The Pahalgam massacre of innocent Hindu tourists on April 22, 2025, by the Islamist terrorists could not be exploited by the Hindutva organizations for a genocide of Muslims for the simple reason that a Muslim horse owner, Syed Adil Husain Shah hired by a Hindu family confronted the heavily armed terrorists laying down his life. In fact, there were innumerable firsthand accounts of the surviving members of the martyred Hindus who despite losing husband or member/s of the family at the hands of Islamist terrorists expressed their immense gratitude for local Muslim horse-owners, taxi-owners/drivers, guides and Muslim traders who did not run away leaving the devasted tourist alone.
Pallavi, from Karnataka witnessed the gruesome killing of her husband Manjunath Rao. Immediately after her husband was martyred, Pallavi told media that three local residents escorted her and her son back from ‘mini-Switzerland’ to Pahalgam. She stated: “When we were stuck, three locals, I will call them my brothers, chanting ‘bismillah-bismillah’ [Muslims recite it before embarking on a good act] escorted us back down the hill to the vehicles. one man carried my son and the other consoled me”. She added that she was grateful to their driver Afreez also who did not abandon them.
[Businessman from Karnataka’s Shivamogga killed in Pahalgam militant attack, wife says ‘it was his dream to visit Kashmir’, The Indian Express, Delhi, April 23, 2025. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/karnatakas-shivamogga-businessman-killed-pahalgam-militant-attack-9959462/]
In another narrative Chhattisgarh BJP youth wing leader Arvind Agrawal, who was at the massacre spot with his family credited local guide Nazakat Ahmed Shah with saving his family. To quote Agarwal: “Everything was peaceful, and I was clicking photos. My four-year-old daughter and wife were a bit far from me when the firing suddenly began. My guide, Nazakat, was with them and another couple and their child…When the firing started, Nazakat asked everyone to lie down and hugged my daughter and my friend’s son, saving their lives. He then rushed them to safety before going back to rescue my wife.”
Nazakat, however, lost his cousin brother, Syed Adil Husain Shah Adil, a horse rider who confronted the terrorists.
[Pahalgam guide became guardian angel for Chhattisgarh BJP worker: ‘Hugged the children, saved their lives’, The Indian Express, Delhi, April 25, 2025.’ https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pahalgam-guide-became-guardian-angel-for-chhattisgarh-bjp-worker-hugged-the-children-saved-their-lives-9964355/ ]
These were not the only heart-warming narratives of how local Muslims confronted the Islamist terrorist and saved Hindus who were being targeted for being Hindus. In such a situation Hindutva zealots resorted to old tested conspiratorial method of impersonating as Muslims for spreading hatred against the largest minority of India leaving them easy target of mob violence. Let us look at the following horrendous conspiracies executed by Hindutva zealots.
1. West Bengal
The West Bengal Police arrested two people for allegedly putting up the Pakistani flag on the wall of a washroom near Akaipur railway station, which falls under the jurisdiction of Gopalnagar police station in North 24 Parganas district on April 30, 2025. The accused were identified as Chandan Malakar (30) and Progyajit Mondal (45), who are active members of a national political party and associated with a fringe outfit called Sanatani Ekta Manch, police said.
According to police, the accused had also planned to write inflammatory slogans such as “Hindustan Murdabad” and “Pakistan Zindabad” on the wall to provoke unrest in the area. In a post shared on social media on May 1, police said the act was deliberate and aimed at disturbing communal harmony. The duo, police said, have confessed to the act.
[‘2 arrested for putting up Pak flag near railway station in Bengal’, India Today, May 2, 2025. https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/two-people-arrested-poster-pak-flag-washroom-wall-railway-station-west-bengal-police-2718284-2025-05-01]
2. Punjab
A Pakistani flag was hoisted outside the Hanuman temple in Haibowal, Ludhiana district of Punjab. According to Rishi Jain, chairman of the temple committee, around 5 pm (April 30, 2025), two unidentified persons came on a scooty. They placed Pakistani flags on the ground outside the main gate of the temple and fled on an Activa. The entire incident was captured on the temple’s CCTV camera. The accused was identified as Vikram Anand, a resident of Ludhiana. The police were searching for the accused and his accomplice.
