Jamaat rupture: At a funeral, how the banned Valley outfit’s fight with its ‘political wing’ burst into the open

The Jamaat leadership’s dissociation from the JDF is likely to push the fledgling outfit into deeper crisis, especially as it has been banking heavily on the Jamaat cadres and sympathisers to strengthen its foothold in the Valley.

“The cadres of the movement, even if silent, are steadfast. Some people have sold out. They have given it a name of socialism and secularism,” said a speaker at Hassan’s funeral, in a reference to the JDF. “It doesn’t matter if we face difficulties, repression or jail. We don’t need government jobs. Our children have been martyred.”

In a charged atmosphere, the mourners raised veiled slogans in favour of the Jamaat. “Tehreek zinda hai (The movement is alive),” they shouted, referring to Jamaat-e-Islami and its jailed leaders. While the former Jamaat leaders were present at the funeral, there were no JDF leaders in attendance.

Within two years of its existence – first in the form of a four-member panel and then as the so-called political wing of the Jamaat – the JDF has now started to unravel.

While some top Jamaat leaders, including its former chief Hameed Fayaz, initially backed the four-member panel that was engaged in talks with the Centre to get the ban on the organisation lifted, most of the top leaders have dissociated from the JDF since it decided to contest the elections and fielded 10 Independent candidates in the 2024 polls.

The first voices of dissent from the new organisation came when the four-member panel was transformed into the JDF and registered as a political party in 2025. Two months after it was formed, three former Jamaat chiefs, including Hassan, categorically distanced themselves from it. Ghulam Mohammad Bhat, Mohammad Abdullah Wani, and former deputy Jamaat chief Nazir Ahmad Raina said the panel that was formed to “talk to the Centre for the revocation of the ban” on the Jamaat lost its relevance as it had “failed in the job assigned to it”.

The differences between the Jamaat and JDF have now spilled onto social media. JDF members say they are following the Jamaat’s constitution, while former Jamaat members accuse them of succumbing to pressure from the government and following the BJP’s diktats.

The Jamaat-e-Islami was banned by the Centre and deemed an unlawful organisation in 2019. Two years ago, a “panel” of the organisation came to the fore, claiming it had been given a mandate by the Jamaat’s executive council to run its affairs and decide its future course. This group engaged in talks with the Centre to lift the ban on the Jamaat, and also fielded the 10 Independent candidates as part of an alleged deal to get the Centre to lift the ban. The panel-backed candidates, however, struggled to make an impact, with all but one forfeiting their deposits for failing to secure at least one-sixth of the vote share.

The panel members were later instrumental in the formation of a new political front, the JDF, which it called the political wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

But with very few prominent faces in the panel and the JDF, it is an uphill task for the new political front to make its presence felt. While a large section of Jamaat was already against the decisions of the panel, calling them “betrayal”, the latest statements by the senior-most Jamaat leaders are likely to unite the Jamaat cadre against the JDF, throwing the new front’s future into uncertainty.