New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has indicated that his administration is unlikely to intervene to stop RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s event at Madison Square Garden, saying the city may not have the authority to cancel a private gathering.
Mamdani said he opposed movements built around an exclusionary vision, while recalling the idea of India he grew up with through 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, a secular republic that believed in the belonging of each and every person who was from India,” Mamdani said.
Referring to Madison Square Garden’s hosting of a German American Bund rally in 1939, Lander said, “It should not host this one.
Mamdani said he was “in deep opposition” to such a movement, both as an Indian American and as the mayor of a diverse city. Hanif said New York’s diverse South Asian communities “have felt the impacts of the hateful ideology and violence associated with the RSS. Amin Zama of the Indian American Muslim Council said the campaign was aimed at an ideology rather than a religious community.
