Washington: HinduPACT has accused the US Commission on International Religious Freedom of running a “smear campaign” against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat ahead of his proposed visit to the United States.
The Hindu advocacy organisation said statements by USCIRF Chair Asif Mahmood and Commissioner Gene Mills opposing Bhagwat’s visit lacked balance and unfairly portrayed Hindu institutions as dangerous.
In a statement issued in San Ramon, California, HinduPACT alleged that the commission had turned religious freedom into a platform for ideological attacks against Hindu organisations and India.
“This is not scrutiny. It is an attempt to criminalise Hindu civilizational organisation, stigmatise Hindu public leadership, and recast India’s majority tradition as suspect in the court of American opinion,” it said.
The organisation also criticised Mills for calling for sanctions against RSS members allegedly responsible for violations of freedom of religion or belief. It said such a demand lacked “rigor, due process, or evidentiary discipline”.
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HinduPACT alleged that USCIRF had shown little interest in anti-Hindu hatred, temple vandalism or the civic exclusion faced by Hindus in the United States.
It also accused the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights of supporting the campaign against Bhagwat’s visit. The release did not include responses from the three groups or USCIRF.
Ajay Shah, founder and chair of HinduPACT, accused the federal commission of abandoning its mandate and adopting what he called an anti-Hindu narrative.
“USCIRF has disgraced its mandate. When its chair speaks about India and the RSS, he sounds less like the head of a pluralistic American commission and more like an advocate for a hardened anti-Hindu narrative,” Shah said.
“Mohan Bhagwat leads one of the world’s most consequential Hindu organisations. He should not be met with slander scripted by CAIR, IAMC, and HfHR, groups that have made a habit of treating Hindu self-assertion as extremism,” he added.
Shah said the RSS had worked for decades in relief operations, education, village uplift and social organisation.
“American Hindus see the pattern clearly. We will not accept a taxpayer-funded body being used to malign our faith, our institutions, and India’s democratic voice,” he said.
HinduPACT described the RSS as a central organising force in modern Hindu society, with a record of community service, education and volunteer work. It said the organisation had built its legitimacy through its presence in neighbourhoods and villages rather than through think tanks or seminars.
“Every time Hindu organisations gain visibility, the same machinery activates: selective outrage, guilt by association, and a studied refusal to acknowledge anti-Hindu bias by name,” HinduPACT said.
It called on elected officials, community leaders and other Americans to reject what it described as sectarian lobbying presented as human rights advocacy.
USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan US federal commission created under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. It monitors religious freedom conditions abroad and makes policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State and Congress. Its recommendations are advisory and are not binding on the US government.
