Demonstrators gathered outside Madison Square Garden in New York City on Saturday to protest against the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a far-right Indian paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization with close ties to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The leader of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat, was holding a rally inside the arena to launch a global speaking tour marking the 100th anniversary of the RSS.
The RSS’s “explicitly stated mission, its purpose, is to create a Hindu Rashtra, a Hindu nation — to take the India that is a secular and inclusive democracy and transform it into a country that is just for Hindus, where Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities are basically erased,” says Sunita Vishwanath, co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights Action. ”RSS affiliates, these Hindu right-wing organizations, exist in growing numbers in the diaspora, especially in America.”
“In 1939, [Madison Square Garden] hosted a Nazi rally with swastikas hung from the banners
around a portrait of George Washington. They said they wouldn’t do something like that again, and yet here they were hosting Mohan Bhagwat, spouting a similar fascist ideology,” says Brad Lander, a Democratic nominee for Congress from New York City, who joined Saturday’s protest.
