'Tomorrow Sindh may return to India': Rajnath Singh recalls L K Advani's Partition loss lament

New Delhi: Recalling BJP patriarch L K Advani's words on Sindh's civilisational connect with India despite the Partition, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday said "borders can change" and "tomorrow Sindh may return to India".

In his address at an event hosted by the Sindhi community here, he said that "Advani ji wrote in one of his books that Sindhi Hindus, especially those of his generation, still haven't accepted the matter of separation of Sindh from India".

Pakistan was created as a result of the 1947 Partition of then-undivided India, and the Sindh region near the river Indus has been part of Pakistan since then.

"Not just in Sindh, but throughout India, Hindus considered the Indus River (Sindhu in Hindi) sacred. Many Muslims in Sindh also believed that the water of the Indus was no less sacred than the Aab-e-Zamzam (holiest of the waters) of Mecca.

"This is Advani ji's quote. Today, the land of Sindh may not be a part of India, but civilisationally, Sindh will always be a part of India. And as far as land is concerned, borders can change. Who knows, tomorrow Sindh may return to India. Our people of Sindh, who hold the Indus River sacred, will always be our own; no matter where they are, they will always be ours," he said.

Singh, however, did not mention the title of the book he was referring to.

In 2017, Advani, who had also served as a deputy prime minister, at an event in Delhi had said, "I believe that India appears incomplete without Sindh".

Advani, who was born on November 8, 1927, in Karachi, the capital of Sindh Province (now in Pakistan), had lamented that his birthplace was not a part of India anymore.

In his address on Sunday, Rajnath Singh said that after the Partition, a large segment of the Indus River went to the Pakistani side, and the entire Sindh Province is in Pakistan.

"But, this does not mean that for us the importance of Sindhu, Sindh and Sindhi has lessened. It still holds the same importance as thousands of years ago," the defence minister said.

The word Sindh is associated with the cultural identity of India and the Sindhi community, he said.

Referring to the national anthem, Singh asserted that "even today people sing with pride, '...Punjab, Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha', and they will continue to sing, and forever sing it, and sing it till we exist".