Washington, September 8, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
A US foreign policy scholar has cautioned against efforts by political leaders and advocacy groups in the US, Canada and Britain to isolate the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), arguing that such a campaign could harm American interests and complicate efforts to strengthen US-India relations.
Bill Drexel, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, made the argument in an opinion article published in The Wall Street Journal following an RSS event addressed by its chief Mohan Bhagwat at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 29. The event was described as a celebration of “universal oneness”.
The article noted that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani had described the RSS’s Hindu nationalist vision as “exclusionary” and its rise as “incredibly troubling” while acknowledging that the city had no authority over the private event.
According to Drexel, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom called for Bhagwat’s visa to be revoked. Ahead of Bhagwat’s subsequent appearance in Toronto, nearly 270 organisations reportedly urged the Canadian government to bar him and consider designating the RSS as a terrorist entity. In London, groups also called on Mayor Sadiq Khan to deny Bhagwat access to city-controlled venues.
Drexel argued that such measures were unlikely to weaken the RSS because of its size and influence in India. Citing figures in his article, he said the organisation holds around 83,000 regular neighbourhood gatherings across India and has an estimated five million participants, most of whom are unpaid volunteers.
He described the RSS as a major force within the broader Hindu nationalist movement and said it had helped establish around 2,500 affiliated organisations spanning areas including religion, labour and education.
“Western disapproval isn’t going to hamper an organisation this large and potent,” Drexel wrote, arguing that shutting out what he described as India’s most influential civil-society organisation could instead strengthen factions less interested in engagement.
Drexel acknowledged that the RSS is “massive, complex and quickly evolving”, with public activities that include charitable and social-service programmes.
“One need not endorse the RSS’s views to know that it is imperative the US engage with it and seek to understand it,” he wrote, citing India’s growing economic and strategic importance in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.
His comments come amid a wider debate in Western countries over how governments and civil-society groups should engage with the RSS and its ideology.
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