The idea I am referring to is the concept of an Undivided India or Akhand Bharat as was termed by Sardar Valla Bhai Patel, one of our renowned freedom fighters who was also referred to as the “Father of Akhand Bharat”.
Today, if you ask
people what their idea of an undivided India is, you are sure to get several
answers, but the most common ones are these:
1. Present Day India + Pakistan Occupied Kashmir + China Occupied Kashmir
2. Pre-partitioned India + Bangladesh
3. Present Day India + Afghanistan + Pakistan + Sri Lanka + Nepal
4. Present Day India + Afghanistan + Tibet + Malaysia + Indonesia
Thus, every person has a different map in mind when the think of a unified India.
Whatever, be the map of an undivided India, its bound to be an India with extended boundaries and a land with far greater benefits and opportunities.
Advantages of an
Undivided India
1. Free Trade And Economic Growth
A land without
boundaries is a land where labor and capital can be traded freely without
worrying about tariffs, custom duties or quotas.
Trade without
barriers in beneficial to the suppliers, exporters, importers, traders and
mostly the consumers who don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for a commodity
that they desire and needs to be imported from a faraway land.
The availability and
free movement of largescale labor force would result in economies of scale,
thereby increasing production as demand increases along with a reduction in the
manufacturing prices, which ultimately means greater profits.
With greater profits
comes greater division of profits which means a better standard of living and
greater demand for goods and services across the undivided land.
An increase in the GDP numbers and a positive growth of the economy is then inevitable.
2. Interdependence
The idea of
self-sufficiency looks good only on paper and countries can do little to reach
the level of complete self-reliance.
It often happens that
a country rich in capital may lack the labor needs and vice versa. Such a
scarcity has to be filled in by imports and exports.
With no boundaries, this becomes an easier process. Countries with a different capital-labor ratio can join hands and reap the benefits of having the best of both worlds.
3. Specialization
With interdependence,
comes a scope for specialization.
A country who is
capital-rich can focus on exporting capital-rich commodities while importing
labor-rich commodities.
Every merged country
could then solely focus on the goods which command a greater comparative cost advantage
For example, if Pakistan can produce both rice and cloth but can command a comparatively better price for cloth, it should optimally use its resources to service cloth and on the other hand if India, being agriculturally more fertile can command a better price for Rice, it must do the needful to further its sales in that particular sector of the international market.
4. Increase in Tourism Activities
No boundaries
indicate a tourist’s paradise.
With no requirement for individual VISA’s and Passports, tourist activities become simpler.
The ease of traveling is bound to attract tourists and thus contributes to the growth of all kind of tourism activities.
5. Decreased Spending on Military
An Undivided India
calls for a truce between participating countries.
A truce sends a
strong message for terminating all wars, threats and aggressions.
By waving the white
flag of peace and joining hands, every part taking country can ease down the
spending on military, navy and air force activities.
Safer borders and decreased spending on military activities, can help the country focus more on graver issues and help utilize the same resources in building a greater healthcare system, infrastructure and keep pollution under control.
Obstacles in the path to a Akhand Bharat
1. Bureaucracy and Politicians
Our country is galore
with politicians who are hell bent on defaming the country, forcing old and
irrelevant ideas on people and inciting violence on the name of religion and
caste.
With Politicians
themselves endorsing and popularizing the concept of bizarre norms like the
Love Jihad, wherein they “disallow” Hindu Women to marry Muslim Men under the
pretext of protection and maintaining the sanctity of their religion, how is an
Inclusive - India ever possible?
With narrow minded Chief Ministers wanting to strike down Westernization by personally attacking female’s choice of apparel (Ripped Jeans), how do we expect an undivided yet a land of diversity?
2. Hindutva VS Hinduism
The two words may
sound like synonyms to many, but they individually convey two very different schools
of thought.
Hinduism is based on
the ideology of treating the world as a family. The belief lies in being
tolerant to all religions globally with living and letting people live the way
they want by following the path of whichever religion they choose.
Hindutva, on the
other hand, is forcing the religious Hindu practices on everyone and anyone. A
person’s choice of religion is disregarded and they are compelled to take on
the new religion or face its consequences.
When we talk of an Undivided Nation, its imperative to understand that multinationalism is going to be predominant and no one religion will be considered superior to another.
Day on day we are faced with problems of racism and communism within the borders of our “Divided India”, which makes the idea of acceptance and tolerance of multinationalism, unfathomable.
3. Role of the Media
We no longer think of
Media as a channel of distributing realistic news and spreading awareness,
instead it has become a tool to incite violence by propagating hatred amongst
communities and plotting them against each other.
TV anchors are bought over by the central government itself to broadcast fabricated evidence against a cause. They play on human sentiments and emotions to provoke animosity amongst communities that have long been trying to co-exist peacefully.
How can an Undivided India be formed?
An undivided India
doesn’t mean a country with only one government because obviously no merging
country would want to give up its autonomy.
Instead, a charter is drawn up which comprises of the rules of a peaceful merger whilst also ensuring an autonomy and representatives of each country in the centralized governing body.
Taking the
example of the European Union:
There exist governments at individual levels like the French, Italian and German Parliaments along with a European Union Parliament which embodies representatives from each of these territories, thus ensuring no arbitrary decision against any one or group of countries and its citizens.
Taking the
example of other mergers:
If West and East
Germany could bring about a merger, If West and East Vietnam could set aside
their differences and reunite into a single territory, then it’s not impossible
to dream of an Asian Union or an Akhand Bharat.
You may wonder how
such a comparison can be made given the strikingly different territories under
consideration but it’s not the first time that such a proposal to reunite India
with its neighboring countries has been made.
Justice Katju was one
of the Chief Justice’s of India to have not only proposed such a union but also
to have drafted certain terms and agreements, which ultimately fell apart due
to inevitable political circumstances, post- partition trauma, uncertainty of
religious tolerance and threat to the democratic rights of citizens in a united
land.
Written By - Tushna
Choksey
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