A United States panel on religious freedom on Wednesday called for sanctions against members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and said its leaders should not be given high-level meetings or diplomatic courtesies, ahead of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s planned visit to the US.
US Commission on International Religious Freedom chair Asif Mahmood said Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of the RSS. Mahmood described the RSS as an umbrella organisation “whose sub-groups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims”.
The RSS, a Hindutva organisation, is the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Commissioner Gene Mills said RSS leaders “should not be honored with high-level meetings or diplomatic courtesies” and instead asked Washington to consider sanctions against members found responsible for religious freedom violations.
The remarks came ahead of Bhagwat’s planned visit to New York on August 29 to participate in the Universal Oneness Celebrations organised by American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue, PTI reported.
In March, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom had recommended in its annual report that the US government designate India as a “country of particular concern” over alleged systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom.
This was the seventh time that the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom had made this recommendation.
The March report also recommended targeted sanctions against individuals and entities, including the RSS and India’s Research and Analysis Wing, including by freezing their assets or barring them from entering the US. The Research and Analysis Wing is the country’s foreign intelligence agency.
The commission is an independent American government agency that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion and makes policy suggestions to the White House. These suggestions are not binding.
In an India-specific issue update released in November, the commission had noted that the “interconnected relationship between the RSS and BJP allows for the creation and enforcement of several discriminatory pieces of legislation, including citizenship, anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws”.
India rejected the report in March, describing it as a “distorted and selective” picture of the country based on “questionable sources and ideological narratives”.
Objections have also been raised in Canada over Bhagwat’s planned visit.
On August 7, two Canadian MPs urged Ottawa to ban the RSS and prevent Bhagwat from entering the country, citing his “history of hate speech” and advocacy of violence against religious minorities.
They said his visit could “lead to social disorder”.
After visiting the US, Bhagwat is scheduled to travel to Canada from August 31 to September 1 as part of a global outreach tour.
Written by Sara Varghese. Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.
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