Mohan Bhagwat’s New York message on Muslims, universalism and Ramakrishna raises a larger question: Is the RSS redefining Hindutva—or simply reaching out to minorities amid growing criticism of its politics? OSWALD PEREIRA reports
Mohan Bhagwat’s New York speech may have opened an intriguing new chapter in the ideology of Hindutva. The RSS chief said something that challenges the conventional understanding of the ideology. He declared that a Hindu who believes Muslims have no place in India or Bharat ceases to be a Hindu.
He insisted that humanity is one despite religious differences. And, significantly, he invoked Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, whose spiritual experiments became the foundation of one of India’s most compelling philosophies of religious universalism. Bhagwat’s argument, echoing Sri Ramakrishna, was that different paths can lead to the same ultimate reality and that every human being possesses dignity.
The reference to Ramakrishna is particularly significant. Ramakrishna did not merely preach religious tolerance. He practised different religious disciplines and came to the conviction that different paths could lead to the same Divine Reality. Bhagwat’s invocation of him therefore places his argument within a distinctly Hindu philosophical tradition in which religious plurality is not a weakness but an expression of a deeper unity.
That makes Bhagwat’s statement about Muslims more consequential than a routine appeal for communal harmony. He is effectively arguing that exclusion of Muslims is incompatible with Hindu identity itself.
In recalling his 2018 interaction with Muslims who asked whether the RSS’s concept of Hindu Rashtra meant they would be driven out of the country, Bhagwat said that this was not Hindutva. A Hindu who believes there should be no Muslims in Bharat, he argued, ceases to be a Hindu.
There is an extraordinary historical resonance here. More than a century ago, Swami Vivekananda took the universalism of his guru Ramakrishna and applied it to India’s national destiny.
In a celebrated 1898 letter to a Muslim friend, Mohammed Sarfaraz Husain, he wrote that religions were “varied expressions” of the Religion that is Oneness, and argued that India’s future depended upon a junction of Hinduism and Islam. His memorable formulation was that India needed “Vedanta brain and Islam body” and that from such a synthesis a “future perfect India” could arise.
Vivekananda was not suggesting that Hindus should surrender their identity to Islam or Muslims abandon theirs for Hinduism. He was arguing for a creative synthesis in which each tradition contributed what he believed the other lacked. He saw Vedanta as embodying spiritual universalism and Islam as demonstrating, in his assessment, a powerful sense of practical equality. His vision was therefore not uniformity but complementarity.
Placed beside Vivekananda’s words, Bhagwat’s New York intervention assumes a striking significance. The RSS chief is presenting Hindutva not as a doctrine of religious exclusion but as a philosophy rooted in India’s civilisational capacity to accommodate difference. And by reaching back to Ramakrishna, he is drawing upon the very stream of Hindu thought that culminated in Vivekananda’s call for a Hindu-Muslim synthesis.
That is a striking departure from the popular image of Hindutva as an exclusionary creed. For decades, critics have portrayed Hindutva as an ideology that places Hindu identity at the centre of the Indian nation and treats religious minorities, particularly Muslims, with suspicion. Bhagwat’s formulation turns that proposition on its head. He is saying, in effect, that a Hindu cannot be truly Hindu while denying another community its place in Bharat.
But is this a genuine transformation?
That is the question that will be answered when Bhagwat’s words are put into action. But Bhagwat’s words deserve to be taken seriously. Cynicism in such serious matters contributes nothing to the cause or the promise.
Yet words must eventually be tested against conduct. The RSS is the ideological parent of the BJP, which has repeatedly faced accusations of polarising politics and deepening divisions between majority and minority communities. Bhagwat himself has spoken of an inclusive Hindu Rashtra before, including in 2018. The New York speech therefore represents both a continuation of an existing strand in his thinking and, perhaps, a more emphatic attempt to place that strand at the centre of the RSS’s public image.
The timing cannot be ignored either. Bhagwat was speaking at a forum devoted to “One World, One Humanity”, while his New York appearance had attracted protests from critics who regard the RSS as exclusionary.
The question inevitably arises: Is this an ideological evolution or an exercise in damage control? Is the RSS genuinely reaching towards the minority communities, or is it attempting to present a softer, more universalist face to an increasingly sceptical world?
There is another possibility. Perhaps the change is real, but incomplete. Perhaps the RSS is attempting to reclaim a universalist strand of Hindu thought that has always existed but has not always dominated the political understanding of Hindutva. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda provide an intellectual and philosophical impetus for that transformation to universalism.
The real test, however, will not be New York. It will be India.
If Bhagwat’s words lead to sustained dialogue, greater minority confidence, opposition to communal polarisation and a genuinely inclusive understanding of Bharat, this could mark an important evolution in Hindutva. If Bhagwat’s speeches remain attractive words for an international audience while exclusionary rhetoric and polarising politics continue at home, they will look less like transformation and more like sophisticated damage control.
For now, Bhagwat has placed a generous proposition before the country: that Hindutva can accommodate Muslims, that Hinduism can embrace religious pluralism, and that excluding a fellow Indian is itself a betrayal of Hindu values.
By invoking Ramakrishna and echoing the universalist vision of Vivekananda, he has also raised the ideological stakes and the hopes of a nation, yearning for harmony and unity.
The question is no longer merely what Hindutva says about Muslims. It is whether Hindutva is prepared to become the inclusive philosophy Bhagwat now says it is.
Oswald Pereira, a senior journalist, has written ten books, including The Vijay Revolution: People Power & the Politics of Hope, Beyond Autobiography of a Yogi, The Newsroom Mafia, Chaddi Buddies, The Krishna-Christ Connexion, How to Create Miracles in Our Daily Life and Crime Patrol: The Most Thrilling Stories. Oswald is a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, and practises Kriya Yoga.