New Delhi: As the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat heads to Madison Square Garden to address New York’s Indian diaspora, the city’s mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he does not support the event. Mamdani, however, clarified that the city does not have the jurisdiction to cancel any private event.
Bhagwat’s visit to the Big Apple on 29 August is a part of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) centenary-year global outreach programme.
“I don’t support the rally but I don’t know if the city has any jurisdiction on cancelling a private event,” said Mamdani at a news conference on Tuesday.
His response was to a question by an American journalist that called the RSS an “Indian right-wing paramilitary organisation”. The journalist highlighted that several protesters had gathered at the City Hall including Shahana Hanif, an American politician and activist, Brad Lander, politician and urban planner, and Lincoln Restler, a civil servant from NYC. The journalist said that the protesters wanted the event cancelled due to “the RSS’s treatment of religious minorities in India”.
Mamdani, New York’s first Indian-American Mayor, said that in his childhood his family had taught him that India was a pluralistic society, a secular republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person from India.
“It has been incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision of any country frankly. So it is one that I find myself in deep opposition to. Not only as an Indian-American but also as the mayor of a city that believes deeply in the belonging of each and every person no matter their colour, their creed, their religion, their faith, wherever they’re from,” said Mamdani.
Other Hindu activists have also spoken up against the event.
“Mohan Bhagwat does not represent Hindus. He leads an extremist Hindu nationalist movement that has fuelled violence, exclusion, and fear for minority communities. New York should not provide the RSS with a stage on which religious nationalism can be repackaged as unity. We will gather at City Hall to defend a genuinely pluralistic vision of an India where no faith is used to determine who belongs or who holds power,” said Sravya Tadepalli, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human rights, in a statement.
The co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights, Sunita Vishwanath, also posted on Instagram asking Mamdani to cancel the event.
“Please Zohran, let the world know that Mohan Bhagwat and the politics he represents are not welcome here in our New York City,” she said.