US Scholar Warns Against Efforts to Isolate RSS

WASHINGTON — Efforts by political leaders and advocacy groups in the United States, Canada and Britain to isolate the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh could undermine American interests and efforts to strengthen U.S.-India relations, according to a U.S. foreign policy scholar. Bill Drexel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, made the argument in a Wall Street Journal opinion article published after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat addressed about 5,000 people at New York's Madison Square Garden on Aug. 29. The event was billed as a celebration of 'universal oneness.' New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, responding to calls for the venue booking to be canceled, described the RSS's Hindu nationalist vision as 'exclusionary' and its rise as 'incredibly troubling.' He also acknowledged that the city had no authority over the private event. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom called for Bhagwat's visa to be revoked, according to the article. Before Bhagwat later appeared in Toronto, nearly 270 organizations urged the Canadian government to bar him and consider designating the RSS a terrorist organization. Groups in London also urged Mayor Sadiq Khan to prevent Bhagwat from using any city-controlled venue during his visit. Drexel argued that such efforts are unlikely to weaken the RSS because of its size, reach and influence in India. 'As with the campaign against Israel, the effort to isolate the RSS damages American interests more than its target,' he wrote. According to the article, the RSS holds about 83,000 regular neighborhood gatherings across India that include physical drills, songs, games and instruction about Hindu civilization. Drexel said nearly all of the organization's estimated 5 million participants are unpaid volunteers. He described the RSS as the vanguard of the broader Hindu nationalist movement and said it has helped establish about 2,500 affiliated organizations, including religious groups, a labor union and a large private-school system. 'Western disapproval isn't going to hamper an organisation this large and potent,' Drexel wrote. 'Slamming the door on India's most influential civil-society organisation accomplishes nothing, save empowering the factions of the RSS to which its critics most object, which tend to agree that there is little conversation to be had.' Drexel described the organization as 'massive, complex and quickly evolving,' noting that its public activities also include charitable and social-service programs. 'One need not endorse the RSS's views to know that it is imperative the US engage with it and seek to understand it,' Drexel wrote, citing India's economic rise and strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East. (Source: IANS)