Murshidabad to Pahalgam, ‘Islamism’ behind violence on Hindus—RSS mouthpiece Organiser

Organiser editorial adds that 'the war' is to defeat this 'inhuman ideology'. RSS leadership has so far desisted from referring to the attack on tourists in Pahalgam as one on Hindus.

Security officials patrol the streets in Kashmir after the Pahalgam attack. | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

New Delhi: While the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership has so far desisted from referring to the Pahalgam terror attack as one on Hindus, the organisation’s mouthpiece, Organiser, has in an editorial described the attack as the “inhuman killings of innocent Hindus” carried out by a “Pakistan-sponsored terror group”.

“In the Pahalgam attack, whatever may be the secular narrative, the fact remains that victims were segregated based on religion, and only Hindus were killed after the Islamic way of verification,” the editorial published last week said. “The only Muslim killing was collateral damage and not targeted killing.”

Quoting B. R. Ambedkar, the editorial said, he had “detected after meticulous research that hatred towards Hindus and Kafirophobia is the root cause behind the idea of Pakistan”. From the “first invader” of India, Mohammad bin Qasim, to the current army chief of Pakistan, Asim Munir, the same ideology has been the guiding force, it said.

Arguing that it was high time the correct diagnosis of the problem is made, the editorial unequivocally states that throughout the world, the “ideology of Kafirophobia is the root cause of terrorism, and Islamic terrorism is its face”.

“Hindus have survived the onslaught but suffered brutal conversions and Partition due to non-clarity about this ideological threat,” it said. Far from being limited to Kashmir or Pakistan, “the war” is to defeat this “inhuman ideology”.

“The time is now ripe to intellectually take away the ‘secular cover’ provided to this anti-human dogma,” it said.

Speaking on the tragedy last week, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said, “The fanatics who killed people by asking about their religion, Hindus would never do this. That is why the country should be strong.”

Without naming Pakistan directly, Bhagwat said, “We never harm or disrespect our neighbours, but if someone is bent on being evil, what is the cure? The king’s duty is to protect the people, and he will do his duty.”

Meanwhile, reacting immediately to the terror attack last week, general secretary Dattatreya Hosable had called it “an attack on the unity and integrity of our nation”.

Parallel between Pahalgam & Murshidabad 

The Organiser editorial, however, went on to blame the same ideology responsible for the Pahalgam attack and the violence in Murshidabad over the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025, which was passed in Parliament earlier this month.

It is the same “kafirophobia,” which the editorial describes as the belief that “everyone who is not following the Puritan form of Islam is a kafir (infidel) and hence entitled to conversion or killing,” which led to targeted violence against Hindus in West Bengal, it argued.

“Each of the victims is saying that their houses and business establishments were marked in advance and then targeted for being Hindus,” it said.

The “Pakistan-supported Jamaat-e-Islami” has been successfully nurturing the “intolerant ideology of Islamism that believes in Kafirophobia” in Bangladesh since the second Partition of 1971, and it is being exported to West Bengal through infiltration, it added. “What is happening in Bangladesh or West Bengal, targeting Hindus, is a continuation.”

While usual “cliches” like terrorism having no religion and someone’s terrorist being another person’s freedom fighter are being conjured up as justifications for the attack, this is only being done by the “appeasers of radicalism”, it said.

These appeasers often blame the RSS and the rise of the BJP for such instances, it said, arguing that “Hindutva is a favourite punching bag for all secularists”.

“When Hindu houses, mandirs and business establishments have been targeted in the name of protests in West Bengal by Islamists, similar justifications were given,” it added.

The editorial began with the following excerpt from Ambedkar’s controversial book ‘Pakistan or Partition of India’: “These Muslim invasions were not undertaken merely out of lust for loot or conquest. There was another object behind them. The expedition against Sind by Mahommad bin Qasim was of a punitive character and was undertaken to punish Raja Dahir of Sind who had refused to make restitution for the seizure of an Arab ship at Debul, one of the sea-port towns of Sind. But, there is no doubt that striking a blow at the idolatry and polytheism of Hindus and establishing Islam in India was also one of the aims of this expedition.”

(Edited by Sanya Mathur)