On 7 January 2017, the Constitution Club of India, in Delhi, played host to the Kashmiri Students’ Conference. The press kit for the event described it as “a dialogue on students’ role in nation building.” It was organised by the Muslim Rashtriya Manch (MRM), the Muslim wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The MRM was formed in 2002, and identifies itself as “an Indian nationalist Muslim organisation.” In the past, the organisation has campaigned to scrap Article 370 from the constitution—which grants autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir—impose a uniform civil code, and to organise Muslims to join the fight against cow slaughter.
A brochure included in the kit said that through the conference, the MRM intended to highlight the issues facing students and young people in Jammu and Kashmir. Among these, it listed poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, and slow economic growth and social development in Jammu and Kashmir. An important step in the direction of tackling these issues, it added, was to create opportunities for the young to be educated, employed, and “free from drug abuse, frustration, parochialism, sectarianism, and other numerous evils which have weakened the foundations of the Kashmiri society.” The brochure also said that attacks on Kashmiri students studying outside the state were preventing Kashmiri parents from sending their children outside the valley, resulting in “a negative impact on the mental development of the students regarding their nation.” “We are excited about the event that has been convened today because the conversation will be about bringing Kashmiri students into the fold so that they can avail of the opportunities being offered to students across the country,” said Hafeez Mohammed Sabreen, the president of the Muslim group Jamat Haffaz Ikraam and the co-convener of the MRM.
The MRM is headed by Indresh Kumar, a senior RSS leader who has long overseen the Sangh’s efforts in Jammu and Kashmir. Kumar was also the chief speaker at the event. His history with the Muslim community is troubled—according to Swami Aseemanand, the Hindu fundamentalist accused of plotting several terror attacks on Muslims including the Samjhauta Express blasts in 2007 and the Malegaon blasts in 2008, Kumar was one of the senior RSS leaders who encouraged and aided him in the execution of the attacks. This conflicted record notwithstanding, the MRM’s website states that its formation encouraged Muslim intellectuals and leaders to accept the RSS as their “true friend,” and Kumar as “their messiah.” Other guests at the conference included Jitendra Singh, a minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office; and Engineer Aijaz Husain, the head of a non-governmental organisation named Develop Kashmir, which had helped organise the event. (Home Minister Rajnath Singh was slated to be the chief guest, but he did not make an appearance.)
COMMENT