RSS's Shadow Dance With Sufism In Kashmir Explained

A folded prayer mat and a string of beads rested on a wooden desk in the low-ceilinged hotel room. On the wall hung a large calendar with an image of Mecca. The room doubled as both office and living space for 54-year-old Mir Nazir, who heads the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), an affiliate body of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Jammu and Kashmir. The room’s compound walls are covered with barbed wire, with a scissor gate connected to the concrete stairs and policemen allowing entry only after proper frisking.

Nazir makes it a point to offer his prayers there, while also convening meetings on the need to implement a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). “We, as an organisation, work for the welfare of Muslims. Why should Muslim women suffer? The men shouldn’t simply desert them. The UCC will help end the exploitation of women,” he says.

Since Nazir associated with the MRM in 2002 as its convener for Jammu and Kashmir, the organisation has grown to a strength of over 10,000 members. The RSS, which began its work in J&K in 1939, now runs 690 shakhas in the Union Territory and also has samparks (outreach officials) in every district of Kashmir.

The RSS and its allied organisations launched a movement after 1947 to oppose the separate Constitution and flag for J&K under the slogan ‘Ek Nishan, Ek Pradhan, Ek Samvidhan’ (One Flag, One Head, One Constitution). After the revocation of Article 370, which did away with the flag of J&K and annulled its Constitution, saffron outfits have reached out by tapping the Muslims in Kashmir and lauding Sufi Islamic practices. Several leaders, including the national executive member of the RSS, Indresh Kumar, have been visiting shrines, while the MRM has also organised iftar parties in mosques to draw more people into their ranks.

But all these measures have been described by parties in Kashmir such as the National Conference (NC) and the Congress as attempts to “hoodwink” people and claim a “bogus association” with the Valley, alleging what they have actually done is “communalise the situation and threaten the Muslims into subjugation.”

Former deputy chief minister and ex-RSS leader Nirmal Singh, however, says that the RSS has never opposed popular religious practices and has instead worked towards fostering a “spirit of nationalism among people”. He adds, “The agitation of ‘Ek Nishan, Ek Pradhan, Ek Samvidhan’, which started in J&K for the full integration of the erstwhile state with the rest of the country, was led by RSS leaders. The movement was started by the Praja Parishad but was actively supported by the RSS. It was a battle against separatism and against Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, who wanted to declare J&K an independent country in connivance with Pakistan. Till 1953, one could not hoist the tricolour in Jammu and Kashmir.”

The rise of the RSS in J&K is seen to have been synonymous with the political movement launched against the region’s special status accorded under Article 370. After the Praja Parishad was founded in November 1947, it spearheaded an agitation against the policies of NC founder and former Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and voiced its opposition to J&K having a separate Constitution and a flag. The movement against Article 370 gathered momentum after Jan Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee joined it and died in prison in Kashmir following his detention after he sought to oppose the special status.

“What was started as a movement by Praja Parishad finally culminated in the full integration of Jammu and Kashmir with the rest of the country on August 5, 2019, through revocation of Article 370,” says Nirmal Singh. “Both the Praja Parishad and Jan Sangh and the RSS form one ideological family,” he adds.

Academic and historian Hari Om says, “The RSS saw its rise after its involvement in J&K as it worked towards the full integration of the erstwhile state with the rest of the country. It became particularly active after the Partition in J&K.” He notes that Praja Parishad and the RSS were two sides of the same coin and have “worked towards keeping the national interest supreme.”

Former minister and senior Congress leader G.A. Mir, however, says that the RSS and its allied organisations became active in J&K only in 2015 after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) formed a coalition government with the BJP due to a lack of support base in the Valley. “Those people who have been associated with these outfits in Kashmir were forced to join them, as they were being pressurised and implicated in false cases and dubbed as stone pelters. Such outfits were encouraged after the PDP formed a coalition government with the BJP, and the current administration has been lending active support to them.”

“Visits of RSS leaders are aimed at hoodwinking people. Since the BJP and its allied parties have been rejected in the polls, they have been advised that they should resort to such tactics to make inroads in Kashmir,” he says.

Senior NC leader Mustafa Kamal is of the opinion that the RSS and other organisations are “communalising the situation in Jammu and Kashmir”. He says that they “run divisive agendas and set people of different religious identities against each other.”

In Kashmir, several Kashmiri Pandit leaders who were associated with the RSS were killed during the militancy years, and although their migration weakened their Hindu base, the Sangh has managed to rope in people by organising several welfare programmes and has also remained active in distributing relief during the September floods here this year.

Senior BJP leader Ashwani Chrungoo says that the RSS received a setback in Kashmir after several of the Kashmiri Pandit leaders belonging to the organisation were killed in Kashmir. “Prior to the eruption of militancy, the RSS was working particularly on strengthening the core ethos of nationalism,” he says. RSS leader Avtar Krishen Trakroo notes that although the Hindu past of Kashmir remains a vital part of its history, “our work in Kashmir doesn’t discriminate against people on the basis of religion”.

“Our identity is that we belong to the great nation, and nobody can ignore the Hindu past of Kashmir. The monuments in Parihaspora are a testament to its Hindu cultural history. We have samparks in every district of Kashmir, who are making people aware of the ideology of the organisation.”

In Kashmir, another RSS-allied organisation, Sewa Bharti, has also opened over 1,500 schools, which are run by teachers in all the districts of the Valley. Vice-President of Sewa Bharti, Farooq Dar, says, “We run these schools in different parts of Kashmir, where the students assemble at the house of a teacher, who not only imparts to them education on the ethos of nationalism, but also teaches them subjects of the regular curriculum.”

Recalling his association with the RSS, Nazir says that he severed his ties with the NC as the party made false promises to its polling agents that it would provide them jobs. “The MRM started as a one-member organisation in Kashmir, but has now grown to a strength of more than 10,000 people. When I joined the MRM, there were only 21 members from across India, and I was the only member from Kashmir. I became disillusioned with other parties and chose to become the founding member of the Rashtriya Manch. I also contested the election from Tangmarg, but lost.” Nazir, who stays under police cover in his hotel room, says that he has also received threats from militants but did not leave the MRM. “Three of my brothers were killed by militants from 1994-2006,” he says. “While one of them was killed for holding an organisational post in the NC, another, who was a government employee, was gunned down due to my association with the MRM. During the protest after the killing of the militant Burhan Wani, I also urged that the all-party delegation should meet Hurriyat, but the separatist group did not meet them and the violence in Kashmir has only continued.”

Ishfaq Naseem is senior special correspondent, Outlook. He is based in Srinagar.

This story appeared as One Hundred Years Of...Shadow Dance in the print edition of Outlook magazine’s October 21 issue titled Who is an Indian?, which offers a bird's-eye view of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), testimonies of exclusion and inclusion, organisational complexities, and regional challenges faced by the organisation.