Opposition slams RSS chief’s ‘hypocritical’ Muslim remark in US
Bhagwat asked to make such statement in India rather than in America
New Delhi: Opposition parties have called out RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for preaching Hindu-Muslim harmony in New York while his organisation continues to promote communal polarisation in India, terming the remarks “hypocritical” and “duplicitous.”
According to Kashmir Media Service, addressing the ‘One World, One Humanity’ faith leaders conference in New York on Saturday, Bhagwat said, “If any Hindu thinks that there should be no Muslim in Bharat, he will not be a Hindu.”
The statement drew sharp reactions as Bhagwat delivered it abroad amid protests outside Madison Square Garden where demonstrators raised slogans like ‘The RSS has got to go.’
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut accused the RSS chief of double standards. “Bhagwat should make such a statement in India rather than in America. You speak another thing in India, and speak quite differently when there is a protest against you in New York. In Hinduism, this is called dhong — hypocrisy,” he said.
Muslim leader Asaduddin Owaisi said it was “the oldest trick in the RSS playbook: some words are for the world, and some are for its own members.” He asked, “Should we forget what happened to the Muslims of Gujarat under the RSS’s proxy rule?”
AAP leader Saurabh Bhardwaj said Bhagwat should first address his own leaders. “He should tell this to Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Yogi Adityanath and Suvendu Adhikari, who often make headlines with statements that spread hatred between Hindus and Muslims,” he said.
MP Manoj Jha questioned why Bhagwat chose to make the remarks abroad, pointing to daily anti-Muslim rhetoric by BJP leaders in India. He urged the RSS chief to demonstrate the same message domestically.
TMC Rajya Sabha member Sagarika Ghose in a post on X said, “The sheer hypocrisy and duplicitousness of it all. Mohan Bhagwat travels to New York — in a liberal democracy that protects individual freedom, sustains a free economy and embraces pluralism — to declaim on Hindu-Muslim harmony.
Back home in India, the RSS and the BJP are busy dismantling liberal democracy, crushing individual freedom, undermining the open economy and daily waging Hindu-Muslim conflict to gain power. Has Bhagwat ever looked in the mirror?”
The New York event was part of the RSS centenary-year global outreach programme, which also includes Canada and the UK. The Opposition said the RSS cannot whitewash its record in India with conciliatory speeches abroad while communal rhetoric continues unabated at home.
