An interview with a powerful Hindu nationalist

0:00Every day, NPR reports stories that keep you informed without fear or favor. That's the promise of a free press and a democracy. It's in the First Amendment. I'm Tom Bowman, and I cover the Pentagon for NPR. Stand up for independent news coverage today by donating early for Public Media Giving Days, coming up on May 1st and 2nd. Give now at donate.npr.org. Today on State of the World, an interview with a powerful Hindu nationalist.

0:33You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The largest far-right group in the world is in India. And that group forms the basis of the party that rules the world's most populous country. And India has been led for the past decade by one of this group's members, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Recently, NPR's Rob Schmitz got a rare chance to interview a top leader of the group. Here's Rob. That group is an all-male Hindu nationalist organization called the Rashtriya Swayam Zivaksanga, better known by its acronym, the RSS.

1:16You're listening to RSS followers in matching khaki pants, white shirts, and black hats pledging their allegiance to the Hindu motherland on the organization's 100th anniversary last year. The RSS has millions of members. Its branches maintain deep connections to many of India's key political and cultural institutions. It provides social services, and it emphasizes military discipline to unify its members. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a former member, and his political party is under this group's umbrella.

1:50The group's influence is felt across much of India, and its goal is to effectively reverse the vision that the country's founding fathers had of a secular India, a home of people with many faiths. Some of its members and those of some of its sister organizations have been implicated in or accused of instigating attacks against India's Muslim and Christian minorities. In 1948, a former member of the group assassinated one of the most famous Indians in history. Mahatma Gandhi is dead. When Ver Strong's crowded Delhi's burner house, urging him to break his last fast, few imagined an assassin would strike near this spot 11 days later.

2:27The leaders of this movement rarely talk to the Western press, which is why I was surprised when a lobbyist representing one of those leaders asked to set up an interview. And Mr. General Secretary, welcome and thank you for reaching out to us. The General Secretary of the RSS, more or less the second in command of the organization, is Dr. Treya Hosabale. He was in Washington, D.C. for a talk at the conservative think tank, the Hudson Institute. I met him in their offices. I wanted to know why this far-right Hindu movement was in the U.S. Capitol and why Hosabale wanted to talk to the press. to address to the wider audience about my organization and also about the role that India can play at this critical juncture in the world.

3:07Hosabale and his staff told me they were in Washington to introduce a different version of the RSS to Americans, one that emphasized culture, civic responsibility, and family values instead of the controversial history that has shadowed the organization since its inception. We are not establishing newly any Hindu nation. It is only making them realize that our civilization roots are Hindus. So what you're saying is you're emphasizing the fact that it is a Hindu nation, right? Yeah, it is. There are more than 180 million Muslims and around 30 million Christians in India. Where do they fit in the RSS's vision for India?

3:44They are part and parcel of our nation and society. They are very much citizens as myself. And their forefathers have also been the people from India. Muslims in India have told our correspondents in the past that they worry that the RSS wants to erase Muslim history and identity and that Muslim citizens are oftentimes called invaders inside of their own country. What do you say to that? Invasion on India is a fact of history. Invasion by the Mughals. Hosub Ali reaches back hundreds of years to make his point here. Successive incursions by Muslim rulers from Central Asia that culminated in the invasion of the Islamic Mughal Empire, which ruled India from the 16th to the 19th century.

4:29We do not consider that the present-day Muslims are invaders. The present-day Muslims and their forefathers are of Indian origin. Majority of them, they are not the inheritors of the invasion. But India was invaded. That is true. Are you saying then that Muslim citizens of today are not referred to as invaders? Not at all. They are part and parcel of our Indian society. So there's a reason that I keep asking him this. Members of Hindu nationalist groups that are affiliated with the RSS have been accused of attacking fellow Indian citizens who belong to different faiths. From what I understand, your organization has been criticized as religious extremists.

