A VIOLENT SUPREMACIST MOVEMENT IS TOURING UNITED STATES
Mohan Bhagwat, chief of India's largest Hindu supremacist paramilitary the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is touring the United States. On August 29, he takes the stage at Madison Square Garden. The Indian American Muslim Council and a coalition of interfaith and civil rights organizations are demanding MSG to cancel.
RSS Report →WHO THE RSS IS
The RSS is a violent, fascist, Hindu supremacist paramilitary founded in 1925, built on the belief that India belongs to Hindus alone. For decades its offshoots have run the lynch mobs that beat Muslims to death, torch churches, and destroy homes, and its affiliates have driven massacres that killed thousands.
India has banned the organization three times, including after one of its own murdered Mahatma Gandhi. India's ruling BJP is its political wing, and the two remain intertwined.
Bhagwat has led the organization since 2009 and has been a full-time functionary since 1975.
1925 — banned three separate times by the Indian government
Mohan Bhagwat, chief since 2009; full-time functionary since 1975
India's ruling BJP — the two organizations remain intertwined
WHY THIS HATE RALLY MUST BE STOPPED.
The U.S. government's own religious freedom commission wants the RSS sanctioned.
In March 2026, USCIRF — a bipartisan federal commission — recommended targeted sanctions against the RSS for its "responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom," including asset freezes and U.S. entry restrictions on its leadership. MSG is preparing to host the leader of an organization the U.S. government has been formally asked to sanction.
RSS’ mission is to create a Hindu State by stripping minorities of their rights.
USCIRF reported that the RSS "has been involved in acts of extreme violence and intolerance against members of minority groups for decades," and described its goal as a Hindu state in which Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and others are reduced to second-class citizens.
RSS is responsible for mass anti-Christian and anti-Muslim violence.
HRW identified the RSS and its offshoots as "most responsible" for violence against Christians in India, and "directly responsible" for the anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002, which killed more than 1,000 people, most of them Muslim.
Their offshoots are classified as genocidal militias.
Genocide Watch identifies RSS offshoots as militias operating at the "organization" stage of genocide. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Early Warning Project ranks India fourth out of 168 countries at risk of new mass killing.
The Killings are Ongoing
In the first seven months of 2026 alone, 44 Muslims were killed in targeted attacks. 2025 was the fifth consecutive record year for anti-Christian violence in India, with nearly 900 reported incidents. In 2025, four UN Special Procedures mandate-holders formally raised with the Indian government the killings of more than 300 Muslims since 2014, a pattern the RSS and its offshoots have driven for over a decade.
A bloody movement in a clean suit
Bhagwat's Western tour is a documented campaign to rehabilitate the RSS abroad, timed to the moment its record is drawing unprecedented scrutiny. Canadian MPs have urged their government to bar him outright. Giving the RSS a stage at Madison Square Garden lends legitimacy to a violent supremacist ideology.
TAKE ACTION
Call MSG Entertainment
Call MSG Entertainment at 212-465-6225. Tell them: Cancel the August 29 Bhagwat event. Don't rent the Garden to a Hindu supremacist paramilitary.
212-465-6225 →Sign the Letter
Sign the letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and MSG CEO Jim Dolan.
Sign now →Post & Tag
Tweet to call on officials to urge MSG to cancel. Share why this rally shouldn't happen.
Get the tweet →Join Us Outside MSG
Join us outside MSG on August 29. Stand with the coalition on the day of the event.
See details →"Cancel the August 29 Bhagwat event. Don't rent the Garden to a Hindu supremacist paramilitary."
IAMC ON THE GROUND
IAMC statements and press coverage opposing Bhagwat's U.S. visit — Everything IAMC and the coalition have put out since this tour was announced: the demand that MSG cancel, the letter to Jim Dolan, the August 25 press conference at New York City Hall, and the elected officials who have joined the call.
RESOURCES
U.S. GOVERNMENT
- USCIRF 2026 Annual Report A federal commission asked Washington to sanction the RSS and bar its leadership from the country.
- USCIRF: Systematic Religious Persecution in India Decades of extreme violence against minorities, and a ruling party that answers to the RSS.
- Congressional Research Service, R45303 Congress's own researchers call the RSS hardline Hindu nationalist.
HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS
- Human Rights Watch — Violent Cow Protection in India 104 pages on the lynch mobs. At least 44 killed, 36 of them Muslims, in under four years.
- Human Rights Watch — India's 2026 Foreign Funding Rules Strangling the churches and civil society groups that document the violence.
- Amnesty International — Made in India: The Supply of Weapons and Ammunition to Israel 2,596 arms shipments from India to Israel during the genocide in Gaza.
GENOCIDE WARNING
- Genocide Watch — The Ten Stages of Genocide in India RSS offshoots classified as militias already at the organization stage.
UNITED NATIONS
- UN Special Procedures communication to India Four UN experts confronted India over more than 300 Muslims killed since 2014.
ACADEMIC
- Rutgers Law School, Center for Security, Race and Rights — Hindutva in America The RSS built a network inside the United States, and it's the one bringing Bhagwat here.
- Georgetown Bridge Initiative — RSS Factsheet What the RSS is, who it controls, and how far the network reaches.
DOCUMENTATION AND TRACKING
- IAMC — Targeted Violence Against Christians in India During Christmas 2025 Mobs broke up Christmas worship across India while police stood by.
- IAMC 2026 Annual Report BJP governments, police, and RSS groups working the same violence together.
- India Hate Lab — Hate Speech Events in India, 2025 1,318 hate speech events in one year. 98% targeted Muslims. 308 were open calls for violence.
- South Asia Justice Campaign — Indian People's Tribunal 2025 Survivor testimony on lynchings, demolitions, and state complicity.
- Christian Solidarity International — Fifth consecutive record year of anti-Christian violence Nearly 900 attacks on Christians in 2025, the worst year since independence.