Bhagwat’s US event ends in controversy as two religious leaders say they were ‘duped’

As RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s US visit and his addressing of American Hindus and Indians ended amid high controversy, two religious leaders based in the United States came forward to claim they were duped into the event without being told the Hindutva leader would be the chief guest, with Adriene Thorne terming her participation a “terrible mistake” while Shamsi Ali called his attendance a “serious error in judgment”.

The gathering, held on 29 August at Madison Square Garden under the banner of 'One World, One Humanity', drew more than 5,000 attendees from American Hindus and the diaspora, amid fierce pre-emptive protests led by coalition groups, including the Indian American Muslim Council, along with vocal condemnation from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Thorne, a minister at New York’s historic Riverside Church, claimed in a video that she was repeatedly invited to attend the event by the World Council of Religious Leaders, who described the event as strictly an interfaith dialogue, though the programme left the “guest of honour” blank.

“I was never told that the RSS was involved... Had I known the event centred on the leader of the RSS, I would never have participated,” Thorne lamented, while calling out the organisers for hoodwinking guests under the pretext of high security.

Imam Shamsi Ali, a prominent cleric, shared similar thoughts of being betrayed by the organisers after having participated in a breakfast session with Bhagwat at The Pierre Hotel under identical assurances, and promptly boycotted the Madison Square Garden continuation upon discovering Bhagwat’s primacy.

The main organiser of the Bhagwat event, interfaith convener Bawa Jain, remained unrepentant, as told by Thorne, who called him to express her anguish over not intimating the presence of Bhagwat, despite having exchanged a scores of mails between them, it was alleged that Jain hidden from them the participation of the Hindutva leader.

While a subsequent dossier circulated among attendees pointed to Jain’s decades-long association with Sangh Parivar platforms in 2000 and 2007, as he conceded to The New York Times, he had known about Bhagwat’s presence at the event a year before and was not sorry for honouring Bhagwat.

Worsening the controversy further, invitees had been urged to arrive in traditional vestments and submit written “commitments”, which had later been compiled and read by Mohan Bhagwat as a declaration, before immediately being published in the Organiser, its mouthpiece.