Akhand Bharat: It was a reality, and not just an imaginary idea

The idea of Akhand Bharat is as old as a civilization as it duly got a place and described in ancient Bharatiya scriptures. The idea of Akhand Bharat was originated by the master of the Arthashastra, Chanakya. At the time, the 3rd century BC, the Indian subcontinent–which covered what are now the modern-day nations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Burma, Tibet, Bhutan, and Bangladesh – was divided into many independent kingdoms. Chanakya articulated the idea of an Akhand Bharat, which means all states in the region being under one authority, rule, and administration.

The great freedom fighter, revolutionary and Hindu Mahasabha leader Swatantrya Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, propounded the notion of an Akhand Bharat as well as a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation), emphasizing the potential cultural, religious and political unity of Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Jains throughout the Indian subcontinent ‘from Kashmir to Rameshwaram and from Sindh to Assam’. At the time of the Indian Independence Movement, Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi advocated for Akhand Hindustan, a proposition that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, agreed with. On 7–8 October 1944, in Delhi, Radha Kumud Mukherjee, a leading intellectual, presided over the Akhand Hindustan Leaders’ Conference.

RSS pracharak and Bharatiya Jansangh leader Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay further defined the idea of Akhand Bharat. He said, “The word 'Akhand Bharat' (un-divided India) includes all those basic values of nationalism and an integral culture.”

“These words include the feeling that this entire land from Attock to Cuttack, Kutch to Kamrup, and Kashmir to Kanya Kumari is not only sacred to us but is a part of us. The people who have been born in it since times immemorial and who still live in it may have all the differences superficially brought about by place and time, but the basic unity of their entire life can be seen in every devotee of Akhand Bharat.”

M S Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of RSS, at a press conference in Delhi on August 24, 1949, termed Pakistan as an “uncertain state” and stated “If the partition is a settled fact, we are here to unsettle it. There is, in fact, no such thing as a ‘settled fact’ in this world. Things get settled or unsettled solely by the will of man. And man’s will be steeled by a spirit of dedication to a cause, which he knows to be righteous and glorious.”