August 27, 2026
US spiritual freedom panel urges sanctions in opposition to India’s RSS chief forward of NYC go to
A bipartisan US panel on spiritual freedom urged the US authorities to impose focused sanctions on Mohan Bhagwat — the chief of a controversial Hindu nationalist group in India which is carefully related to India’s present ruling occasion.
Bhagwat is presently on a go to to the US and is scheduled to talk at an occasion in New York Metropolis’s Madison Sq. Backyard on Saturday.
“We urge the US authorities to contemplate focused sanctions in opposition to RSS members and Indian officers complicit in spiritual
freedom violations, together with revoking the visa issued to Mohan Bhagwat,” Asif Mahmood, chair of the US Fee on
Worldwide Non secular Freedom (USCIRF), stated in a press release.
The USCIRF is a bipartisan physique of the US authorities which displays spiritual freedom all over the world and accordingly makes coverage suggestions. These suggestions are usually not binding.
India’s Overseas Ministry has dismissed the panel’s assertions and accused it of being biased in opposition to India.
Concerning the RSS
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, is sometimes called the Sangh. The group describes itself as a “Hindu-centric civilizational, cultural motion” centered on uniting Hindus and disputes accusations that it promotes intolerance.
The RSS is the ideological mum or dad of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP), and the prime minister has had a longstanding affiliation with the group.
Lately, the group has launched a world marketing campaign to counter perceptions that it’s a paramilitary group concerned in violence in opposition to minority communities. In the meantime, rights teams say that the RSS promotes majoritarian ideology fueling intolerance in direction of minorities, particularly muslims, in India.
Learn extra concerning the controversy surrounding Bhagwat’s upcoming event in NYC.
