Reviving Kashmir's Ancient Rajanaka Hindu Traditions: How the RSS is Getting the UT 'Election Ready'

Reviving ancient Hindu traditions of Kashmir, building Sangh Parivar-run schools called Ekal Vidyalaya in Muslim-dominated areas, setting up institutes of advanced studies and multiple think tanks, making Kashmir-centric movies – this is how the RSS is working to shape a narrative to make Kashmir “election ready”.

The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had ordered the Election Commission of India to conduct elections to the Jammu and Kashmir assembly before September 30, 2024. Whenever notified, it will be the first election since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

According to senior RSS functionaries, a series of events, launch of literature, books and papers, movies have been planned to set a narrative and initiate a discussion around the Hindus and the Hindu tradition of Kashmir before the polls.

The RSS-inspired institute – Abhinavagupta Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) – will hold a special ceremony to honour Romanian-born research scholar Mark Dyczkowski and Sanskrit scholar Navjivan Rastogi for their work on Kashmir Shaivism and tantric traditions, commonly known as Rajanaka tradition.

The programme, scheduled to be held on March 8 in Kerala, will have vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar as the chief guest. The promotion for the event, along with a speech on Kashmiri Hindu traditions, has been made with Malayali actor-producer Mohanlal Viswanathan.

‘Have to resuscitate ancient Kashmir’

Movies like ‘The Kashmir Files’, Article 370 and the upcoming ‘Baramulla’, have sparked controversies and initiated a discussion. “There will be more such work in cinema, more such literature that will come out in the form of books or other works of art; this is about reviving Indian traditions in Kashmir,” said a senior RSS functionary.

“Nationalist Muslims in Kashmir and the Hindu Pandits, who were allegedly evicted, chased or thrown out of their homes decades ago have started speaking about the region’s history; about how Hindu traditions were obliterated from the area in a well-planned manner. Kashmir is an integral part of Bharat and also our Hindu traditions. We have to resuscitate that ancient Kashmir through dialogues,” said another senior RSS functionary, who has played a crucial role in working on the India-centric “nationalist” narrative.

‘Connecting Kashmir to Kerala’

“It is also about connecting Kashmir to Kerala. The southernmost tiny state (Kerala) has also gone off the hook and unemployed youths are being radicalised. Exactly how we witnessed it in Kashmir. Generations were taught about Kashmir and its history in a selective way, as it was drafted by some Communist-Leftists. It is time that we bring the actual history back into discussion. We are not imposing anything on anyone, we want our youths to debate and deliberate and then decide. We need to bring the Hindu history back from oblivion,” the functionary added.

In a statement, the AIAS said: “The Rajanaka Puraskar aims to revive the ancient title of Rajanaka, which was bestowed upon exceptional scholars and statesmen in the classical era of Kashmir. However, the term and its significance has waned in our collective memory, even though it survives as the Kashmiri Pandit surnames – Raina and Razdan. Abhinavagupta Institute of Advanced Studies is honoured to revive the tradition of the Rajanaka title through the current Rajanaka Puraskar, hence contributing towards the revival of Indian knowledge systems (IKS) and civilisational resurgence. The institute, which has been recognised as a research centre under the IKS division of the ministry of education, is located at Vagamon in Kerala.”