The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has a defining history in Kashmir the various facets of which have already been published in previous columns of this author. It needs to be retold that the accession of the state of Jammu & Kashmir with the Indian Union in 1947 has a great and archival RSS connection. The then chief of the RSS, M.S.Golwalkar paid an urgent visit to Kashmir in October 1947 (having concurrence of Sardar Patel, Union Home Minister) and met the then Maharaja of the state, Hari Singh in his Stately home called Karan Palace at Srinagar. He discussed with him the whole gamut of accession in presence of Mehar Chand Mahajan, the then Prime Minister of the state who was instrumental in arranging the historic meeting.
As a follow-up measure, some swayamsevaks of RSS in Jammu and Kashmir were also told to be ready to help the State authorities and the Indian forces to help the Indian Air Force to land their planes at Srinagar on 26 and 27 October, 1947. Accordingly, hundreds of RSS activists at Srinagar helped the army in preparing a temporary airport at a very short notice and created a history of immense political relevance.
RSS was banned thrice in its journey of one hundred years of existence. The first ban was executed by the government of India headed by Jawahar Lal Nehru in 1948 consequent upon the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. In 1975, as an aftermath of Emergency, RSS was again banned by the Indira Gandhi regime. In 1992, ban was imposed, for the third time, upon the RSS by the Government of Narsimha Rao as a fallout of the demolition of the Ramjanambhumi-Babri disputed structure in Ayodhya. All the three times, the ban on the organisation was lifted by the same governments that imposed them.
The bans had their deep impact on the organisation throughout the country including Kashmir. The most regressive and the eventful ban was experienced by the activists of RSS during the Emergency era from 1975 to 1977. Here, it becomes obligatory to mention that during the first and the second ban in 1948 and 1975 respectively, Jammu and Kashmir state was ruled by Sheikh Mohd. Abdullah. His political equation with Nehru and Indira Gandhi is well known to all and forms an important part of political history.
The NC government of Sheikh Abdullah didn’t leave any stone unturned to terrorise the RSS activists in the state during the 1948-50 ban on the organisation. There are gory incidents to mention about it. Various activists of the organisation were issued orders to the effect to leave the state itself and it included besides others the key activists like Makhan Lal Harkara, Omkar Nath Kak and Avtar Krishen Kaw.
Prominent swayamsevaks of the RSS were handcuffed by the police with grassmade rope and paraded through the streets of the town before being taken to the respective police stations. These included Madan Lal Wali, Devki Nandan Nakhasi and Brij Krishen Miyan. Balraj Madhok, the chief organiser, was forced to go underground along with a few other RSS functionaries like Jankinath Dhobi and Somnath Ogra.
In 1975, things were altogether different in the valley. Prominently, sets of two generations of activists were involved in the working of the organisation at grass-root level in the entire Kashmir region and all the activists had earned their place in the society with their honest and committed feats. Most of the swayamsevaks in Kashmir were the government & semi-government employees; and also students of colleges and universities. All of them rose from ranks both in the social as well as in their professional identity.
RSS turned out to be a stark reality despite the first ban and the following strictness of the government/s against its members; and it became possible only with the sheer hard work, investment of time, deering deeds and the application of intellect by its dedicated cadres. The sudden ban following the declaration of emergency took everyone by surprise and immediately an alternate way of working was evolved by the organization. It might take volumes to describe the whole saga of the emergency era and its impact on RSS in Kashmir. However, in these columns, we can have a glimpse of it.
The police in a midnight swoop in the last week of June, 1975 made arrests of top leadership of RSS in Srinagar. They picked up Amarnath Vaishvavi, Pushkarnath Karnail and Amarnath Ganjoo from their homes immediately after the declaration of emergency. However, the police was not able to get hold of the other prominent faces of the organisation like Tikalal Taploo, D. P. Kaul and others. The police also picked up Hardey Nath Bhat from his home in Rainawari, Srinagar. Sensing more arrests and detentions, the core team of the organisation held a couple of secret meetings in Habbakadal and Amirakadal areas of Srinagar and took some vital decisions.
