India Is Not the RSS, and Hinduism Is Not Hindutva: A Question for New York

There is a question I would like to ask my fellow New Yorkers—and particularly my fellow Indian Americans.

Why should an ideology associated with religious majoritarianism, intolerance, politics of fear and extraordinary socioeconomic inequality be celebrated in New York, one of the world's most diverse cities, under the appealing banner of “Universal Oneness”?

The question has acquired immediate significance. Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of India's Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is scheduled to address a large gathering in New York on August 29. The event has already generated protests. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has opposed the gathering, while acknowledging the limits of the city's authority over a private event. The bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has gone considerably further, calling upon the U.S. government to consider targeted sanctions against RSS members and Indian officials it says are implicated in religious-freedom violations, including revocation of Bhagwat's visa. The RSS rejects such accusations and describes itself as a Hindu-centered civilizational and cultural movement.

I approach this question from an unusual position.

I am not an outsider to the RSS. I spent many formative years of my life inside the organization and its political environment. I knew its discipline, dedication, organizational methods, language and worldview. I did not leave because somebody persuaded me to hate Hinduism. I left because, through my own political and intellectual evolution, I became convinced that religious nationalism was fundamentally incompatible with the pluralistic, democratic and egalitarian India I wanted to see.

That distinction is essential.

**Hinduism is not Hindutva. India is not the RSS. Patriotism is not loyalty to the BJP. And criticism of Narendra Modi is not hatred of India.**

What Do Indian Americans Really Know About the RSS?

Millions of Americans now know Narendra Modi. Far fewer know the organization from which his political formation emerged.

The RSS is not an electoral party. It is the ideological center of a vast network commonly called the Sangh Parivar. The BJP is its enormously successful political expression. Modi himself emerged from the RSS, and international news organizations routinely describe the RSS as the BJP's ideological parent.

I therefore ask Indian Americans who passionately support Modi: How many have seriously studied the history of the RSS? How many have read the foundational literature of Hindutva? How many understand the difference between Hinduism as an enormously diverse religious, philosophical and cultural tradition and Hindutva as a modern political ideology?

These are not rhetorical traps. They are questions worth asking.

Many diaspora Indians support Modi because they believe he represents a strong India. Others admire India's economic growth, technological achievements or increased international visibility. Some receive most of their information about India through family networks, partisan television, YouTube, WhatsApp and social media.

But admiration for India should never require suspension of critical thinking.

What Has Happened to India Since 2014?

India remains an electoral democracy with vigorous opposition parties, independent voices, courts that sometimes challenge government power and millions of citizens who fiercely defend democratic values.

But something profound has changed.

Freedom House's 2026 assessment continues to classify India as only “Partly Free.” It reports increasing harassment of journalists, nongovernmental organizations and government critics under Modi, discriminatory policies affecting Muslims, and growing use of state institutions against political opponents. It also notes concerns about the independence of the Election Commission and political financing.

The question, therefore, is not simply whether India still conducts elections.

Modern authoritarianism does not necessarily arrive with tanks in the streets or the cancellation of elections. Democratic institutions can instead be hollowed out gradually: through concentration of political power, intimidation of journalists, weakening of independent institutions, selective application of investigative machinery, attacks on universities and civil society, enormous disparities in political financing, and the normalization of the idea that criticism of the government is somehow criticism of the nation.

Perhaps the most dangerous transformation, however, has occurred in everyday social life.

When Neighbors Begin to Fear Neighbors

India has always had communalism. It experienced Partition, horrific religious riots, caste atrocities and numerous failures of its professed secularism long before Modi.

We should not romanticize the past.

But the political normalization of religious polarization has reached another level.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says religious-freedom conditions have deteriorated and points to violence against Muslims, Christians, Dalits and other minorities. Human-rights organizations have also raised concerns about hate speech, anti-conversion laws, vigilante violence, discriminatory citizenship policies and demolitions of Muslim-owned properties. The BJP government strongly rejects the charge that it discriminates against minorities and argues that its welfare and development programs benefit Indians regardless of religion.

