A coordinated Western campaign across the US, Canada, and UK has targeted RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's international appearances, with critics warning the push could backfire on US-India diplomatic relations.
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RSS chief's 3-nation tour draws Western backlash as India ties tested
Western officials and advocacy groups across three countries have sought to isolate RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat during his international tour, a campaign that risks complicating US-India ties more than constraining the Hindu nationalist organization.
"The effort to isolate the RSS damages American interests more than its target," said Bill Drexel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, writing in the Wall Street Journal.
Bhagwat addressed roughly 5,000 people at Madison Square Garden on Aug. 29 at an event billed as a celebration of "universal oneness." New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, pressed at a news conference to cancel the booking, called the RSS's Hindu nationalist vision "exclusionary" and its rise "incredibly troubling," while conceding the city had no authority over a private event. The federal US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has sought sanctions against the RSS, called for Bhagwat's visa to be revoked. Before his subsequent Toronto appearance, nearly 270 organizations asked Ottawa to bar him and consider designating the RSS a terrorist entity. In London, where he spoke this week, numerous groups asked Mayor Sadiq Khan to deny him any city-controlled venue.
India is on track to become the world's third-largest economy, is indispensable to the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and is increasingly consequential in a restive Middle East. With public appearances like those that drew Mamdani's condemnation, the RSS has indicated an interest in greater international engagement — a development that should be welcome to anyone hoping for more productive US-India relations, Drexel argued.
An Organization of 5 Million Volunteers
Founded in central India in 1925, the RSS runs roughly 83,000 regular neighborhood gatherings across India — an hour of physical drills, songs, games, and instruction in its account of Hindu civilization, meant to strengthen the character of young Indian men. Nearly all of its roughly 5 million participants are unpaid, often attending daily before work. The organization has incubated some 2,500 spinoff groups, including one of Hinduism's most representative religious councils, India's largest labor union, and its largest private-school network.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, which the RSS founded, has grown to become the largest political party in the world, claiming more than 140 million members. Modi began as a full-time RSS organizer, joining a cadre who vow to forgo marriage and personal wealth. Several of Modi's cabinet ministers, state chief ministers, and other senior officials were similarly drawn into the BJP through the RSS's orbit.
Critics Cite Supremacy Claims, But Charity Work Dominates
Critics allege the RSS's ideology amounts to Hindu supremacy, casting India's sizable Muslim and Christian minorities as intruders in Indian history and relegating them to second-class citizenship. Mohandas Gandhi's assassin was at one point an RSS member, though he maintained he had left the organization. Reports of rising violence against minorities in areas where the BJP is strongest have dogged Hindu nationalism's political ascent, and the RSS has been accused of participating, which the organization denies.
Yet even its sharpest critics concede the RSS's outward-facing work largely consists of charity and social-service projects, many of which are extremely popular. India is home to one-sixth of humanity, breakneck modernization, and the world's most ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse population, so some degree of social friction is unavoidable. In recent years, senior RSS figures have made public statements about caste and Muslims that are hard to square with the charges against them — possible signs that the organization is moderating under the responsibilities of leading a social movement that commands political power.
The campaign against the RSS borrows its playbook from the effort to make a pariah of Zionism — so directly that the anti-RSS protest outside Madison Square Garden turned on itself over Israel, with demonstrators shouting down Brad Lander, a congressional nominee who had come to join them, for being a Zionist.
Western disapproval isn't going to hamper an organization this large and potent. Slamming the door on India's most influential civil-society organization accomplishes nothing, save empowering the factions of the RSS to which its critics most object, which tend to agree that there is little conversation to be had.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