5:12Members of the RSS and its affiliate organizations have carried out attacks on other religious groups. What do you say to this criticism of the RSS? RSS is not an extremist organization. We are not an underground organization. We are an open organization. You're a grassroots organization. Yeah, we are a grassroots organization and we are seen every day. we are not doing any activity behind the curtain. India's opposition parties and others have accused the RSS of bombings allegedly targeting the country's Muslims in at least 10 instances. The RSS denies involvement in all of them and was never formally charged in any of these cases.

5:52I brought with me some details of those allegations. November of 2003, two bombs killed one person, injured 34 others at a mosque in Parbani. Another such bombing killed 68 on a train running between India and Pakistan. In September of 2008, a bomb linked to the RSS exploded in Malagaun, in an area where Muslims were breaking the Ramadan fast, killing six that injured 101 people. Are you saying that the RSS... All those incidents have been tried in the court of law and have been disproved that no RSS member was in word. The court of law has given the verdict. Were these RSS members? No RSS member was punished.

6:36But were the perpetrators RSS members? No, no such thing. Some of the people were arrested by the police on the accusation of involvement in this accident. But none of them was proved to be a culprit and no one was punished. There were bomb blasts in which people associated with the RSS were implicated. Sushant Singh is a journalist, a lecturer in South Asia Studies at Yale, and frequently writes about Hindu nationalism. We spoke with him after Hosomaleh and I sat down. He's of course talking to an American audience and to a platform like yours, where if he were to express his real views or what the RSS really stands for, that would portray him and the RSS in a very bad light.

7:27Singh says RSS members were linked to those bombings, but the organization itself has never been charged. He also said Hindu nationalist violence goes beyond terrorism. It includes more recent riots and attacks on religious sites. There have been concerns in Washington, too. In March, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, a federal agency under the legislative branch, recommended the government impose targeted sanctions on several Indian groups, including the RSS. for what they write is their responsibility and tolerance of severe violations of religious freedom. This is a large population of Muslims.

8:02This is like half of the population of the United States. Are they being treated by members of your group as they are part and parcel of your group? That's what I have repeatedly said. And we identified them as civilizationally, culturally, Hindus. Wait, you regard them civilizationally as Hindus? Yes, they are. If you consider Hindu from the religious angle, there is no one Hindu religion. Right. Okay. And what you're saying is it's a civilization or it's a culture. It's a way of life. Right. The Supreme Court of India has observed that Hindu is a way of life. Do you think Muslims would agree with your statement?

8:41Many of them are agreeing. None of this has stopped the RSS from cementing itself as a force in Indian civic life. The fact is that it is a political organization. Singh, the lecturer at Yale, says the RSS wields a lot of power on the ground in India. Mr. Modi, who is the prime minister of the country, grew up in the RSS. He was a volunteer in the RSS. He was an office leader of the RSS before he was sent to the BJP, which is the ruling party in India. The RSS says it's not a political organization, but Hosobali told me he has immense faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he navigates the global stage.

9:14But what about the other players on that stage? People like President Trump, who has had an on-again, off-again relationship with Modi as Trump courted the prime minister and imposed tariffs on his country. I asked Hossabali how he would characterize the pair's relationship. That depends on how the president of America wants his relationship with India, which is the largest democracy, an ancient nation. If Americans and president of America, they want to have the best of relations, India is always reciprocated. But on the morning I spoke to Hosabale, President Trump reposted a video clip that called China and India hellholes.

9:54I'm curious to know your reaction to this. Indians have contributed in the United States. They have always been law-abiding citizens. And their allegiance has always been of high order. It is not questionable. And if somebody is making such a statement, he has not understood Indians. The general secretary and his staff told us he took some meetings in Washington. The only person he named was House Foreign Affairs Chief Brian Mast. No Trump administration officials. NPR reached out to Congressman Mast about those meetings. We haven't heard back. India has become the world's most populous country.

10:28Its economy has grown by 7 % last year. Its ambitions are growing too. And what's clear from our meeting with Jose Bale is that he wants the RSS to help lead the way. That's NPR's Rob Schmitz.

10:46And that's The State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.