A month ago, Madison Square Garden was lit up in orange and blue as the Knicks won their first NBA championship in 53 years. The venue is not just a local landmark but a global icon. It has hosted the famous Muhammad Ali vs Joe Frazier fight and the 1939 German American Bund rally, the largest Nazi rally on American soil.
At the same venue in 2014, newly elected Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a crowd of Indian-Americans in a bold display of popularity. The crowd chanted Modi's name and waved the national flag inside the historic arena.
On Saturday, Mohan Bhagwat, chief of the controversial Hindu organization RSS, visited the same venue to speak at an event organised by AHEAD (American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue), a mysterious Hindu non-profit.
The crowd was awash in saffron. Women dressed up in colorful saris, men flaunted their embroidered kurtas, while the younger attendees (mostly accompanying their families) donned saffron caps — as sporadic chants of "Har Har Mahadev" and "Jai Shri Ram" broke out repeatedly.
The event made headlines when New York City's first Indian-American mayor, Zohran Mamdani, condemned the RSS for what he called its exclusionary and divisive ideology, citing his own heritage to underscore the organization's attacks on India's pluralistic society.
"It has been incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision," he said.
Though Bhagwat's statements during his visit are being perceived as inclusive, his appearance at MSG drew significant opposition in New York, including from 61 organisations that said the RSS does not represent their vision of Hinduism or India.
Bhagwat's New Definition of 'Hindus'
The event opened with two promotional videos highlighting the beauty of Hinduism and its global influence, followed by musical performances spanning India's diverse musical traditions. One group, Jalosh–Dhol Tasha, whipped the arena into a frenzy with its thunderous drumming.
Organisers went on to honor the religious leaders in attendance, who shared the stage with keynote speaker Mohan Bhagwat: Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal, CEO of the Rabbinical Assembly; Imam Talib M Shareef, president and imam of The Nation's Mosque in Washington, DC; and Reverend Adriene Thorne, senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City.
A dance tribute to global plurality followed, with young performers from the Rudra Dance Academy honoring African, Latin American, Chinese, European, American, Middle Eastern, and Indian cultures before closing on "Wavin' Flag" as a call for international unity.
The crowd however went berserk when the crew performed the Fa9la song from Dhurandhar to represent Middle Eastern culture.
The event's theme — "Universal Oneness" — echoed throughout the performances and speeches from the city's religious leaders dressed for the optics.
AHEAD says it represents more than 200 religious leaders across 30 countries. The gathering was diverse, with the event curated keeping in mind a younger audience filled with entertaining performances.
Mohan Bhagwat's hour-long address at MSG was greeted with thunderous applause and a standing ovation; he spoke of Bharat's (not India's) role in guiding the world toward sustainability and contentment, arguing that true happiness lies in satisfaction rather than material gain.
Drawing on stories from the Upanishads and the teachings of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, he emphasised the oneness of the soul over any distinction between human beings.
“United in oneness and decorated by diversity". "Diversity is natural, and unity is truth. We must understand and shape our life according to this," he said.
The contradiction was inherent in his speech, with his previous statements of "Muslims in India having Hindu ancestry".
He urged the audience to follow their dharma, and, reading the room, added: "We are in America, we earn in America, so we are Americans. And we should be here, true to America."
He called on attendees to remain loyal to their karmabhoomi (land of work), while affirming their connection to their janmabhoomi (land of birth): "Your janmabhoomi expects you to live the values that have been imparted to you. And that value is oneness."
At the Faith Leaders’ Conference, Bhagwat said: “If any Hindu thinks that there should be no Muslim in Bharat, he will not remain Hindu...If you want to call yourself a Hindu you have to believe that all paths are leading to the same Goal. And every human has dignity. There is no difference between human beings."
Bawa Jain, a prominent interfaith leader and founding Secretary-General of the World Council of Religious Leaders, then delivered a five-point Call for Action against religious hatred and for global harmony, saying:
"begin with ourselves," "stand for one another," "build relationships before we need them," "serve together," and "take responsibility for the future."
Thousands thronged MSG to attend the event. Dressed in traditional Indian attire, attendees filled the arena to its roughly 5,000-person capacity, many arriving on buses chartered from across the country.
