Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat pressured spiritual amity whereas talking at a multi-faith dialogue in New York on Saturday, straight addressing a query he is been requested repeatedly prior to now, “What about Muslims?”, within the context of the organisation’s Hindu-nationalist outlook. “If you wish to name your self Hindu, you have to consider that each one paths are resulting in the identical (purpose). And each human has dignity. There isn’t any distinction between human beings,” Bhagwat stated.
He then recounted an occasion. “I had a lecture, and Muslim brothers have been additionally there. And so they requested me a query: ‘You’re a Hindu organisation, you say Hindu Rashtra, what about us Muslims? Would you drive us out?’ I stated, ‘No, that isn’t Hindutva’.”
He added, “If any Hindu thinks that there ought to be no Muslim in Bharat (India), he is not going to stay Hindu.”
#WATCH | New York, US: On the “One World One Humanity” occasion, RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat says, “If any Hindu thinks that there ought to be no Muslim in Bharat, he is not going to stay Hindu. If you wish to name your self Hindu, you have to consider that each one paths are resulting in the identical purpose… pic.twitter.com/e5UYZPppU8
— ANI (@ANI) August 29, 2026
He cited one other occasion from Haryana in India: “Our swayamsevaks (RSS volunteers) serve in all places, equally… Two planes collided over Haryana, which is a part of Bharat, over the place named Dadri… Many of the passengers have been Muslims. Our swayamsevaks reached there first. And so they served, treating the wounded — there have been only a few; all others have been useless – and recovering our bodies, arranging final rites.” He stated the RSS volunteers “by no means thought at the moment that ‘these are Muslims’.”
He additional asserted, “The prominently working organisation there was the RSS. We might do that as a result of we weren’t in politics. And we do not go on making this stuff well-known as a result of we do not need something from this. No return. We solely give; we do not need something.”
He was apparently referring to what’s thought of the deadliest mid-air collision in aviation historical past, from 1996, that left all 349 passengers and crew useless. The catastrophe concerned Saudi Arabian Airways Flight 763 (a Boeing 747) and Kazakhstan Airways Flight 1907 (an Ilyushin Il-76), which collided reportedly as a consequence of miscommunication with air site visitors management as a consequence of a language barrier.
Bhagwat, who’s on a US tour that’ll see a number of occasions, confronted criticism from Zohran Mamdani, New York’s first Indian-American and Muslim mayor, who has termed the RSS, the ideological fount of India’s ruling BJP, a communal organisation.
