By: Pathik Hasan
On 14th August, just the day before India’s Independence Day, West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Dilip Ghosh celebrated so called ‘Akhand Bharat day’ and ‘Partition Horror Remembrance Day’ announced by RSS and BJP with a very questionable tweet in his twitter account. In that tweet, Dilip Ghosh uploaded a map of India that includes not only Bangladesh but the whole south Asia and Myanmar. The tweet depicts the long cherished right wing ‘Hindutva’ dream of annexing the whole region. This is not the first time, where an Indian right wing politician openly expressed their expansionist plan. In February, 2021 CM of Tripura and BJP politician Biplab Deb revealed that, Amit Shah and BJP has plan to expand BJP to other South Asian States starting with Sri Lanka and Nepal and they plan to win over these independent states and annex them with India to fulfill the ‘Akhand Bharat’ or ‘United India’ dream. In the following March, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat also expressed the same to ‘unite’ India based on ‘Hindu cultural similarity’. Such activities not only violate sovereignty of these states, they also show that, BJP and its ‘Hindutva’ ideology is an extremely fascist in nature and has expansionist motivation in the long run.
BJP and its allies including RashtriyaSwayansevakSangh (RSS) are well known extreme right wing political parties of India. BJP under the leadership of current Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah are both widely ‘celebrated’ and ‘hatred’ not only in India but across the region. PM Modi and BJP is currently enjoying straight second term and have taken a lot of controversial policies such as Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Registry of Citizenship (NRC) which are extremely ‘Anti-Islam’ in nature and empirical evidences of BJP’s communalist belief. Moreover, throughout India’s history, BJP has fuelled various communal riots and pogrom aiming at driving the Muslims out of the country. However, even current PM Narendra Modi was also banned in USA for his role in Gujrat massacre, 2002 where riots and communal clash resulted in severe bloodshed. ‘Akhand Bharat’ or ‘United India’ was introduced by VinayakDamodarSavarkar in 1937 and is a part of ‘Hindutva’ ideology. Savarkar was the architect of the ‘Hindutva’ and nationalistic ideology in India. As an avid follower of Hindutva, BJP and its allies cherish the same dream and as the first step towards their dream, they are rejecting the partitions of British period and are readjusting the map by including the whole region as India.Biplab Deb’s revealing of Amit Shah’s ‘Master Plan’ also shows that, the plan is to establish Hindutva in ‘all states of India’ first; and then they will aim beyond the border in neighboring states.
In International Relations, Maps are not merely geographic indicator, they also depicts sovereignty even of the smallest one’s. Therefore, readjusting the map without any provocation or any special circumstance is a clear attack on sovereignty upon which the ‘Westphalian Order’ or our state system is standing on. Not to mention, sovereignty is also protected by International Laws. However, the readjustment also reveals the ‘expansionist’ character in BJP’s political doctrine and suggests that these events are not separate events or populist’s ‘empty words’ to motivate the followers rather these are expansionist dreams waiting to be true in future. As ‘Akhand Bharat’ is based on historical claim of Hindu Kingdom, it also has striking similarities with Mussolini’s desire to bring back Roman Empire and Hitler’s ‘Lebensraum’ in Nazi Germany. All these expansionist models were based on historical claims that deny and disrespect international treaties and boundaries.And interestingly, all these parties practiced communalist politics based on race, color and religion.
In domestic context, clashing with other political doctrine and ethics, ‘Akhand Bharat’ and Hindutva will only politically fragment the Indian Society. Already after BJP’s ascension, India is already facing a lot of protests, riots and criticisms on various issues including NRC, CAA and Farmer’s bill. Biplab Deb’s revealing Amit Shah’s ‘Master Plan’ was also highly critiqued by the civil society and other political forces within India.
In the context of QUAD-China stalemate and ongoing Sino-Indian rivalry, such actions by top BJP leaders will put India only in back foot in the ‘great game’. At this moment, in order to counter China and establish India’s indo-pacific strategy, India desperately needs its neighbors on its side. Moreover in the ‘encirclement’ game, India is already in a troubled position being encircled by China and its allies including Pakistan and the new front, Afghanistan. At this point, India doesn’t have the luxury to ‘push’ its other neighbor’s away to China’s court by creating ‘unwanted’ dispute through promoting expansionist beliefs. These will not only create dispute, rather in the long run, will create skepticism and trust issues among other South Asian states about India and BJP’s intention. It is also worthy to mention that, these expansionist campaigns also give India’s ‘Neighbor First’ policy a suspicious outlook where neighbors may nowperceive that there are other motives behind this policy.Hence, these types of promotions by BJP leaders will only weaken India and put it in a more difficult position by creating trust issues and skepticism.
BJP leaders’ expansionist campaigns should not be perceived as ‘separate events’ or ‘populist words’. Rather, these adventures should be seen as a part of larger objectives of the party which denies and disrespects international treaties, boundaries and customary international laws. However, these campaigns will not benefit Indian state as ruling party’s adventurous dream will only create suspicion and skepticism among the neighbor especially at a time, when India badly needs them on its side in countering China in the contexts of QUAD-China confrontation and Sino-Indian rivalry. And last but not the least, history tells us that, physical expansionism and disrespects to international laws, treaties and boundaries only bring destructions and conflicts in the long run.
