“Well, Akhand Hindustani, we are now going to divide India.” With these words one day, while talking, Sardar Patel, the Congress stalwart and soul of the Indian freedom movement, began to tease K. M. Munshi, his lieutenant. This was in 1947 when both the Sardar and Munshi were living in Birla House, New Delhi. While recording the incident in “Pilgrimage to Freedom”, Munshi notes: “I was naturally shocked, for he had all along criticized Rajaji bitterly for his pro- partition views.” Patel had put forward two grounds: “One was that, the Congress being pledged to non-violence, it was not possible for it to resist violently. Even if it changed its creed, violent resistance at that stage would have meant the end of the Congress- a long struggle with the Muslim League through large-scale conflicts involving violence, while the British Government would be sitting tight over the country with its police and army. The second ground that Sardar gave me was that if partition were not accepted, there was bound to be long-drawn- out communal strife in cities and rural areas and even the army and the police would be torn by communal dissensions. The Hindus, being less fanatic, were sure to lose for want of a compact organization.” Munshi concedes the soundness of Sardar’s opinion in the light of the riots of 1946-47 where “our efforts to found a sovereign democratic State would have failed.”
Mahatma Gandhi was not happy when partition was a certainty. Even as a last resort, he tried to offer M. A. Jinnah to form the Government of a United India and Congress should go into opposition and start a mass movement. “Sardar was not impressed with this stand. The country was too tired to undertake such a movement and was anxious to seize the opportunity of securing freedom.” It would sound easier to criticize the Mahatma and the Congress of rejecting the partition but during that volatile period the Congress, whose Sardar Patel was rather the strongest leader, had hardly any option left. Jinnah had to satisfy himself with the “truncated Pakistan” thanks to Patel and Nehru’s efforts to force partition of Punjab and Bengal. Munshi even while being with Congress began his lone campaign for Akhand Hindustan and even after the partition the campaign for the Akhand Bharat continued by others.
Even today one might come across a quotation of Sri Guruji (Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar), the second Sar-Sanghchalak(Head) of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh(RSS), on the official website of RSS, the mother organization of the present day ruling party in India i.e. Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) : “If partition is a settled fact, we are here to unsettle it. There is, in fact, no such thing as a ‘settled fact’ in this world. Things get settled or unsettled solely by the will of man. And man’s will is steeled by a spirit of dedication to a cause, which he knows to be righteous and glorious.”
There are differences on the definition of Akhand Bharat but it is generally considered that Akhand Bharat means pre-partition British India i.e. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. RSS’s idea of “Akhand Bharat” includes not only Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Tibet. It terms the combined region as a “Rashtra” based on “Hindu cultural” similarities. The RSS has been quite vocal on the campaign for Akhand Bharat. Now since the BJP is in power in India and in most of the India states, one would come across some of the BJP leaders raising the issue of Akhand Bharat and others issuing denials or clarifications. These days the concept of Akhand Bharat is projected as mere “cultural” and not political or national one. Even in the books published by RSS sympathizers like one titled “Pratyek Rashtrabhakta Ka Sapna: Akhand Bharat” (Dream of every patriot: Akhand Bharat), written by one Dr Sadanand Damodar Sapre says: “We can put the map of Akhand Bharat in our home so that it is always before our eyes. Suruchi Prakashan, a publishing house run by the RSS, has brought out a map called ‘Punyabhoomi Bharat’ in which Afghanistan is called “Upganathan”, Kabul “Kubha Nagar”, Peshawar “Purushpur”, Multan “Moolsthan”, Tibet “Trivishtap”, Sri Lanka
“Singhaldweep” and Myanmar “Brahmadesh”, among others.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover at Lahore to greet the then PM Nawaz Sharif on his birthday, December 25, 2015, the move was heralded as nothing short of a master stroke, reminiscent of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s cross-border diplomacy of the 1990s. But a day later, on December 26, BJP National General Secretary and RSS pracharak(full-timer) Ram Madhav, in an interview broadcast on Al-Jazeera television channel, spoke of “Akhand Bharat”, one that would see Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited with India “through popular goodwill”. “As an RSS member”, Madhav had said, “I hold on to that view”. The statement caused much controversy, and stole the thunder from Modi’s surprise Lahore visit, with many questioning the BJP’s and the government’s real political intentions, given that the RSS governs the ideology of the party. The Bharatiya Janata Party downplayed Madhav’s remarks on Akhand Bharat. BJP says while Madhav has a right to his own views, the party and the government are clear that India and Pakistan are two sovereign nations.
In the debating volume “Prativad”(ed. S. M. Bhave) on the Marathi book by Sheshrao More titled “Why Congress and Gandhiji rejected Akhand Bharat?”, a celebrated historian Dr. Sadanad More writes : “During the partition period, the Hindu organizations like RSS and Hindu Mahasabha were not strong enough to perform any effective role for partition or resisting it since they had no mass support and the British did not give them importance. They just criticized Gandhi and Congress. Their concept of Akhand Bharat was emotional and we are unable to understand even today what sort of Akhand Bharat was sought by RSS. This organization did perform an effective role in helping the Hindus during the communal dissensions and migration following the partition. V. D. Savarkar, the Supremo of Hindu Mahasabha, used to give slogan of Akhand Bharat, but his actions were pro-partition.” A very few prominent and fearless dignitaries like Justice Markandey Katju, a retired Supreme Court judge, dare to run campaign for the unification of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh saying : “Akhand Bharat is RSS concept, with Hindu supremacy. Mine is united secular India, which doesn’t tolerate religious extremism, Hindu or Muslim. All Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are Indians. Partition of 1947 was a historical swindle and fraud by the British, which must be undone.” These days Unification of East Germany and West Germany is rather forgotten !
Next Column: Whither Indian Republic after 68 years
( The writer is a Socio-political Historian. E-mail : [email protected] )
