Chicago – August 29, 2026
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has publicly opposed a high-profile event featuring RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat at Madison Square Garden, calling the organisation’s ideology “exclusionary” while acknowledging the city may lack legal power to cancel a private programme.
Speaking at a press conference shortly after Bhagwat’s arrival, Mamdani said: “I don’t support the rally, but I don’t know if the city has any jurisdiction on cancelling a private event.” He described himself as the first Indian‑American mayor in the city’s history and invoked a vision of India as a “pluralistic society” and “secular republic” that “believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India”.
The 29 August “Universal Oneness Celebrations”, part of the RSS’s centenary‑year global outreach, has drawn protests from dozens of civil rights, faith and diaspora groups, including Hindus for Human Rights and the Indian American Muslim Council.
Ahead of the tour, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) urged Washington to avoid high‑level contact with RSS leadership and consider targeted sanctions; India’s Ministry of External Affairs rejected the recommendations as biased. RSS leaders have defended the event as an open, interfaith dialogue.
