The RSS’s interfaith photo op tried to hide the truth

(RNS) — On Aug. 29, the chief of the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Mohan Bhagwat, headlined the stage at Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “Universal Oneness Celebration.”

The RSS was founded in India in 1925 with the mission of creating a Hindu nation. Since then, the organization has promoted a militant form of Hindu nationalism that ties Hinduness to Indian identity.

Bhagwat’s tour stop in New York exposed the RSS’s public relations attempt to present itself and its Hindu nationalist ideology in a way that would impress donors and followers in the Indian diaspora and also be palatable for Western (especially interfaith) audiences. Now a growing number of American political leaders and civil society groups are distancing themselves from the movement Bhagwat leads and rejecting the cynical and hypocritical instrumentalization of interfaith collaboration he attempted.

Before the event, a broad coalition argued that the RSS did not deserve the benefit of the doubt, given the organization’s record on violence against minorities. This begins with some of its founding members who drew inspiration from Nazi Germany’s repression…