Asif Mahmood

Indian secularism is gone. Its cremation took place at the Red Fort on August 15. Narendra Modi stood there, marking Independence Day, and for the first time in twelve years he praised the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. That was not a slip. It was the open declaration of a Hindu state.

The RSS is not an NGO. It is not a cultural club. It is an organization built on hate. Its ideology shaped Nathuram Godse, the man who killed Gandhi. Its men have been linked to pogroms and bombings for decades. In Gujarat in 2002, mobs armed with swords and petrol slaughtered Muslims while Modi was chief minister, and the Sangh’s network stood behind them. In 2007, a bomb tore through the Sufi shrine of Ajmer Sharif—three RSS men were convicted and sentenced to life. In 2008, Swami Aseemanand, tied to the RSS, confessed to planting bombs in the Mecca Masjid and on the Samjhauta Express, attacks that killed dozens of Muslims. In Delhi in 2020, as mosques burned and Muslim homes were looted, men from Sangh affiliates were arrested for murder and rioting. In Kerala, courts handed life terms to RSS members for killing the president of a mosque committee. Even the 1984 anti-Sikh riots carried Sangh names in police records. This is the real face of the group Modi praised from the Red Fort.

These are not isolated crimes. They show the daily life of India’s minorities. Muslims lynched over beef. Mosques bulldozed. Neighborhoods walled off. Christians harassed under fake charges of conversion. Sikhs and Dalits told they do not belong. Courts have convicted RSS men. Victims have testified. Commissions have indicted them. Yet the prime minister chose to glorify the group.

The irony is cruel. The RSS never fought for India’s freedom. Its leaders stayed away from the Quit India Movement. They........

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