Dr Sandeep Kumar Patel drove 800 miles from Savannah, Georgia, just to catch a glimpse of his spiritual leader. "People from as far as California, Southern California, and Florida have gathered here to attend this event and celebrate the ideals of vasudhaiva kutumbakam," he said, waiting in a line thousands deep. "It is an honor to witness a leader like him, who has made India proud on a global stage."
Dr Rakesh Kumar traveled from Indiana, believing the event represented "Indianhood." Though troubled by the protests outside, he defended attendees' and protesters' shared right to free expression.
"These people who are protesting probably aren't factually aware. America is a place where they're allowed to express their views freely, so I don't have a problem with this. I'm happy the event is taking place with such fanfare."Dr Rakesh Kumar
As a symbolic gesture, rakhis were distributed to the audience with instructions to tie one on the person seated next to them. Rather than following that instruction to bond with strangers, most attendees tied rakhis on people they already knew.
'RSS Out Of NYC': The Protests
Bhagwat's NYC visit was followed by days of political controversies and headlines over his visit, including from Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Earlier this month, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, urged the US Government to revoke Bhagwat’s visa and reconsider sanctions against RSS members, citing the alleged religious freedom violations in India.
As buses full of attendees gathered outside the venue hours in advance, several groups staged protests outside MSG, chanting slogans against the RSS chief's visit.
South Asian activist organisations — including Hindus for Human Rights, SALAM, and the Indian American Muslim Council — voiced condemnation of the RSS's role in spreading hate and fear against religious minorities in India, particularly Muslims.
Several local protestors also correlated the rising Hindutva movement to other forms of fascism growing in strength across the world, including here in America.
Shonita Joshi, an activist with the progressive group Hindus for Human Rights, was blunt about her opposition to the RSS's presence in her city.
"RSS leader and chief Mohan Bhagwat is coming here to talk about oneness and unity amongst Hindus and the nation. While the actions of the Modi government and RSS are just the opposite. So we're here to say this is not going to happen in my name, and it is not going to happen in my nation," she said.
Joshi added:
“They're the ones who assassinated Gandhi. Their second supreme leader aligned themselves with Nazis against the Jews, and said that Hindus should learn from what the Germans did to the Jews in order to have national pride and religious harmony. They garlanded the rapists of a Muslim woman. This is a far-right wing organisation that stands for violence, stands for misogyny.”
Safa Ahmed, a board member of the Indian American Muslim Council, called out what she saw as the hypocrisy of an event organized around unity while minorities in India live in fear of persecution.
"The very existence of Indian Muslims is criminalized — whether through laws targeting citizenship or through attacks on the food they eat, the clothes they wear, and the social consequences created for practicing their religion," she said.
"Where is the oneness in this?" She pointed to Mayor Mamdani's opposition to the event as, in her view, a real embodiment of the oneness Bhagwat claims to preach — noting that the mayor, himself of Indian origin, went unmentioned in every speech delivered that night.
Pieter Friedrich, an independent journalist covering the Hindu nationalist influence in American politics, claimed the event was an attempt to whitewash the legacy of violence and hate propagated by the RSS. “Bilkis Bano has contributed her life to seek justice against the crimes committed by Hindu nationalists against her and her family”, he said.
Reports suggest a constant rise in the cases of hate speech and hate crimes against minorities after 2014. Instances of hate speech against minorities jumped 74 percent in India in 2024, particularly during the country's national elections, according to a report by Washington-based research group – India Hate Lab.
The optics for the event were carefully managed to present an inclusive and secular face of an organisation that has been banned thrice in independent India for spreading communal hate and violence.
Both the supporters and the opposers of the controversial religious outfit and its political arm – the BJP claim to know facts better than the other. For an event organised to unite the diaspora, the fractures were bold and visible.
The event in New York City was part of Bhagwat’s three-nation outreach tour to celebrate RSS’s centenary year. The city is known for its diversity and standing up to authoritarianism. Under a vocal mayor, it presented an intrepid display of dissent against an organisation accused of spreading hatred, communal disharmony, and violence.
(Siddharth Kejriwal is a documentary filmmaker and lawyer based in New York. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)