OPEN LETTER to The Mayor of London: Condemn Visit of RSS Chief

2nd September, 2026

To the Office of the Mayor of London,

We are writing to express our consternation at the imminent visit to the UK by Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). It was announced on 11 August that Bhagwat would travel to the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.  It has since been reported that he arrives in London on 2nd September and remains in the country until the 7th.  No venue or host has been made public. 

The RSS is the parent organisation of India’s governing party, the BJP, and is an authoritarian and militarist group which drew explicit inspiration from European fascism. Its second sarsanghchalak (chief), M.S. Golwalkar, openly held up Hitler’s treatment of the Jews as a model for treating minorities worth emulating in India. In 2002, RSS-affiliated groups were directly involved in communal violence in Gujarat that killed over two thousand people, predominantly Muslim, and displaced many more. A contemporaneous report by the British High Commission described this violence as having ‘all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing’. Several genocide scholars consider it to have met the definition of genocide. There is also overwhelming evidence of the RSS and its affiliates perpetrating violence and discrimination against other marginalised communities including caste-oppressed people and communities.

The RSS sits at the heart of a family of organisations that includes the paramilitary Bajrang Dal, the students’ organisation ABVP, and ‘cow vigilantes’ who attack and kill those they suspect of eating beef or slaughtering cows. Prime Minister Modi has called the RSS the world’s largest NGO, and a global database has described its network as ‘the largest far-right network in history’. That network is opaque and transnational. It continues to harvest funds from the UK under the guise of charitable donations while evading accountability, with investigations finding that such funds were channelled into violence against religious minorities in India.

Over the past decade, United Nations mechanisms have advanced a mounting body of allegations that senior RSS and BJP figures have incited hatred and discrimination, and that authorities have targeted religious minorities and sought to render them second-class citizens. RSS-affiliated diaspora organisations have also been documented engaging in transnational repression, using local networks to intimidate critics, academics, and dissenting voices, a pattern acknowledged by Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.

None of this is confined to the past. Mr Bhagwat himself has cautioned India’s Muslims to ‘abandon their boisterous rhetoric of supremacy’, has denied the reality of mob lynching in India, and claimed that the country’s ‘real freedom’ dates from the Hindu nationalist consecration of the Ayodhya temple rather than 1947. Nor is it confined to India, since the RSS has inspired violence worldwide. For example, Norwegian mass shooter Anders Breivik praised Hindu nationalism and listed the RSS and the BJP in his manifesto. Even closer to home, there is evidence of the involvement of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh or HSS (overseas wing of the RSS) in the communal violence in Leicester in 2022.

These concerns are not ours alone. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which has for seven consecutive years advised the US Government to designate India a Country of Particular Concern, recommended in its 2026 Annual Report that the US Government impose targeted sanctions on the RSS and its leadership, including asset freezes and travel and entry bans, ‘for their responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom’.

In the RSS’ own words, the purpose of its current tour is to ‘foster dialogue with mainstream societies’ about the ‘interests and rights of Hindus and people of Indian origin’ living there. Far from being a private religious visit, therefore, this is political outreach into British public life. We draw your attention to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s clear statement that he does not support Bhagwat’s Madison Square Garden event and that he considers the RSS’ ‘exclusionary vision’ as ‘incredibly troubling’.

In light of this, and considering what is within your remit as Mayor, we seek your urgent clarification on the following five questions:

1. Will you confirm that no Mayoral, Deputy Mayoral, GLA, or MOPAC representative will attend, speak at, or send a message of support to any event connected with this visit?

2. Will you confirm that no GLA-owned or GLA-controlled venue or land is being made available for it?

3. Will you write to the Home Secretary asking what assessment has been made of this visit against the Home Office’s unacceptable behaviours criteria for exclusion, and against the commitment in Protecting What Matters to prevent extremists entering the UK?

4. Will you ask MOPAC and the Metropolitan Police to consider community safety around the visit for the London communities the RSS and its affiliates target, including Muslim, Sikh, and Dalit Londoners?

5. Will you make a public statement setting out London’s position on this visit?

Given the twenty working day response standard and the timing of Bhagwat’s visit, we would be very grateful for a reply before the end of this week.

Yours sincerely,

Hindus for Human Rights UK (HfHR UK)

UK-Indian Muslim Council (UK-IMC)

India Labour Solidarity (ILS)

South Asia Solidarity Group (SASG)

Indus Legacy

Joint Committee to Stop Repression in India

Progressive South Asian Society 

South Asia Justice Campaign

Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND)

Strive UK

Leicester Council of Mosques (LCOM)

Forces of Renewal Southeast Asia (FORSEA)

Muslim Greens

Doikayt Collective

Karishma Patel, Media Critic & Journalist

Dr Jonathan Galton, Senior Lecturer, UCL

Maung Zarni, Human Rights Activist, Founder, Free Rohingya Coalition

Aasiya Bora, Local Councillor, Leicester

Active Muslims Leicester (AML)

The Kashmir Centre