Re: Pak to build a memorial for Bhagat Singh
The present-day state of India didn't exist before 15th August 1947 just as the present-day state of Pakistan didn't exist before 14th August 1947.
The current Republic of India and the past British Indian Empire are two seperate entities.
Bhagat Singh died 16 years before the creation of either country. If Indians can call Allama Iqbal or Heer-Ranjha their own then we can lay claim to Bhagat Singh.
He wasn't just an Indian freedom fighter, he was a Punjabi and South-Asian as well, there's 50 million more Punjabis in Pakistan than there is in India (almost twice as much).
We are fellow South-Asians and some of our provinces/states share a common culture/ethnicity/history/heritage but like I have said before Pakistan is a nation in it's own right, even one of the Indian PM's accepted this fact at the Tower-of-Pakistan in Lahore saying "Pakistan ka apna sikka hai aur apni mor hai."
I think our neighbours need to let go of this imperialistic illusion of being the thekedaar of South-Asia.
We in Pakistan see our independence as freedom from the British not separation from India, the Republic of India didn't even exist till a day after our independence, prior to that the name "India" (coming from the River Indus in Pakistan) was used as a regional name, synonymous to the word 'South-Asia' today because before 1947 South-Asia didn't exist as a country but was rather under the rule of various (usually) foreign Empires, and prior to that it was a collection of independent kingdoms usually at war with each other, even today neither of our countries is a homogeneous nation-state in the western sense.
The separate independence of Pakistan was necessary because of the extremist Hindus who to this day associate South-Asian Muslims (mostly local converts) with foreign invaders and want them to be expelled from South-Asia or converted to Hinduism, these are not my words, anyone who doesn’t believe can see for themselves on websites such as Hindu Web. Also in a democracy Muslims would be unrepresented as they were an insignificant minority in comparison with the majority Hindus.