A story was reported on June 2 with the headline, ‘Bengal couple accused of being ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ freed from Bengaluru jail after 10 months.’

The couple were Palash and Shukla Adhikari, who were accused of being foreigners. They spent an extra month in jail after getting bail because they could not produce local sureties.https://thewire.in/south-asia/akhand-bharat-south-asia-politics 

Another story, somewhat related, was reported the same day with the headline, ‘Political leaders in Nepal object to ‘Akhand Bharat’ mural in new Parliament’. The story explained that ‘Akhand Bharat’ was a concept espoused by Hindutva nationalists envisaging that neighbouring countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka would become a part of India. Lumbini – the birthplace of the Buddha – is in Nepal but features on the map in the new parliament.

Both of these are again in a way related to something else.

I am writing a book whose title is The Case for Akhand Bharat, which is an attempt to figure out two things.

First, if Indians, especially Hindus of the Bharatiya Janata Party type, really want to unite South Asia, why are they not trying it except in paintings and murals?

Second, what would it take to actually bring about an ‘Akhand Bharat’?

The answer to the first question is easy. The BJP and Hindus who back it do not want a united South Asia. What they want is an empire with subjects. A party ruling India with no Muslim minister or MP or MLA is not going to be attractive to the woman in Chittagong or enthuse the child in Peshawar. What the BJP wants is land, it does not want the people. Look at Kashmir to understand.

It is a reality that the thinking of the Indian elite, as presented to the world in the new parliament, is juvenile and unreal. But it is also a fact that needs to be acknowledged and engaged with.

‘Akhand Bharat’ will not come about through crayons and murals.

by Aakar Patel

06/06/2023

इंजन की दलाली करने वाला कैसे बना रेल मिनिस्टर। Ashwini Vaishnaw का काला चिट्ठा जान दंग रह जाएंगे आप।
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA7vmMo6ah8

Existential terror https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/opinion/existential-terror-the-bjps-fear-of-the-agency-of-articulate-women/cid/1942132

A government that has broken every rule in the book to arrest and jail political opponents and civil society activists has morphed into a born-again believer in due process. Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s right to the presumption of innocence is the hill it is planning to die on. Why does this monstrously savvy party find itself in this indefensible position?...

Nobody believes a word of the narrative that the BJP is trying to peddle, from the allegation that the protesting women were looking for an easy route into Olympic competition, to the claim that this protest was staged to steal Modi’s thunder as he peacocked his way through the new Parliament building with an honour guard of hairy mendicants in sketchy orange uniforms....

Over the nine years of Modi’s prime ministership, the arms of government have remade themselves to pander to his narcissism. For the home ministry and the Delhi Police, the wrestlers’ march was a form of lèse-majesté that demanded punitive action. The government made the elementary error of not factoring in the footage that its strong-arm tactics would generate. That top-down picture of Sakshi Malik and Vinesh Phogat on their backs, struggling against dozens of uniforms, was very likely the moment the government lost this battle in the public’s mind....The sangh rallied around Singh because in its deepest being, it is a patriarchal, misogynistic organisation hardwired to discipline recalcitrant women. Just as the sangh parivar uses the idea of a ‘love jihad’ to police the partner choices of Hindu women, it used the Delhi Police to teach successful, articulate, disobedient women a lesson: rebellion doesn’t pay; learn to be pliable clients.