“Akhand Bharat sounds more like an anarchist’s dream, and in anarchy it will be the extreme ideologies—of Islamism or Maoism or any of the other absolute “isms” of faith and ideology—that will gain ground. India is better of being a smaller country with more manageable contradictions than in an Akhand Bharat.” – R. Jagannathan
BJP leader Ram Madhav created a storm the other day when he said that his ideological parent, the RSS, still believed in the idea of Akhand Bharat. He is quoted as saying:
The RSS still believes that one day these parts (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) … will again, through popular goodwill, come together and Akhand Bharat will be created … as an RSS member, I also hold on to that view.
God forbid. Akhand Bharat is actually closer to an Islamist’s or Maoist’s dream and would be a Hindu nightmare, given current demographics. With our religious, caste, and ethnic fault lines, India is difficult enough to govern even with a “technical” Hindu majority of just under 80 percent (79.8 percent, according to the 2011 religious census).
If one were to add the populations of Pakistan (191 million, of whom 95 percent are Muslim) and Bangladesh (90 percent Muslim in a total population of around 157 million), to India’s 1,252 million, we will get a demography that is impossible to manage: a 31 percent Muslim population, against around 65 percent Hindu, but even this theoretically two-thirds majority is mythical, given our age-old fault-lines, since they include a large Dalit and tribal population who are technically and civilisationally Hindu, but not necessarily Hindu in the full religious sense of the term. Remember, Dalits were formally kept out of Hinduism and rendered “untouchable”, and tribals have co-evolved in parallel to mainstream Hinduism.
If one were to exclude Dalits and tribals from the Hindu mix (a collective population of over 300 million in India’s current borders), what you may get is a bare Hindu majority in Akhand Bharat – which will make for an unstable polity given extraordinary efforts to convert tribals to Christianity, and the growing politics of Dalitism, which outside powers will fund and encourage to weaken India.
Akhand Bharat sounds more like an anarchist’s dream, and in anarchy it will be the extreme ideologies—of Islamism or Maoism or any of the other absolute “isms” of faith and ideology—that will gain ground. India is better of being a smaller country with more manageable contradictions than in an Akhand Bharat.
To be fair to Ram Madhav, his hope was that Akhand Bharat will happen through “popular goodwill”. But is that looking even remotely feasible in an era marked by jihadism and the use of aggressive conversion technologies? – Swarajya, 28 December 2015
Filed under: india | Tagged: demographics, demography, hindus, india, indian population, muslims, RSS, RSS |
A confederation of India, Pakisthan and Bangala Desh is a workable idea. Germany which fought two world wars with england is part of the European Union. Think of all the defence spending that can be saved. How much of India’s finances are strained by the enimity with Pakisthan. With miserable millions in both countries a permanent peace initiative will help the starving millions.
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I think “Akhand Bharath” concept is not uniting PAK AFGANISTAN and INDIA literally . IF these 3 countries can unite culturerly there will be more cooperation and unity. It is thousand times better than enmity.People are talking about the danger of Islam terror in these neighboring countries,what about the Islam terror inside?For arguments sake we can say that Indian Muslims are peaceful.But in practice they still keep enmity and hatred towards Hindus and want to destroy it through population invasion,conversion and communal riots.People called MK Gandhi “mahatma”because he prevented Hindus to retaliate Muslim’s killings!! Was Gandhi wrong in this aspect ??May be Modi also thinks about Gandhi lines to establish everlasting peace.People who are opposing this idea may be disrespecting Mahatma’s ideas.!
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As I have pointed out elsewhere, Akhand Bharat is a spiritual notion too backed by the vision of seers like Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. Ram Madhav was only referring to this aspect which is part of the larger cultural/spiritual context of Adhyatma. I think he did a reasonably good job facing a hostile anchor and mostly hostile crowd. (Of course, as an Indian I too shudder at uniting with Pakistan which as a region was part of India just some decades back).
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