Mohan Bhagwat’s American Tour Raises Serious Questions About Religious Nationalism, Minority Rights and the Export of India’s Politics of Division to the Diaspora
New York — The Indian Overseas Congress, USA (IOCUSA) expresses grave concern over the American tour of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and the growing effort to present the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to American audiences as a benign cultural organization promoting “universal oneness” and civilizational dialogue.
The American public, particularly political, business, religious and civic leaders who may interact with RSS representatives, deserves to understand the history, ideology and political consequences associated with the organization.
The RSS cannot be evaluated merely by the carefully crafted language employed during an overseas public-relations campaign. It must also be judged by its historical ideological record, its conception of India as a Hindu Rashtra, the influence of Hindutva politics on the treatment of religious minorities, and the increasingly polarized environment that has emerged in India.
An Ideology at Odds with India’s Constitutional Vision:
The India envisioned at independence was not a nation in which citizenship depended upon religion. Jawaharlal Nehru championed a secular, democratic and scientifically minded republic in which Indians of every faith could participate as equal citizens. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar gave constitutional expression to that promise through guarantees of equality before the law, freedom of conscience, religious liberty and protection against discrimination. That vision is fundamentally incompatible with any political philosophy that defines the nation mainly through the religion of its majority or relegates minorities to a subordinate cultural or political status.
Hinduism, one of the world’s great and ancient religious traditions, must not be confused with Hindutva political ideology. Millions of Hindus in India and throughout the world embrace pluralism, democracy and peaceful coexistence. Our criticism is directed not against Hinduism or Hindus, but against the political weaponization of religious identity.
The ideological history of the RSS and important figures in the Hindutva movement also deserves serious examination. Writings associated with early Hindutva ideologues contained deeply troubling discussions in praise of European ethnic nationalism and the treatment of minorities in Nazi Germany. Such history cannot simply be erased by replacing the language of majoritarian nationalism with contemporary slogans about harmony and universal brotherhood.
Minorities Have Paid the Price:
The consequences are not simply theoretical. Human-rights organizations, religious-freedom monitors, journalists and civil-society groups have repeatedly raised concerns about discrimination, hate speech, intimidation and violence affecting Muslims, Christians and other minority communities in India.
Churches and Christian organizations have reported attacks on places of worship, disruption of prayer meetings, harassment and imprisonment of clergy and allegations that ordinary religious activity constitutes forced conversion. Muslims have confronted inflammatory rhetoric, Bulldozing of their residences, communal polarization and discriminatory treatment. Dalits, Adivasis and other vulnerable communities continue to struggle for dignity and equality.
One of the most horrifying reminders of what religious extremism can produce was the 1999 murder of Australian Christian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 6. Staines, who had spent decades serving people affected by leprosy in Odisha, was sleeping with his children inside a station wagon when a mob led by Dara Singh, described in contemporary reporting as a local Bajrang Dal activist, surrounded the vehicle and burned all three alive. The atrocity remains an enduring warning about the deadly consequences that can follow when religious minorities are portrayed as threats and hatred is allowed to masquerade as nationalism.
The RSS may speak of “oneness” abroad, but genuine unity cannot be built by demanding conformity at home. There is no meaningful democracy when the worth of citizenship is measured by religious identity. There can be no credible message of national unity when minorities live with fear that their faith, culture or patriotism will constantly be questioned.
IOCUSA is equally concerned that this ideological project is increasingly being internationalized:
Bhagwat’s American tour should therefore not be viewed simply as another cultural visit by an Indian religious or community leader. The RSS and organizations influenced by its worldview have spent years cultivating relationships within diaspora communities, civic institutions and political circles abroad. The United States must not become another battleground for importing India’s religious divisions. Religious majoritarianism does not become tolerant simply because it crosses an international border or adopts the vocabulary of dialogue, culture and unity.
A Special Responsibility for the Indian American Diaspora:
IOCUSA is particularly troubled when some members of the Indian American community promote majoritarian ideologies in the United States as enjoying the freedoms and protections guaranteed by the American constitutional system. Many Indian Americans have proudly become citizens of this country and sworn allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. That Constitution protects freedom of religion, equal citizenship, and the right of every individual to worship or not worship, according to one’s conscience. There is a serious contradiction when people benefit from those protections in America while supporting an ideological project that critics say undermines comparable constitutional protections for minorities in India.
Indian Americans have prospered because America, despite its faults and continuing struggles, has sought to build a society where a person’s opportunities and citizenship are not determined by whether he or she is Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Jewish or belongs to no religion at all. We should be strengthening those principles and not importing sectarian conflicts that can divide Indian American communities, poison relationships among neighbors and transmit religious hatred to future generations.
“We Must Not Import the Politics of Hatred”
“India belongs equally to the Hindu who worships in a temple, the Muslim who prays in a mosque, the Christian who worships in a church, the Sikh who enters a gurdwara, and the citizen who professes no religion at all. That was the promise of our Constitution, and no organization has the right to rewrite Indian citizenship according to a religious test,” said George Abraham, Vice-Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, USA.
“Dr. Ambedkar helped give India a Constitution founded upon liberty, equality and fraternity, while Jawaharlal Nehru envisioned a modern, secular and pluralistic republic. Replacing that vision with religious majoritarianism would radically change the character of the Indian Republic.”
Mr. Abraham also warned of the danger of importing India’s ideological conflicts into their adopted homeland.
“We must not allow the politics of religious hatred to take root within our diaspora. It will divide our temples, churches, mosques, gurdwaras, associations, neighborhoods and eventually our children. Whatever our political differences, the Indian American community must not become an overseas battlefield for groups aiming to polarize India along religious lines.”
American Institutions Should Exercise Due Diligence:
The seriousness of these concerns is highlighted by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the independent bipartisan U.S. government commission created by Congress to monitor religious freedom worldwide. In its 2026 Annual Report, USCIRF specifically recommended that the United States impose targeted sanctions against individuals and entities, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), for what the Commission described as their “responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom.” USCIRF recommended measures that could include freezing U.S.-based assets and/or barring responsible individuals or entities from entering the United States.
That recommendation should be a wake-up call to American political leaders, business executives and community organizations preparing to welcome RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. When a congressionally established U.S. commission identifies the RSS itself among entities warranting consideration for targeted sanctions over severe religious-freedom violations, Bhagwat’s visit cannot credibly be treated as an ordinary cultural or goodwill tour. American institutions should ask why an organization facing such an extraordinary recommendation from USCIRF is simultaneously being offered platforms, political access and legitimacy in the United States. The contrast between the RSS’s international message of “universal oneness” and the record that prompted USCIRF’s recommendation deserves serious public examination.
The question is whether American institutions understand the ideology they may be legitimizing. India’s greatness has never rested upon the supremacy of one religion. It rests upon an extraordinary civilization in which countless religions, languages, cultures and traditions have survived and enriched one another.
The future of India must remain faithful to the constitutional promise of liberty, equality, fraternity and equal citizenship, not religious supremacy. And the future of the Indian American community must be built upon the same democratic principles that enabled our community to flourish in the United States. We must not import the politics of division into America. We must not weaponize religion. And we must never remain silent when supremacy is repackaged for an American audience and given the more respectable label of “universal oneness.” After all, changing the label on the bottle does not change what is inside.
