If criticism continues to overshadow RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s overseas visit, it will be a net negative for his stated aims, especially as more officials and civil society organisations abroad speak out against it
Bharat Bhushan
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s three-nation global outreach tour comes at a difficult time for the organisation. International perception of the RSS as a ‘paramilitary group’ and Hindu supremacist organisation has grown significantly in global media since its best protégé, Narendra Modi, came to power in 2014. Before that, international awareness of the RSS was largely confined to specialised South Asian academic circles.
Bhagwat’s international tour has inadvertently consolidated global opposition to the RSS. Previously fragmented anti-RSS activism abroad has united under the ‘No Platform for Hate’ coalition, turning a fringe diaspora debate into both a New York City Hall press conference and a powerful lobbying instrument with lawmakers in the US, Canada and the UK.
RSS chiefs have undertaken global tours before. Rajendra Singh, the RSS chief from 1994 to 2000, was the first to travel abroad to observe and promote the sister organisation Hindu Sevak Sangh (HSS), and helped set up the Friends of India Society to foster understanding of India abroad.
His successor, K S Sudarshan, took a high-profile trip to North America in 2005 aimed at preserving Hindu cultural identity among second-generation immigrant youth as well as engaging with chapters of the HSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad overseas.
But whereas Singh and Sudarshan only sought to keep the diaspora connected to its Hindu roots, Bhagwat’s visit primarily addresses foreign institutions, academics, policymakers, and the global public; it is a defensive exercise to correct what is perceived as a ‘biased Western narrative’. Earlier tours occurred when the RSS was seen as an obscure domestic entity. Bhagwat’s tour comes when RSS visibility is high and it faces intense global scrutiny as the ideological backbone of the ruling BJP.
Bhagwat’s tour has forced him to defend his organisation’s image against institutional critics. The bipartisan, semi-autonomous US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has called on the US government to freeze RSS’ US-held financial assets and those of specific leaders for severe violations of religious freedom, bar implicated members from entering the US, and revoke Bhagwat’s visa.
India has routinely rejected the USCIRF’s recommendations (non-binding on the US government) to designate India a ‘country of particular concern’, a label for nations engaging in or tolerating ‘systematic, ongoing and egregious’ religious freedom violations. The report has even suggested banning US arms sales to India and conditioning trade and military aid on measurable improvements in religious freedom and minority rights. Critical USCIRF reports have appeared before, but the growing spread of RSS activities has further eroded India’s inclusive, pluralist image.
How did the RSS earn such notoriety abroad? The BJP’s rise to power on its own, and its implementation of the RSS’ Hindutva agenda, has put the organisation in the global spotlight. The narrative of Hindu majoritarian ideology and paramilitary voluntarism has escalated from Western media critique to enter official discourse. This process intensified as Modi’s ‘Hindutva face’ was revealed through beef lynchings, the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir, the religiously discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, and the Ram temple construction at Ayodhya. These were seen globally not merely as Modi government initiatives but as fulfilment of the RSS’ core ideological project. The RSS was seen as the root cause of India’s authoritarian shift and responsible for India’s steep decline on global democratic and press freedom indices.
As a result, the RSS will have to mark its centenary in a defensive mode, claiming it is merely a cultural organisation whose uniformed military-style drills build character, fitness and civic discipline — and that it actually believes in ‘universal oneness’ and one world family, despite religious polarisation and persecution at home.
Few are buying this narrative except the converted. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed his “deepest opposition” to Bhagwat’s first show of strength at Madison Square Garden, calling the RSS’ ideology an “exclusionary vision”. Protests under the banner ‘No platform for Hate’, organised by a coalition including Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Dalit and civil society groups such as Hindus for Human Rights and the Indian American Muslim Council, argue the event’s theme of ‘Universal oneness’ is an attempt to sanitise the RSS’ history of promoting majoritarian supremacy and hostility to minorities in India.
Opposition extends beyond the US protests. Canadian MPs Heather McPherson and Jenny Kwan sent an open letter urging the government to bar Bhagwat’s entry and ban the RSS, citing his history of hate speech, advocacy of violence against religious minorities, and intimidation of critics in India and Canada. The call for action by elected officials is far more significant than street protests. In the UK, the tour’s final leg, South Asian diaspora coalitions have raised alarm over the global ‘platforming’ of Hindutva ideology.
Bhagwat may have walked into a reputational trap. Within India, he enjoyed the protection of the RSS protégés in governments at the Centre and states. They ensured friendly media coverage. That protection vanishes on the global stage, exposing his organisation’s strategic vulnerabilities.
Bhagwat has effectively surrendered the advantage the RSS held for a century in operating under the radar. It had let its political protégé the BJP take the spotlight while it worked as Hindutva’s ideological powerhouse. By stepping onto the Madison Square Garden stage, the RSS forces Western institutions to examine its antecedents, organisation and polarising ideology — and they are classifying it as a far-Right ‘exclusionary’ organisation.
The tour risks escalating the RSS’ problems from media criticism to State-level scrutiny abroad. In the UK, the Leicester riots of August-September 2022 were traced to Hindutva nationalism by a SOAS-led independent inquiry, and a leaked British Home Office counter-extremism report commissioned by then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper officially listed “Hindu nationalist extremism” alongside political Islam as threats to UK social cohesion. Western democracies will not be willing to let divisive Hindu nationalist ideology spread to their societies.
Beyond the USCIRF, organisations like the Indian Overseas Congress have publicly demanded Western authorities scrutinise the activities of the RSS. There have also been demands to look into Hindutva influence pedalling, financial and lobbying frameworks of the RSS-affiliated charities.
Ultimately, if criticism continues to overshadow Bhagwat’s visit, it will be a net negative for his stated aims, especially as more officials and civil society organisations abroad speak out against it. Bhagwat’s message to policymakers, academics and mainstream institutions will clearly not land with its intended audience.
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