@NYCMayor Mamdani has come out against the visit, saying that the RSS does not represent the vision of India he was raised with as “a pluralistic society of a secular Republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India.”
“It has been incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision,” Mamdani said.
Prime Minister Modi came up through the RSS as a volunteer before entering politics. The U.S. barred modi from entry in 2005 over the 2002 Gujarat riots, during which Hindu nationalist mobs – including some linked to the RSS – killed more than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims. The U.S. lifted the ban in 2014 when he became PM.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has called the RSS an “umbrella organization whose sub-groups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims.”