Mohan Bhagwat, chief of India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is scheduled to address an event in Manhattan on Saturday, according to the organisers’ website.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he opposed the event but questioned whether the city had the legal authority to cancel a private gathering.
“I don’t support the rally, but I don’t know if the city has any jurisdiction on cancelling a private event,” Mamdani said when asked whether the event should be called off.
Mamdani, New York’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor, said he had grown up viewing India as a pluralistic and secular republic where people from all communities belonged. He described the rise of a movement promoting an “exclusionary vision” as deeply troubling.
The August 29 event, titled “Universal Oneness Celebration”, is being organised by American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue and is described as a gathering of the Hindu American community focused on shared heritage and interfaith unity.
Several local organisations have criticised the event because of Bhagwat’s participation and concerns over the RSS’s history.
The RSS, a powerful Hindu organisation from which Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged, said in May that it had organised overseas visits, including to the United States, to challenge portrayals of the group as a paramilitary organisation involved in violence against minorities.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has accused the RSS of involvement in violence and intolerance against minority communities over several decades.
The RSS rejects such allegations, describing itself as a “Hindu-centric civilisational, cultural movement” aimed at strengthening the Hindu community and advancing the nation.
The United Nations and human rights organisations have raised concerns over what they describe as increasing discrimination and rights violations against minorities in India, citing hate speech, religion-based citizenship laws, demolition of Muslim-owned properties, the removal of occupied Kashmir’s autonomy and anti-conversion laws.
The BJP-led Indian government rejects accusations of discrimination, maintaining that its policies, including food subsidies and electrification programmes, are designed to benefit people across all communities.
