Speaking at a Lashkar rally in February 2000, its top ideologue Abdul Rehman Makki announced that the organisation had set in place a new campaign to “liberate Hyderabad from Hindu rule.” Hyderabad had been seized by force, he proclaimed, and would be won back through the sword. Such language is not new. In 1948, over half a century before Makki’s speech, Islamist guerrilla Kasim Rizvi had promised to fly the Nizam of Hyderabad’s flag “on the Red Fort in Delhi.”

Praveen Swami writes in the day’s Hindu . Hafiz Saeed, founder of LeT said a few years later that other than Kashmir

“Pakistan is also incomplete without Hyderabad, Junagarh and Munabao because these [erstwhile princely] states had announced accession with Pakistan, but the Hindus subjugated them,” he said. “That is why it is our duty to free these states from Hindu subjugation and assure their Muslim population that they will become part of Pakistan. This is our agenda for Pakistan’s completion. We will continue to propagate it in India through speech and writing and take these states back through jihad.’

Despite the fact that Makkis and Hafizes do not stand a chance in front of the Indian empire, nor its ruthless intelligence arms, I do see a scope for some synergy here. Makkis and Hafizes want Hyderabad, Srinagar et al ; our Hindu Papa bears want the holy Indus basin, the ‘other’ Kashmir, the holy sites at Kashi,Mathura and if possible those ancient cities of Gandhara. A popular movement of all the sanths, Makkis, Hafizes and mullahs with some support from afridis and bahubalis is always in the cards. Let their kingdom come, what do you call that – ha, the Islamic state of Akhand Bharat. Everybody happy !

What comes to mind is an old Laxman cartoon, Benazir on phone, turns around to her secretary saying ” They took Kashmir, now they want the Jinnah House”