New York, August 26, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said he does not support the proposed event featuring Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat at Madison Square Garden, but indicated that the city may not have the authority to cancel a private gathering.
“I don’t support the rally, but I don’t know if the city has any jurisdiction on canceling a private event,” Mamdani told reporters on Tuesday.
His comments came amid opposition to the August 29 event from a coalition of 61 civil rights, faith, community and advocacy organisations, which has urged Madison Square Garden to cancel the programme.
Mamdani said he opposed movements based on an exclusionary vision and referred to the pluralistic and secular values he said he was taught by his family.
“I also stand here as the first Indian American mayor in our city’s history, and my mother’s family is all still in India,” he said.
“The vision of India that I was taught by my family, and the one that I grew up being very familiar with was of a pluralistic society of a secular republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India,” Mamdani added.
He said the rise of a movement based on an exclusionary vision was “incredibly troubling” and that he was “in deep opposition” to such a movement, both as an Indian American and as the mayor of a diverse city.
Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 10th Congressional District, City Council Member Shahana Hanif and representatives of Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Dalit and Christian communities joined the campaign against the Bhagwat event at a news conference outside New York City Hall.
Lander referred to Madison Square Garden’s hosting of a German American Bund rally in 1939 and said the venue “should not host this one.”
Hanif said South Asian communities in New York had experienced the effects of what she described as the “hateful ideology and violence associated with the RSS.”
Amin Zama of the Indian American Muslim Council said the campaign was directed at an ideology rather than the Hindu community.
“Our message today is not against Hindus. Our message is against an ideology that seeks to define citizenship and national belonging through religious identity,” he said.
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