Efforts by political leaders and advocacy groups in the United States, Canada, and Britain to isolate the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) risk harming American strategic interests and undermining broader efforts to strengthen US-India relations, according to Bill Drexel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Drexel analyzed the international backlash surrounding RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s address to approximately 5,000 attendees at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 29, an event billed as a celebration of “universal oneness.”
The address drew sharp political friction internationally. Ahead of the event, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani described the RSS’s Hindu nationalist vision as “exclusionary” while noting the city lacked authority to cancel the private gathering. Meanwhile, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom urged the revocation of Bhagwat’s visa, nearly 270 Canadian organizations petitioned their government to bar his entry and consider labeling the RSS a terrorist entity, and groups in London formally requested Mayor Sadiq Khan to deny the leader access to city-controlled venues.
Scale, Influence, and the Limits of Western Disapproval:
Drexel contended that such international campaigns are fundamentally ineffective given the organization’s immense scale, reach, and structural integration within Indian society. Highlighting its grassroots footprint, the scholar noted that the RSS organizes approximately 83,000 regular neighborhood gatherings across India involving physical drills, games, and cultural instruction, powered by an estimated five million unpaid volunteers.
Describing the RSS as the ideological vanguard of the broader Hindu nationalist movement, Drexel pointed out that the organization has fostered a network of roughly 2,500 affiliated entities, spanning religious organizations, labor unions, and a vast private-school system alongside extensive charitable and social-service programs. “Western disapproval isn’t going to hamper an organization this large and potent,” Drexel wrote, adding that attempts to shut the door on India’s most influential civil-society organization merely empower its more hardline factions.
Strategic Imperatives for US Engagement:
Emphasizing India’s rapid economic rise and vital geopolitical positioning in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, Drexel concluded that Western powers must prioritize constructive engagement over isolation. He argued that understanding the massive, complex, and evolving nature of the RSS is an absolute imperative for Washington, regardless of differing viewpoints on the organization’s ideology.
