NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the influential Hindu nationalist group widely seen as the ideological parent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said it has expanded international outreach efforts to counter criticism linking the organisation to anti-minority violence and religious intolerance.
RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale said during a media briefing at the organisation’s headquarters in New Delhi that senior RSS leaders have been engaging with academics, policymakers and business leaders in countries including the United States, Germany and Britain.
The outreach campaign follows criticism from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which stated in a report last year that the RSS had been involved in violence and intolerance against minority communities for decades.
Promoting a divisive majoritarian ideology
Hosabale rejected accusations that the RSS promotes Hindu supremacy or treats minorities as second-class citizens.
“The fact is entirely different,” he said during a rare media briefing at the organisation’s headquarters in New Delhi.
Founded in 1925, the RSS describes itself as a Hindu cultural and civilisational movement focused on national unity and social reform.
The organisation has been banned multiple times in India’s history, including after a former member assassinated independence leader Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
Opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, have repeatedly accused the RSS of promoting a divisive majoritarian ideology that threatens India’s secular foundations and increases hostility toward minorities.
Hosabale also said one of the RSS’s long-term goals remains ending caste-based discrimination within Hindu society.
