an ‘intervention’ in the independence of Bangladesh.
Since Narendra Modi’s BJP came to power riding on its ideological patron RSS’s ultra-nationalist Hindutwabadi politics, India became very aggressive towards its neighbouring countries. It sent the regional forum SAARC to its deathbed and created two federal territories splitting the state of Jammu and Kashmir by abolishing the article 370 from India’s constitution that allowed a special status to this predominantly Muslim state.
India’s nationalist politics of Akhand Bharat is real but dreadful. Those who live in the past cannot be of any use for the future. Such politics will make India less trustworthy for the neighbouring states.
