EDITORIAL: Yesterday, India, under an ultra-Hindu nationalist Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, observed August 14, Independence Day of Pakistan, as “Partition Horrors Remembrance Day”. Considering how the chaotic implementation of the Partition Plan led to modern history’s biggest migration and one of its bloodiest upheavals, any remembrance should be about saying ‘never again’.
Far from it the ‘commemoration’ was aimed at riling up anti-Muslim sentiments and promoting Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine’s Hindu Rashtra agenda. In its reaction to the “mischievous move”, the Foreign Office in Islamabad had advised the Indian government to desist from politicising the events related to Independence, and that if Indian leaders genuinely care about agony, suffering and pain of the people they must work to improve the conditions of the Muslims and other minorities. But the BJP and its ideological fountainhead, the RSS, intend to invoke those painful events for their own purposes.
The RSS also champions the fictional idea of Akhand Bharat, which is a poor attempt at historical negation. For at no time in the past there existed Akhand Bharat. Even the present-day India was never a single entity, divided as it was, like elsewhere, into several kingdoms and fiefdoms.
The closest it came to its contemporary size was under emperor Ashoka the Great, who later converted to Buddhism, and after a very long gap, under the Mughals. It was British colonial rule that brought the entire subcontinent under one rule, a large part of which now constitutes India.
Yet the RSS’ espousal of Akhand Bharat seems to be gaining traction. Though aside from Pakistan, it includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Tibet (an autonomous region of China), its chief Mohan Bhagwat has been calling for “undoing of the Partition” as according to him, this is the only way to relieve the pain of the people.
Earlier this year, while addressing a rally in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, he went so far as to claim that Akhand Bharat would become a reality “within 20-25 years and maybe even earlier with some effort”. This could be overlooked as the remarks of an ignorant man completely out of touch with reality, but for the fact that Bhagwat happens to be the ideologue of the ruling BJP-RSS combine. Together they demonise Muslims whom they accuse of breaking up ‘Mother India’.
PM Modi’s decision to mark August 14 as the ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’ would further exacerbate, intolerance, persecution and socio- economic exclusion of Muslims. That can fetch him votes but at the cost of the country‘s communal harmony and progress.
It should worry all decent people in India who want to see their country at peace with itself and not polarised along communal lines. Surely, Modi is trying to change existing beliefs about how events happened and what their importance or meaning is in order to add to his ultra-right agenda. It is, however, important to note that similarities between Hitler’s Third Reich and Modi’s India are growing every day.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022