New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday he opposes a Hindu nationalist event scheduled for Saturday at Madison Square Garden, calling the movement’s ideology “exclusionary” while acknowledging the city likely has no power to stop it.
The event, billed as the “Universal Oneness Celebration,” will feature Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), and is expected to draw around 5,000 attendees. Bhagwat is visiting the United States, Canada and the UK as part of a broader global outreach tied to the RSS’s centenary year.
When asked at a press conference whether the event should be canceled, Mamdani said: “I don’t support the rally, but I don’t know if the city has any jurisdiction on canceling a private event.” Mamdani is New York City’s first Muslim and first Indian American mayor.
Mamdani, whose mother is acclaimed Indian filmmaker Mira Nair, said his opposition reflected his role leading a city that believes in “the belonging of each and every person, no matter their color, their creed, their religion, their faith, wherever they’re from.” He added that he grew up with an understanding of India as “a pluralistic society of a secular Republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India.” He noted: “It has been incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision.”
The RSS, founded in 1925, is widely regarded as the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The organization describes itself as a “Hindu centric civilisational, cultural movement” but has faced sustained criticism from human rights groups and international bodies over its record on minority rights.
Civil rights organizations have launched a coordinated campaign against the event. Sravya Tadepalli, deputy executive director of Hindus for Human Rights, said in a statement: “Mohan Bhagwat does not represent Hindus. He leads an extremist Hindu nationalist movement that has fueled 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.”
The coalition opposing the event includes Hindus for Human Rights, the Indian American Muslim Council, and the Interfaith Center of New York. The demonstrators held a news conference outside New York City Hall on Tuesday calling for cancellation. Local officials Brad Lander and Shahana Hanif have signed onto statements against the event.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal advisory body, has called the RSS “an umbrella organization whose sub-groups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims.” The commission has urged sanctions against the RSS and asked the American government not to extend diplomatic courtesies to RSS members.
Mamdani has previously taken stands against Hindu nationalist symbolism. In 2024, before becoming mayor, he signed a letter calling for the removal of a Hindu nationalist float from New York’s annual India Day parade. The float depicted a temple built atop the ruins of a mosque in Ayodhya. At the time, Mamdani said the BJP and associated Hindu nationalist groups view India’s Muslim population as “anathema to their definition of the nation.”
The organizers of the Madison Square Garden event, American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue, say the gathering is backed by over 135 Hindu American organizations and is meant to promote shared heritage and interfaith unity. The RSS has launched a global campaign in recent years to counter perceptions that it is a paramilitary group involved in violence against minority communities.
Sources
- DW — Mamdani’s statement opposing the event, his background as NYC’s first Muslim and Indian American mayor, details on the RSS and its history, and Tadepalli’s statement from Hindus for Human Rights
- Reuters — Mamdani’s comments on the event and the city’s jurisdiction, his family background, and context on the RSS as ideological parent of the BJP
- Middle East Eye — Details on activist opposition, Tadepalli’s full statement, context on Mamdani’s 2024 position on the India Day parade float, and analysis from scholar Edward Anderson on the RSS’s global strategy
