Why stop at PoK? We can get more

Who says that Indian elections are a giant exercise in navel-gazing that doesn’t look beyond communities and cabals, and cares about the world the way a bug cares about inequity of wealth? Thanks to excellent chest-thumping rhetoric and the ‘never perishable-always microwaveable’ pizzazz of ‘Akhand Bharat‘, Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir has entered the pile of election ‘issues’.

While any plans to ‘recover’ POK may take voters who haven’t already voted a while to warm to, being mentally occupied by the notion of merging a disputed territory may well be the perfect opportunity for most Indians to finally locate where POK is on the (disputed) map.

Some enthusiastic voters – or, at least, politicians – could even go the extra mile and have other territories, disputed or otherwise, on their hivemind. Myanmar, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are obvious takeover terrains on the menu. But why stop at India’s current borders? There’s picturesque and non-controversial Liechtenstein in Europe (that last had an army, of 80 soldiers, in 1868). There’s also Wales to consider as an acquisition. Since parts of China are tougher to incorporate into India, why not go beyond POK and get POP – Pakistani-Occupied Pakistan – on our side of the fence? Some would consider also tony parts of SoBo and South Delhi worth bringing into the (Akhand) Bharat fold.