That disagreement should itself be openly debated.

But there is something statistics cannot adequately describe.

The greatest damage done by communal politics is not merely measured by how many people are killed. It changes how neighbors look at neighbors.

A Muslim becomes suspect. A Christian becomes a potential converter. An interfaith marriage becomes “love jihad.” A student becomes “anti-national.” An intellectual becomes an enemy. A journalist asking uncomfortable questions becomes a traitor.

Fear becomes politically useful.

And once fear becomes an instrument of politics, democracy begins losing its soul.

## Hindu Nationalism and the Billionaire Raj

There is another side to the Hindutva project that receives far too little attention: economics.

While ordinary Indians are mobilized around religion, temples, mosques, nationalism and identity, wealth has become extraordinarily concentrated.

A major World Inequality Lab study estimated that by 2022–23 India's richest 1 percent received 22.6 percent of national income and owned 40.1 percent of national wealth—historically extreme levels. The researchers found that the increase in top-end wealth concentration was particularly pronounced between 2014–15 and 2022–23.

India unquestionably has experienced substantial economic growth. It has produced world-class scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and technological industries. The BJP government also points, legitimately, to infrastructure construction, electrification, food subsidies and other welfare programs.

But GDP growth and social justice are not the same thing.

A country can become richer while becoming more unequal.

This is where religion and economics intersect in a politically dangerous way.

When working people are persuaded that their greatest threat is the Muslim next door, a Christian missionary, an interfaith couple, a protesting student or a dissenting intellectual, they may stop asking another set of questions:

Where are the secure jobs?

Why is quality education inaccessible to so many?

Why are healthcare costs devastating families?

Why is wealth accumulating so spectacularly at the top?

Who benefits from privatization?

Who finances political power?

Religion becomes extraordinarily useful when economics becomes extraordinarily unequal.

A Question for Indian Americans

There is also a contradiction we in the diaspora must confront.

Indian immigrants came to the United States and demanded—rightly—equal treatment.

We want our Hindu temples protected. We want our children free from racial discrimination. We protest hate crimes against Indians. We expect our Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Hindu names to receive equal respect. We want workplaces to judge us by our abilities rather than our ethnicity.

Then how can we demand pluralism for ourselves in America while supporting majoritarianism in India?

If Christian nationalism is dangerous when white extremists practice it in America, why should Hindu nationalism become virtuous when practiced in India?

If racism against Indians is wrong in New York, discrimination against Muslims or Christians cannot become acceptable in Delhi.

Human rights cannot depend upon which religion happens to constitute the majority.

New York Must Ask a Question

New York's greatness comes precisely from everything religious nationalism distrusts.

This city belongs to nobody—and therefore belongs to everybody.

Jews fleeing persecution, African Americans fighting segregation, Irish and Italian immigrants, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, Chinese and Koreans, Arabs and Africans, Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists and people who refuse every label have made New York what it is.

So when an ideological movement accused of promoting a majoritarian conception of India comes to this city speaking of “Universal Oneness,” New Yorkers have every right to ask:

**Whose oneness? On whose terms? And who is excluded?**

I do not ask America to reject India.

I ask America not to confuse India with the RSS.

I ask my fellow Indian Americans not to confuse Hinduism with Hindutva.

India is older than the RSS. India is larger than the BJP. And India is infinitely greater than any prime minister.

The India worth defending is the India of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and atheists; of workers and farmers; women and men; Dalits and Adivasis; scientists and poets; believers and skeptics; students and dissenters.

It is the India imagined by Rabindranath Tagore when he dreamed of a country “where the mind is without fear and the head is held high.”

That India—and not an India built upon fear of one another—is the India I still believe in.

The author was a longtime activist with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) before quitting the organization out of ideological disillusionment. He has written several books and numerous articles on the RSS, BJP, and Hindutva politics in India and overseas. The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Hindus for Human Rights.