The Sangh And The Shadow Sangh In Kashmir 

In a region where anti-India sentiment runs high, Majid Asif Mir, 35, is a rare Kashmiri Muslim who openly displays the Indian flag and espouses the philosophy of Akhand Bharat. He greets you on the phone with 'namaskar' and signs off with 'jai Hind'. His Urdu is sprinkled more with Hindi words than Kashmiri.  

He is the model Kashmiri Muslim straight out of the Hindutva imagination. Yet, his efforts at ‘integration’ with the majority Hindi-speaking Hindutva nationalists have been met with rebuffs.  

Mir is the founder of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sanghatna Parivar, a nationalist organisation in the Kashmir Valley inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS. The two organisations are not connected, even if they share similar-sounding names. Mir asserts that the RSSP and the RSS are similar in that they follow the path of spreading nationalism. “We are like RSS’s Parivar, it's from the same family. We do the same work as the Sangh.” 

The Sangh has no official footprint in Kashmir, but Mir says he and his organisation work as their foot-soldiers. “The RSS remains hidden due to security reasons, but we work in the open and proudly say that we are Sangh members,” he says, adding that he has been following Sangh’s mission of organising the society to promote nationalism in Kashmir since joining it in 2010.

Liyaqat Ali, president of RSSP, says the organisation has tried to dilute the notion that RSS is anti-Kashmir and anti-Muslim. “We have been working in the Valley even before the BJP started its work. We don’t get funds from any organisation, but we have a lot of support on the ground.” 

Members of the BJP and Sangh distanced themselves from Mir and accused him of manipulating Sangh's name. “Sangh has no relation with him or this organisation. We have brought it to the local administration’s attention that he is not Sangh-sponsored. He is manipulating Sangh’s identity by sharing photos with senior leaders," says Parmit Singh, Prant Pracharak in charge of the Kashmir division. “We have noticed there are a few individuals who are misusing Sangh’s name, but we don’t know what is their intention for doing so. Is it for personal gains or in the national interest ?”

The RSSP is regarded as a political decoy.

Mir is not surprised by the rejection. He vouches for his credentials by pointing out that his name was among the list of 30 RSS members in Kashmir threatened purportedly by The Resistance Force militant group last year. He also claimed that the BJP routinely calls members from RSSP for its functions and rallies. “I don’t know why we do not get support from the Sangh and the BJP. They make use of us when they need it, at other times, they refuse to recognise us.” 

Registered in Uttar Pradesh as a public trust in 2023, the RSSP claims it has around 70,000 members in J&K, including 40,000 in the Valley. It functions as a grassroots-level organisation engaged in socio-cultural activities and youth empowerment. Members at the district level help locals address complaints with the civic administration and run programmes for youth to prevent them from consuming drugs and joining militancy. “The government pours crores of rupees into projects and schemes for Kashmiris, but they don’t reach poor people. It is the rich and the elite who benefit. We try and help the poor to get benefits of subsidies in electricity bills, agriculture or funds for Swacch Bharat Abhiyan etc," Mir says.

He emphasises that the organisation takes no money from people for doing any government-related work. “Some in the government do not want the atmosphere of Kashmir to improve, that’s why they wrongly accuse us of taking money and that we are fake Sanghis.”

Mir and two RSSP members contested in the Assembly elections as independent candidates in Ganderbal, Lal Chowk and Anantnag constituencies, as they wanted to test how many votes they could garner as RSSP members.

The RSS has up to 1,000 Kashmiri Muslim members, but no Shakha in the region. Five years after the abrogation of Article 370, the Sangh has refrained from opening a shakha in Kashmir owing to the dynamic nature of militancy and security, Sangh functionaries said.

It has a strong presence in the Jammu region from where it largely conducts its operations in the Union Territory. In Jammu alone, Sangh has close to 500 shakhas and 20,000 members, largely youth and women.

Before the Modi government scrapped Article 370 and removed the contentious Section 35A, paving the way for all provisions of the Constitution to be extended to J&K, separatism fuelled by Pakistan was visible in J&K, says Deepak Sharma, RSS member from Jammu’s Prachar Vibhag. But now Kashmiris are more integrated, he claims. “We are seeing a lot of interest from Kashmir in RSS’s work. Kashmiri Muslims have realised that Sangh is not anti-Kashmir but a nationalist organisation and want to join us.”

Each month, RSS's online portal apparently receives 50-70 inquiries from Kashmiri Muslims interested in joining the organisation.  

Sangh members said they have witnessed a sea change in the situation before and after 2019. Security in the region has helped Sangh extend its work to former ‘resistance’ pockets and areas with strong anti-India sentiments.

Members can now easily visit such interior areas and border areas to hold contact meetings or ‘baithaks’ with locals. Ahead of the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, members carried out a mass campaign to encourage citizens for ‘100 per cent’ participation in elections.

“Since abrogation, there is an increased confidence among Sangh members. Our contact in Kashmir has improved, but we do not have an ‘institutionalised’ presence or do not carry any activities under Sangh’s name directly,” Paramjit says.

Sangh members silently work on the ground in Kashmir with affiliated organisations without attracting much attention or publicising their work. The Rashtriya Sewa Bharati, RSS’s educational initiative, runs over 1250 schools under the Ekal Vidyalaya Abhiyan project, teaching children the value of nationalism, Bharatiyata and Kashmiriyat to curb secessionist feelings.

J&K is an integral part of Sangh’s nationalist ideology. Its motto of ‘one country, one flag, one language’ has emerged out of Kashmir. Hindutva ideologue and parliamentarian Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerjee was the first RSS leader to challenge J&K’s special status in 1952. Mookerjee’s Bhartiya Jana Sangh, raised the slogan of "Ek Desh main Do Vidhan, Do Pradhan aur Do Nishan Nahin chaIenge, Nahin chaIenge.” (We shall not tolerate two Constitutions, two Presidents and two Flags in one country) and suggested the integration of Kashmir with the rest of India .

Mookerjee became the first martyr in the cause of Kashmir’s integration. He was detained and fell seriously ill in prison after he defied the Permit Rule and entered the J&K on May 11, 1953.

The RSS passed several resolutions against the Pakistan-sponsored separatism movement as a threat to the unity of India. The Jammu and Kashmir Study Centre, a research group that acts as a think-tank established in 2011 was the brain behind constitutional changes for the abrogation of article 370.

Bifurcating J&K into two union territories has allowed the BJP to strip J&K out of its Muslim majority status. The new delimitation exercise redrawing assembly and parliamentary constituencies has allowed the possibility for the BJP to get maximum Hindu votes to install the first Hindu (Kashmiri Dogra) chief minister. Politically, BJP wants to establish its base in J&K because only then can significant social, political and cultural changes in the region.

Sangh leaders from Nagpur keep a close watch on Kashmir even if they mainly operate out of Jammu. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat visited Jammu twice in the last three years for coordination committee meetings and to meet RSS workers.  

Before the abrogation of 370, the BJP had no takers in Kashmir. But conditions have improved in the absence of “violence and gun culture and the return of development work, peace and stability in the valley,” says advocate Sajjad Yousuf, BJP member in Kashmir. Earlier, people supporting Modi were branded as proxies of BJP by regional parties. But people are no longer bothered about it and want to officially join the party, he says. “Kashmiri youth feel aligned with the party now because they see that PM Modi has a vision.”