Partition relieved Hindus in India of a dangerous communal strangle. Yearning for a pre-1947 situation is utterly suicidal because situations have changed. Pakistan has now become a hub of Islamist terrorism and Bangladesh has been denuded of its Hindu population
They have learnt nothing, forgotten nothing”, said Charles Talleyrand (1754-1838), the French Foreign Minister, about the Bourbon dynasty which was restored in France after the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814. Exactly 200 years later, Talleyrand could have repeated the same words about former Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh spokesperson and current BJP leader Ram Madhav, who has reportedly said, “One day, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh could reunite as ‘akhand Bharat’” (undivided India). Stalwart Ram Manohar lohia is known to have voiced similar sentiments in 1960, but for good reasons, the idea never made any headway.
Ram Manohar lohia has devoted chapter IV of his monograph Guilty Men of India’s Partition to the question of a possible reunion between the three countries. However, this writer found lohia’s views on the question rather confusing. “The population of East Bengal”, lohia says, “may be tempted to break away from West Pakistan only if West Bengal is similarly tempted to break away from India. Such a breaking away may well prove to be an intermediate stage towards an eventual and larger reunion”.
“One should also”, adds lohia, “be prepared to consider and to debate such solutions for Kashmir as joint control, or piecemeal plebiscite, or juridical acceptance of existing solution, or sovereign Kashmir, or integration of Kashmir with Pakistan in exchange for integration of east Bengal with India”. It will be anybody’s guess whether the RSS and its allies would support this solution or not.
The idea of a reunion was perhaps still cherished by the contemporaneous generation, but its scope has narrowed in the third generation. Pakistan, since the 1980s has distinguished itself as a hub of Islamic terrorism. Bangladesh, formerly known as East Pakistan, has been steadily denuded of its Hindu population.
As per 1961 census of Pakistan, Hindus account for 23 per cent of east Pakistan’s (present Bangladesh) population. This was around the time when lohia’s monograph was published. But now, the Hindu demographic share has reduced to seven per cent. West Pakistan (present Pakistan) got rid of its Hindu population (20 per cent as per 1941 census) within weeks of partition. Only traces of them are left. Thus, a reunification today will imply burdening India with double the number of Muslims than what is already present. The population of Pakistan is more than 18 crore, mostly comprising Muslims. Bangladesh’s population is more than 15 crore, in which Muslims account for 9/10th of the population. The ‘akhand Bharat’ dream will turn into ‘akhand Pakistan’.
If unity was such a noble idea, then why did Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee pitch for separation of West Bengal from East Bengal, irrespective of whether India is partitionedIJ Perhaps he realised that if the Hindus of undivided Bengal — 45 per cent — had to be saved from the tyranny of Muslim majoritarianism, there was no other alternative. His proposal gained more traction when MA Jinnah demanded that Bengal and Assam be included in Pakistan. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s elder brother Sarat Bose floated the idea of a united sovereign Bengal, separate from India and Pakistan. But Mookerjee adhered to his Divide-Bengal-to-save-Hindus stance, which gained public acceptability.
Once, when Jawaharlal Nehru taunted Mookerjee that he too supported the partition of India, the latter said that while Jinnah divided India, he was able to divide Pakistan to save the Hindus. Paradoxically, today, lohia is being cited and Mookerjee suppressed by Hindu nationalists.
The truth is that India, Pakistan and Bangladesh might actually be inching closer to reunification, but this reunification is more likely to come under the green banner of Islam. let us understand why it is so. The demographic share of Hindus in India since Independence has declined from 84.1 per cent to 79.8 per cent between 1951 and 2011. The Muslim share, on the other hand, has shot up from 9.8 per cent to 14.2 per cent. The Hindus are a majority in decline, whereas the Muslims are a growing minority.
Pakistan and Bangladesh have demographically become more Muslim. In a foreseeable future, when Muslims have an edge over the Hindu population in the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh area, they might actually be the ones asking for ‘akhand Bharat’. Muslims, however, need not wait for numerical majority. As All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi boasted, 15 per cent of Muslims can take on 85 per cent Hindus, but for the police and military.
By coalescing India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, there will hardly be an increase in the Hindu population. But the Muslim population will almost treble to 500 million or 50 crore. Thus, almost every second Indian in ‘akhand Bharat’ will be Muslim — up from every fourth Indian in undivided India in 1941. Muslims are aware that they are a burgeoning minority. This is evident in their community behaviour unlike in the 1960s, when Ram Manohar lohia wrote his monograph.
The only Hindu who timely saw the sagacity of conceding Pakistan was BR Ambedkar. The Pakistan resolution was passed by the Muslim league on March 23, 1940, in lahore. Within months, Ambedkar came out with a voluminous treatise titled, Thoughts on Pakistan (1940), which was later revised as Pakistan or Partition of India (1946). The book is a remarkable study of the Pakistani problem from geographical, historical, social, religious, constitutional, financial and military angles. It makes for an enjoyable reading due to its lucid clarity, in sharp contrast to lohia’s complex thought process.
Ambedkar advocated partition accompanied by a compulsory exchange of population on religious lines. His idea was modelled upon the famous compulsory exchange of population between Greece and Turkey under the auspices of the erstwhile league of Nations through the Treaty of lausanne in 1923. This reciprocal exchange of Christian and Muslim populations between Greece and Turkey has nearly resolved the communal problem there.
Ambedkar was fully aware that Hindus would have to pay a heavy price to keep India intact. This might entail allowing Muslims a permanent majority in the Army (as offset for their numerical minority in India), the retention of separate electorate, reservation in education and jobs.
It is true that Germany could re-unite in 1989 (but Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and USSR splintered), but it was only because communism disappeared from East Germany. In the Indian sub-continent, religion plays a decisive role. It is unlikely that it can disappear like communism did.
