8/20/2019 RSS' agenda on Kashmir in action - Frontline

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TOWARDS HINDU RASHTRA

RSS' agenda on Kashmir in action

PURNIMA S. TRIPATHI

Print edition : August 30, 2019

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays his respects to Syama Prasad Mookerjee at Parliament House on the occasion of his
anniversary, a le picture. Photo: PTI

The BJP uses its brute parliamentary majority to ful l the RSS’ long-pending demand to annul
Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and take the rst step towards the Sangh Parivar’s dream of

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8/20/2019 RSS' agenda on Kashmir in action - Frontline

establishing a Hindu Rashtra.

The queasy feeling that the second Narendra Modi government would vigorously usher the
country into the claustrophobic framework of a Hindu Rashtra, as envisaged by the
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), came true on August 5 when the government pushed
ahead with the annulment of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and robbed it of
Statehood.
The rst RSS resolution on Jammu and Kashmir was passed at a meeting of its Kendriya
Karyakari Mandal in 1952, in which it condemned the “Pak-American Pact” (a reference to
the agreement between the United States and Pakistan on military assistance) and said
that the “open aggression in Kashmir” was still on.
The following year, the rst political o spring of the RSS, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, ran a
massive campaign across the country calling for abrogation of Article 370. The party was
founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who owed allegiance to the RSS ideology. It was
during this campaign that Mookerjee travelled to Jammu and Kashmir in May 1953,
defying the Government of India’s rule that required one to obtain a permit before
entering the State.
Once he entered the State, he was arrested and was in prison for over a month, where he
died of a heart attack in June.
In 1964, the RSS’ highest decision-making body, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha,
passed a resolution titled “Bharat’s Kashmir Policy”, which said: “Article 370, which was
incorporated in our Constitution as a temporary provision on Kashmir, must be
immediately repealed and the State brought in line with the other States.”
The same demand was repeated by the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal of the RSS in
1982 after the Jammu and Kashmir government enacted a law inviting Muslims who had
migrated to Pakistan during Partition to return and acquire Indian citizenship.
The RSS maintained that the Jammu and Kashmir government was misusing Article 370 to
fan communal and separatist feelings in the State and demanded the Article’s abrogation.
The same demands were repeated at various other RSS forums in 1984, 1986 and 1993.
In 1995, the RSS, for the rst time, demanded a separate autonomous council for the
Jammu region on the grounds that the State government was neglecting the area. In 1996,
the organisation’s Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal passed a resolution demanding
abrogation of Article 370, saying it was temporary in nature and had become completely
defunct.
In 2000, when there was a BJP government at the Centre led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the
Jammu and Kashmir Assembly passed a resolution for autonomy. The RSS’ Akhil Bharatiya
Karyakari Mandal then passed a resolution condemning the move, saying that things would
not have come to such a pass had Article 370 been repealed in time.

Demand for Jammu state

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In the year 2002, the RSS, for the rst time, raised the demand for a separate Jammu
State. In 2010, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha passed yet another resolution on
Article 370, saying: “Article 370, which was included in our Constitution as a ‘temporary
and transitional provision’, instead of being abrogated, continues to be a tool in the hands
of the separatist and secessionist elements.”
But this was the last resolution on this issue. Since 2014, when the rst Modi-led
government assumed power, the RSS did not pass any resolution.
On August 5, 2019, when the Rajya Sabha passed the Bill stripping the State of special
status and Statehood, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat issued a press release congratulating the
government on taking this “courageous step”, saying it was necessary not only for the
State of Jammu and Kashmir but for the entire country. He exhorted everyone to rise
above political di erences and support the government.
Abrogation of Article 370 has been a part of the BJP’s election manifesto since its inception
in April 1980. For the BJP, its ideological umbilical cord with the RSS has meant that its
road map is de ned by the causes espoused by the Sangh.
In the political arena, the demand for abrogation of Article 370 was rst voiced by the
Praja Parishad Party in Jammu, which was founded by Prem Nath Dogra, who was the RSS’
Jammu in-charge, in association with the Hindu Mahasabha’s Balraj Madhok, who also
owed allegiance to the Sangh ideology.
The Praja Parishad Party, which claimed to represent the Hindu population of the State,
had alleged atrocities by the Sheikh Abdullah government and demanded that the
Government of India abrogate Article 370 so that the entire State could be seamlessly
integrated with India, like other princely states.
The party’s demand was articulated in Delhi by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who had been
elected to Parliament in the rst election in 1952 as a Bharatiya Jana Sangh candidate.
Incidentally, Mookerjee had been a Minister in the rst Cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru, but
soon parted ways with him owing to ideological di erences, one of the issues being Article
370.
Mookerjee had vehemently argued, pleaded with and cajoled Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah to
heed the voice of the people of Jammu, to no e ect.
He wrote 10 letters to Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah between January 9, 1953, and February
23, 1953, drawing their attention to the ongoing agitation by the Hindus in Jammu region
and the State government’s “repression”. Most of these letters went either unanswered or
unacknowledged.
In his rst letter to Nehru, written on January 9, 1953, Mookerjee appealed to him to
understand the sentiments of the people of Jammu, as voiced by the Praja Parishad-led
movement and said: “Repression will be no answer to the fundamental question which the
people of Jammu are asking today—have they not the inherent right to demand that they
be governed by the same Constitution as has been made applicable to the rest of India? If
the people of Kashmir Valley think otherwise, should Jammu also su er because of such

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8/20/2019 RSS' agenda on Kashmir in action - Frontline

unwillingness to merge completely with India? Ek Nishan, Ek Vidhan Ek Pradhan—one ag,

one Constitution, one President—represents a highly patriotic and emotional slogan with
which the people are carrying on their struggle. You or Sheikh Abdullah cannot answer this
question by imprisonment or bullets.”
Incidentally, it was Mookerjee who gave the emotive slogan, still used by the BJP: “Ek desh
me do vidhan, ek desh me do nishan, ek desh me do pradhan, nahin chalega, nahin
chalega.”
When his e orts to get the issue resolved through dialogue failed, he decided to go to
Jammu and Kashmir and see things for himself, defying the government’s requirement of
obtaining a permit to visit the State. It was there that he was arrested and subsequently
died. Hence, the issue of Article 370 had become sacrosanct for the BJP.
Even during the Vajpayee regime, e orts were made to nd a way out but it did not yield
results. Vajpayee had once confessed that they could not do it because “bahumat nahin
tha” (we did not have a majority).
Now that the Modi government enjoys a brute majority in Parliament, it was only a matter
of time that it would repay its debt to its ideological parent. But what should now worry
everyone is whether the RSS’ core agenda of a Hindu Rashtra is what the Modi government
is striving at.
BJP leaders have always been sceptical of the word “secular” and the way it was included in
the Constitution through an amendment by Indira Gandhi. The ruthlessness with which the
Modi-Shah duo has gone about demolishing the Nehru-Gandhi legacy raises questions on
what they have in store.

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