When Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) president Mohan Bhagwat mentioned Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) while speaking at Satna in Madhya Pradesh, what he said didn’t come across as a political remark — it sounded like a recollection.
All of India is a home, but the other day, someone occupied one room in our house where my chair, table and clothes were. They have occupied it. Tomorrow, I have to recover it,” Bhagwat informed a gathering that comprised several Sindhis — people who have borne the wounds of Partition for generations.
For too many of the crowd, the “room missing” metaphor struck home. It wasn’t geography or border; it was about families separated, homes abandoned, and sorrow never fully healed. The crowd was silent in amazement before breaking into applause — not for the politics, but for the emotion.
Bhagwat’s statement, as charged as it was, comes when the issue of PoK has again returned to national discussion. Akhand Bharat — one India — has been a longstanding fantasy for the RSS, nurtured as much in emotion as in belief. This time, however, there was less sentimentalism and more aggression, less desire and more strategy.
Political commentators assert his statement was a reminder to Indians that history is not documented in treaties or on maps but lived in narratives and memories. “By referring to PoK as ‘a room in our house,’ he politicized an issue. It’s not conquest; it’s the loss of a sense of home,” said an observer in Delhi.
But his words have also provoked criticism, as well as admiration. His words are seen by his allies as a moving testament of support, but by his critics as words which, if taken literally, would pull very thin diplomatic wires.
But above the political analyses, Bhagwat’s metaphor is distinguished by its beauty. It is that of an unfinished house — not of anger, but of nostalgia. For millions who still think of themselves as having roots across the border, that “missing room” is more than a patch of land. It is memory itself.
