Key facts
- Hundreds of activists protested an event featuring RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at Madison Square Garden in New York.
- The RSS is described by critics as a fascist organization promoting Hindu supremacy.
- The RSS is the ideological parent of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
- Early RSS thinkers drew inspiration from Nazism and European fascism.
- The RSS has been blamed for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi.
- The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has called for sanctions against the RSS.
Hundreds of activists gathered outside Madison Square Garden in New York to protest an event featuring Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of India's Hindu nationalist paramilitary organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
The event, titled "Universal Oneness," drew approximately 5,000 attendees from over 200 Hindu and Indian partner organizations across the United States.
Protests were organized by a coalition of local and national groups, including South Asian Left (SALAM), Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), and Anti Imperialist South Asian Alliance Philadelphia (AISA Philly).
Safa Ahmed, a board member of the IAMC, stated that the RSS has promoted the ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu supremacy, for a century, asserting that Indian Muslims do not deserve to be called Indians and should be eradicated. She also noted the RSS's comfort with the "bloodshed of Indian minorities and Kashmiris" and their role in normalizing the far-right in the United States.
Founded in 1925, the RSS has over five million members globally and more than 250 affiliated chapters in the U.S. It advocates for India as a Hindu Rashtra, a Hindu ethnostate, and is the ideological foundation of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Early RSS thinkers explicitly drew inspiration from Nazism and European fascism, aiming to create a homogenous Hindu ethnostate. RSS ideologue M S Golwalkar, in his book "We or Our Nationhood Defined," compared the RSS's project to Adolf Hitler's actions against Jewish people, suggesting it as a lesson for India.
The RSS has been accused of involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and opposes the "oppressive Muslim-majority character" of Kashmir.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the RSS's vision as "exclusionary" but noted the city's limited jurisdiction over private events.
Shree Baphna of Salam emphasized the symbolic importance of Madison Square Garden as a "world stage" where fascism should not be present, viewing the event as a symptom of a larger destructive ideology within the diaspora.
Separately, a group of protesters from the pro-Khalistan movement, organized by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), also demonstrated, advocating for a referendum on Khalistan, a sovereign Sikh state.
Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the U.S. government to sanction the RSS for its alleged role in violent attacks against religious minorities and to revoke Bhagwat's visa.