Mamdani Blasts RSS as 'Troubling' but Says He Can't Stop Its NYC Rally

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he does not support an upcoming Madison Square Garden event featuring Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, but he says he does not know whether the city even has jurisdiction to cancel a privately booked rally. The admission lands just days before the August 29 event, as advocacy groups, interfaith leaders, and even a former city comptroller ramp up pressure to stop it.

Mamdani, the first Muslim and Indian-American mayor of New York City, described the rise of an exclusionary movement in India as “incredibly troubling,” according to The Independent. The RSS is a powerful Hindu group from which India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party emerged, and Bhagwat is scheduled to speak at the Manhattan venue on August 29, per the same report. Mamdani's comments came even as he made clear he opposes the rally, illustrating the bind facing local officials who denounce an ideology but lack legal tools to block a private booking.

On Tuesday, a coalition that included Hindus for Human Rights, the Indian American Muslim Council, and the Interfaith Center of New York held a press conference at City Hall, where congressional nominee and former NYC Comptroller Brad Lander declared there is “no room for Mohan Bhagwat and RSS hatred in our city,” according to Religion News Service. Local organizations have criticized the event over Bhagwat's attendance and the RSS's history, according to the same account.

Federal Pressure Mounts Over Bhagwat's Visa

The City Hall protest was not the only front in the pushback. More than 1,000 Americans have submitted petitions to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging the State Department to deny or revoke Bhagwat's visa ahead of the Madison Square Garden appearance, as reported by TRT World. The campaign was organized by the Indian American Muslim Council and allied groups.

That effort follows a March 2026 recommendation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent bipartisan federal commission, which called for targeted sanctions against the RSS — including asset freezes and visa restrictions on its leadership — over what it described as decades-long involvement in acts of extreme violence and intolerance against religious minorities, per the Indian American Muslim Council. The RSS disputes accusations of intolerance and describes itself as a Hindu-centric civilizational and cultural movement that aims to carry the nation to the pinnacle of glory by uniting Hindus.

What the RSS and Event Organizers Say

The RSS has said its foreign visits, including trips to the United States, are intended to counter perceptions that it is a paramilitary outfit involved in attacks on minority communities, per the group's own statements from May 2026. Bhagwat's New York stop is the first leg of an international outreach tour across the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom marking the RSS's 100th anniversary since its 1925 founding, with organizers projecting 5,000 attendees at Madison Square Garden out of an estimated 5.2 million Indian-Americans nationwide, according to News India Times.

The August 29 gathering, called the Universal Oneness Celebration, is organized by American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue, or AHEAD, and brings together the Hindu American community around the theme of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, or “the world is one family,” timed to coincide with the Hindu festival of Raksha Bandhan, according to AP7AM. AHEAD says the event promotes shared heritage and interfaith unity and is backed by several Hindu American groups.

A History of Bans and Diplomatic Friction

The RSS has a fraught legal history in India, where the federal government has formally banned the organization three times — in 1948 following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, in 1975 during the National Emergency, and in 1992 following the demolition of the Babri Masjid — with all three bans eventually lifted, according to Rediff.com. The U.S. CIA World Factbook, meanwhile, classified main RSS affiliate organizations, including the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, as “religious militant organizations” in 2018 while describing the RSS itself as a nationalist organization, a designation reported by the Times of India that drew pushback from VHP leaders at the time.

United Nations bodies and human rights groups have pointed to the removal of Muslim-majority Kashmir's autonomy, a religion-based citizenship law, anti-conversion legislation they say challenges freedom of belief, demolition of Muslim-owned properties, and rising hate speech in India, saying abuse of Indian minorities has risen in recent years, per The Independent's reporting. Human Rights Watch has said 2025 marked the fifth consecutive record year of anti-Christian violence in India with nearly 900 reported incidents, while UN Special Procedures mandate-holders have raised concerns over hundreds of Muslim killings in India since 2014, according to the Indian American Muslim Council. The BJP-led Indian government denies being discriminatory and says its policies, which include food subsidy programs and electrification drives, benefit all communities.

The New York event is not the only stop drawing organized resistance. Ahead of Bhagwat's planned stops in Canada, more than 40 Canadian civil society, human rights, labor, and faith organizations have petitioned their federal government to bar him from entering the country, with two Canadian Members of Parliament calling for a ban on the RSS itself, the Indian American Muslim Council reports.

Diplomatic entanglements with the RSS are not new. In September 2021, top U.S. diplomat Chargé d'Affaires Atul Keshap faced calls for his resignation from more than a dozen Indian-American diaspora organizations after he met with Bhagwat at RSS headquarters in Nagpur, India, according to Asian News International; diaspora groups argued the meeting conferred legitimacy on the paramilitary group. With Bhagwat's Manhattan appearance days away, Mamdani's admission that City Hall may be powerless to intervene leaves the dispute over the Madison Square Garden rally to play out in public pressure and diplomatic channels rather than city government.