[‘Pakistani flag hoisted outside Ludhiana temple: Accused identified through CCTV, temple official said – tried to spoil the atmosphere’, Daily Bhaskar, May 1, 2025. https://www.bhaskar.com/local/punjab/ludhiana/news/ludhiana-hanuman-mandir-pakistan-flag-incident-vikram-anand-arrested-134937289.html]
3. Jharkhand
According to press reports posters bearing the Pakistan national flag and photograph of Pakistan’s army chief were found inside and outside the premises of the Jharkhand High Court, including inside a washroom. It is believed that during lunchtime on May 4, 2025, unidentified individuals stuck posters at several locations, including the entrance, halls 1 and 2, and a washroom. The officials are trying
No formal inquiry has been initiated so far, but officials said they are trying to find whether someone associated with the High Court was responsible for the act.
[‘Pakistan flag, army chief posters stuck on floor of Jharkhand HC premises, Registrar General says looking into it’, The Indian Express, Delhi, May 5, 2025. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/pakistan-flag-army-chief-posters-stuck-on-floor-of-jharkhand-hc-premises-9983900/]
The law-and-order machinery must investigate the links of these elements with RSS as it specializes in planning such conspiracies. This is not what RSS critics stress only. The archives of this organization are full of testimonies that make it clear that in order to achieve its anti-national goals it regularly resorts to conspiracies.
Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par (The Road to Supreme Glory) authored by a senior RSS ideologue, Sadanand Sapre was published in 1997 by the central publication house of the RSS, the Suruchi Prakashan. It gave a detailed description of how the organization is run in a clandestine manner. It runs like a well-organized mafia through its subsidiaries and satellites. There has always been a conscious attempt to create confusion about its different fronts which provide RSS with the opportunity to dissociate with any of these as per its convenience. For instance, it used Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM) for attacking Christians in late 1990s and when public opinion, media and Parliament seemed to turn against it, RSS denied any relation with HJM. When nefarious designs of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Dharam Sansad were exposed before the Nation, RSS announced that these were independent organizations. Interestingly, it was often seen mediating between the BJP lead government (1998-2004) and these fronts.
It will be interesting to know that many of these organizations have been organized in a clandestine manner, a characteristic of a Fascist set-up. For example, while giving the details of Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM), the book says,
“From the point of view of Hindu awakening this kind of forums (HJM) at present are active in 17 states with different names like ‘Hindu Manch’ in Delhi, ‘Hindu Munani’ in Tamilnadu, ‘Hinduekjut’ in Maharashtra. These are forums, not associations or organizations, that’s why it is not required to have membership, registration and elections.”
[Sadanand Sapre, Parm Vaibhav Ke Path Per, Suruchi, Delhi, 1997, p. 64.]
It is clear that these work as mafia to avoid scrutiny by law and government. Such an organizational mode provides an opportunity to RSS to disown any individual or organization.
RSS indulges in conspiracies too. It can be known by the following disclosure in Param Vaibhav Ke Path Par about a case in Delhi immediately after Partition:
“Swayamsevaks had posed to have adopted Musalman religion in order to gain the confidence of Delhi Muslim League for knowing their conspiracies.” [Ibid., p. 86]
What these swayamsevaks, impersonating as Muslims, on the eve of Independence were doing was made clear by none other than Dr. Rajendra Prasad who later became first President of the Indian Republic. In a letter to the first Home Minister of India, Sardar Patel, on 14 March 1948, Prasad wrote:
“I am told that RSS people have a plan of creating trouble. They have got a number of men dressed as Muslims and looking like Muslims who are to create trouble with the Hindus by attacking them and thus inciting the Hindus. Similarly, there will be some Hindus among them who will attack Muslims and thus incite Muslims. The result of this kind of trouble amongst the Hindus and Muslims will be to create a conflagration.”
[Rajendra Prasad to Sardar Patel (March 14, 1948) cited in Neerja Singh (ed.), Nehru – Patel: Agreement Within Difference—Select Documents & Correspondences 1933-1950, NBT, Delhi, p. 43.]
RSS as a flag-bearer of Hindutva politics has mastery over genre of conspiratorial methods. After Pahalgam massacre when common Hindus have shown no inclination to turn against Muslims en masse as we have seen above, it will resort to every foul method to see that Indian Muslims are cleansed (its most prominent ideologue, MS Golwalkar declared them as ENEMY NUMBER ONE). The conspirators are relying on Hindutva rulers to have free run. All those who want to save democratic-secular India must be on guard so that anti-national forces do not succeed.
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Shamsul Islam is a retired professor of Delhi University
Link for some of S. Islam’s writings in English, Hindi, Urdu and translations into Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video interviews/debates:
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