NEW YORK — Close to 100 elected officials, candidates, and political figures across the United States have pledged not to accept campaign donations tied to India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The pledge follows RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s August 29 address at the “Universal Oneness Celebration” at Madison Square Garden, an event organizers billed as a gathering focused on shared humanity and mutual respect.
Bhagwat told the crowd that a Hindu who wants Muslims excluded from India isn’t truly living up to Hindu values. The moderate tone did little to quiet the protests outside, where civil rights, interfaith, Muslim, Sikh, Dalit, and progressive Hindu groups argued that RSS ideology has fueled discrimination against religious minorities in India.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani had criticized the RSS in the days before the rally, calling its worldview exclusionary while acknowledging the city had no legal grounds to block a private event. The day before, he marked the Hindu festival Raksha Bandhan at India Home, a South Asian senior center.
Signatories to the pledge include Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, Rep. Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the state’s Democratic Senate primary, Reps. Ro Khanna and Pramila Jayapal, and New York congressional candidate Brad Lander. The pledge carries no legal weight since U.S. law doesn’t restrict such donations, but it signals an intent to refuse or return any funds traced to the RSS or its affiliated networks.
The RSS is widely seen as the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, though it remains formally separate. Its critics call it a vehicle for Hindu majoritarianism. The organization and its supporters describe it as a cultural and service movement grounded in Hindu civilizational values. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended earlier this year that Washington consider sanctions against individuals it holds responsible for religious freedom violations in India, including RSS members. Those recommendations are nonbinding, and India has dismissed the commission’s findings as biased.
The pledge adds to a growing debate over diaspora fundraising and the reach of overseas nationalist movements into U.S. elections.
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