The most important decision taken was about the prominent figures in the organisation who were active on the ground. All such figures were asked to go underground for some time. Thus those who went underground in the district of Srinagar included among others Ashok Braroo, Bal Krishen Seeru, Ashok Kaul (now Col. Retd.), Utpal Kaul, Ramesh Handoo, Pramod Durrani, Bharat Bhushan Bhat, Rajinder Raina, Inder Krishen Zutshi, Maharaj Krishen (Rajan) Kaul, Roshan Lal Kaul and this author. Besides them, Hira Lal Chatta, Niranjan Nath Kaul, Omkarnath Raina, Prem Nath Bhat and Harji Lal Jad in the districts of Baramulla and Anantnag were also advised to follow suit.
Some of us went to our relatives living in far-flung areas of Kashmir valley and a few even went outside the valley. For example, D. P. Kaul went to Jammu where one of his brothers was posted, Ashok Braroo (against whom warrant under MISA was issued) went to his mother’s parent’s house in Kanikadal area, Ashok Kaul took refuge in the house of his cousins at Purshiyar-Habbakadal; Utpal Kaul along with Ramesh Handoo & Pramod Durrani went to village Wadipora in the bordering district of Kupwara. This author went to Ajas-Bandipora where my mother’s younger sister would reside.
RSS had an office in the Ganpatyar-Badiyar area in the house of Gurtoos. In the darkness of one night in the last days of June 1975, we took away all materials in the office and especially the books of the library to one of my close relative’s house which was otherwise locked for the last one year. All these measures were employed to incur minimum loss to the organisation and the activists of the organisation as the government was seen hell bent upon to finish the organisation.
With the passage of time, the dust settled to some extent and the activists returned to their homes after a few months. The reins of the organisation were handed over to the young Bharat Bhushan Bhat as the Kashmir Vibhag Karyavah. Simultaneously, the central leadership of the organisation appointed young Vivek Kumar Gupta as the Kashmir Vibhag Pracharak in addition to his duties in the erstwhile district Doda. By the end of the year 1975, a new set-up and the organisational structure took shape under pseudo-nomenclature.
Badminton & Rubber-Ring courts were organised at a number of places in the valley, indoor clubs were set up where chess, carrom and Chausa were introduced as the games, Bhajan-mandalis and Bhaagwat-katha programmes were organised, Yogasan & Surya-Namaskar centres were given birth at a few venues and Cricket clubs also came up under different names. These were the new formats of daily Shakha of RSS in Kashmir valley. This author was incharge of three such clubs in Srinagar, i.e. Arbindo Ghosh club in my home out-house, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose club in the Gurtoo’s compound and Adarsh Cricket club in the DownTown area of Srinagar city. Recitation of nationalist songs was a part of the daily routine in these centres of activity; and past and current socio-political scenarios were also discussed and debated in these clubs etc.
During the latter part of the year 1975, the core team of the RSS in the valley gathered confidence and courage and went ahead to even provide shelter to some ‘most-wanted by the government’ RSS functionaries of other states in the valley. These included among others Bapurao Moghe, Thakur Ram Singh, Narayan Dass, Dr. Om Prakash Mengi, Dr. Subhash Chandra Gupta & Satyapal Gupta. There were some young activists of RSS-ABVP-BJS on the hit-list of the government and they also ventured into the Kashmir valley. In order to avoid arrest and detention, a few like Ramesh Arora and Dinesh Khanna also lived in the valley in a disguised fashion for some months.
It is surely a long and interesting story, the parts of which have already been published earlier. A number of dare-devil acts like organising camps, meetings and outings of the activists, despite crackdown by the government, was a special feature of the dark era. Kashmir, like other parts of India, lived up to its promise and became a part of the efforts to ultimately defeat the government at the centre when it (the Cong. government) lost the elections in March 1977, followed by lifting of Emergency and the consequent ban on the RSS. Jai-Hind….!
