Pakistan on Monday issued a denouncement of the highly reckless statements made by Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, regarding the reclamation of “Sindhu,” or the area around the Indus River in southern Pakistan. The statement claimed that the unnecessary assertion of “Akhand Bharat” drove the provocative remarks.
Pakistan condemns UP CM’s statement: Adityanath reportedly made a statement on Sunday, suggesting that there is no reason why the Sindhu province cannot be returned if the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple (the location of the Babri mosque) could be reclaimed after 500 years.
“We deplore the extremely reckless comments made at the National Sindhi Convention in Lucknow by the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, a significant figure in India’s governing elite and a supporter of the prejudiced Hindutva ideology. The chief minister citing the ‘Ram Janmabhoomi’ reclamation as a model for recovering the area that is a part of Pakistan is similarly repugnant,’ Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement.
She stated that history proved that a Hindu supremacist mob had blatantly destroyed the famous Babri mosque on December 6, 1992, in order to reclaim the city of Ayodhya, which they claimed was Lord Rama’s birthplace.
She claimed that the inflammatory claims made by the chief minister about “Akhand Bharat” (an united India) served as inspiration.
These statements reflect a revisionist and cosmopolitan attitude that aims to suppress not only the identity and culture of India’s neighbours but also that of its own religious minorities. They also exhibit a misguided understanding of history, the representative said.
She expressed significant concern over the fact that persons associated with the BJP-RSS alliance were spreading these ideologies more frequently in order to advance their polarising and localised political goal.
She said, “Instead of fostering hegemonic and expansionist ambitions, the Indian leaders should settle differences with neighbours and collaborate with them to create a peaceful and prosperous South Asia.