ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Saturday rejected the “highly provocative” and “irresponsible” comments of the leader of a radical Indian organisation who claimed the solution to the “pain” of the 1947 partition of the subcontinent lied in “undoing” it, implying the reunification of parts that once formed the colonial nation.
According to an NDTV report, addressing an event on Thursday, Mohan Bhagwat, who heads the far-right, paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) group, had said: “We should read the history and accept its truth. Hindu society should become capable in order to do good to the world.”
“India’s suffering at the time of partition should not be forgotten. It will go away when the partition of [British] India is undone,” he had added.
RSS is the parent body of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi ruling India since 2014.
In a statement, the Foreign Office not only rejected the “delusional” statement but observed with great concern: “This is not the first time that the RSS chief has publicly indulged in such delusional thinking and historical revisionism.”
“Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted the threat posed to regional peace and stability by the toxic mix of the extremist Hindutva ideology [(seeking to build a) Hindu Rashtra(nation)] and expansionist foreign policy [Akhand Bharat (United India)] being pursued by the ruling RSS-BJP dispensation in India.”
The statement further observed that this dangerous mindset [of Hindu nationalism] aims to completely marginalise and dispossess the minorities in India. In the external dimension, it poses an existential threat to all of India’s neighbours in South Asia, it added.
“The world is witness to the systematic usurpation of the rights of minorities, especially Muslims, in India and the unabated repression of Kashmiris in IIOJK [Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir].
The reckless misadventures of India, including in February 2019, that seriously imperilled regional peace and stability are also in front of the world.”
Pakistan, the Foreign Office said, has consistently opposed the hegemonic impulses of its eastern neighbour and demonstrated a firm resolve to thwart any aggressive designs.
“While committed to peace, the people and armed forces of Pakistan are fully capable of defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
Those belonging to the BJP and its ideological fountainhead RSS would be well-advised to refrain from making such provocative and irresponsible statements, accept the established realities and learn to follow the imperatives of peaceful coexistence.”
