Zohran Mamdani says he opposes RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s event in New York

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday said he does not support an upcoming event in which Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat is scheduled to speak. However, the city may not have any “jurisdiction to cancel a private event”, he added.

The RSS, a Hindutva organisation, is the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Bhagwat arrived in the United States on Tuesday to participate in the RSS’s centenary-year global outreach programme. He is scheduled to address around 5,000 members of the Indian diaspora at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, PTI reported.

Responding to questions about the event and the RSS, Mamdani said it was “incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision of any country”.

Mamdani said he was “deeply” opposed to the RSS, both as an Indian-American and as mayor of New York.

He said that the vision of India he had grown up with was that of “a pluralistic society, of a secular republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India”.

His statement came against the backdrop of activists and political figures asking him to cancel Bhagwat’s event.

Objections have also been raised in Canada about Bhagwat’s upcoming visit from August 31 to September 1.

On August...

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