August 29, 2026
Indian Hindu nationalist group’s chief set to deal with 1000’s in NYC
Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of a controversial right-wing Hindu nationalist group in India carefully related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is ready to deal with about 5,000 members of Indian American teams in New York Metropolis on Saturday.
The occasion titled “Common Oneness Celebration” is being held on the Infosys Theater in Madison Sq. Backyard and is organized by American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue.
It’s being met with protests, a denunciation from the city’s mayor Zohran Mamdani and a name for sanctions by a US panel on non secular freedom.
Bhagwat’s hyperlink with Modi
Bhagwat is the chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. Additionally known as the Sangh, it’s Hindi for “Nationwide Volunteer Group.”
The group describes itself as a “Hindu-centric civilizational, cultural motion” targeted on uniting Hindus. It disputes accusations that it promotes intolerance.
The RSS is the ideological mum or dad of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP), and the prime minister has had a longstanding affiliation with the group.
Why is the RSS controversial?
In recent times, the group has launched a world marketing campaign to counter perceptions that it’s a paramilitary group concerned in violence towards minority communities.
Nonetheless, a number of interfaith and civil rights teams — together with Hindus for Human Rights, the Indian American Muslim Council and the Interfaith Middle of New York — have criticized the occasion over Bhagwat’s involvement and the RSS’s historical past.
The US Fee on Worldwide Non secular Freedom (USCIRF), a authorities advisory physique, has known as the RSS an “umbrella group whose sub-groups have perpetrated assaults on non secular minorities, together with Christians and Muslims.”
Not too long ago, it known as for the US authorities to impose focused sanctions on RSS members, together with Bhagwat, and Indian officers who assist the group.
The Ministry of Exterior Affairs in India shortly rejected the fee’s remarks, calling the physique biased and missing in credibility.
United Nations our bodies and human rights teams have additionally pointed to an increase in abuses towards India’s non secular minorities in recent times, citing hate speech, a religion-based citizenship legislation, demolitions of Muslim-owned properties, the revocation of autonomy for Muslim-majority Kashmir, and extra.
