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Such commentary, says Foreign Office, aims to marginalize India’s minorities and poses an existential threat to Delhi’s regional neighbors
Pakistan on Saturday rejected and condemned “highly provocative and irresponsible” statements by Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), warning that such commentary posed an “existential threat” to India’s regional neighbors.
Bhagwat, in a statement released on Thursday, was quoted as saying that the India of 2021 was not the same as the India of 1947. “Partition has happened once, it won’t happen again. Those who think that way will face partition themselves,” he said, adding that the only solution to the “pain” of Partition was to undo it.
“This is not the first time that the RSS chief has publicly indulged in such delusional thinking and historical revisionism,” read the condemnation issued by the Foreign Office. “Pakistan has repeatedly highlighted the threat posed to regional peace and stability by the toxic mix of the extremist Hindutva ideology (Hindu Rashtra) and expansionist foreign policy (Akhand Bharat) being pursued by the ruling RSS-BJP dispensation in India,” it added.
Warning that this “mindset” aimed to marginalize and displace India’s minorities and also posed an “existential threat” to all of Delhi’s South Asian neighbors, it stressed that the world was aware of the situation in India-held Kashmir.
“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. The reckless misadventures of India, including in February 2019, that seriously imperiled regional peace and stability are also in front of the world,” it said.
The Foreign Office maintained that Pakistan had consistently opposed India’s “hegemonic impulses” and shown its resolve to counter 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,” it said.
“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,” it added.