Mural of Akhand Bharat in Parliament stirs up row in Nepal

Subject : History

Section: Modern India

Concept :

A major controversy has broken out in Nepal over the mural of the Indian subcontinental landmass in the newly inaugurated Parliament building.
The mural has been interpreted as a map of Akhand Bharat or undivided India, which has drawn angry responses from Nepali political leaders across party lines.
The mural shows Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautama Buddha, suggesting India’s claims over the region. Nepal considers Lumbini as one of the major cultural centres on the Nepalese map.

Idea of Akhand Bharat

The Indian activist and Hindu Mahasabha leader Vinayak Damodar Savarkar at the Hindu Mahasabha’s 19th Annual Session in Ahmedabad in 1937 propounded the notion of an Akhand Bharat that “must remain one and indivisible” “from Kashmir to Rameswaram, from Sindh to Assam.”
He said that “all citizens who owe undivided loyalty and allegiance to the Indian nation and to the Indian state shall be treated with perfect equality and shall share duties and obligations equally in common, irrespective of caste, creed or religion, and the representation also shall either be on the basis of one man one vote or in proportion to the population in case of separate electorates and public services shall go by merit alone.