Mohan Bhagwat speaks at a conference in New York. PTI
The RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat is said to have stayed in The Pierre, a luxury hotel overlooking Central Park in New York, a hotel owned by the Taj Group.
Even as several Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Sikh organisations protested and demanded that ‘Hindutva’ be kept out of New York, the RSS chief addressed a supposedly inter-faith rally on Saturday at Madison Square Garden. He made all the right noises and spoke eloquently about oneness of mankind and universal brotherhood. Any Hindu who wanted India to be without Muslims, he declared, would not in fact be a Hindu, the media reported him as saying.
However, why Bhagwat is visiting the US as part of a three-nation tour which will also take him to Canada and the UK has persisted. Who financed his trip and stay? Is his visit meant to help raise funds? Or is the visit meant for lobbying with US members of the Congress and the administration as part of an outreach programme? Author and journalist Salil Tripathi told The Wire in an interview that while Indian consular staff and businessmen are known to have called on the RSS chief, he was personally not aware of any meeting of Bhagwat with lawmakers or administrators.
Tripathi pointedly said that while he supported the right of Bhagwat to visit the US and the right of RSS critics to oppose the visit, he would have wished for Bhagwat to agree to a debate with the critics on the vision and functioning of the RSS. Some critics also pointed out that had Bhagwat and the RSS were serious about an inter-faith gathering, they would have invited New York mayor Zohran Mamdani and engaged with him in a public dialogue.
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