India dismisses US panel’s call for sanctions against RSS as ‘biased’
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The Ministry of External Affairs on Friday dismissed a United States religious freedom panel’s call for sanctions against members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, describing the organisation as “biased” and lacking credibility.
On Wednesday, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said that RSS leaders should not be given high-level meetings or diplomatic courtesies. The statement came ahead of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s planned visit to the US.
The RSS, a Hindutva organisation, is the ideological parent of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The panel’s chair, Asif Mahmood, said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a member of the RSS. He also described the RSS as an umbrella organisation “whose sub-groups have perpetrated attacks on religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims”.
On Friday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that the US panel had been making “misleading and provocative statements” about India for years.
“The organisation you are talking about is known to everyone as a biased organisation,” Jaiswal said. “We should stay away from such organisations because they have their own agenda and at the same time have no credibility.”
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