PV staff
Twenty-five South Asian community groups and allies sent an open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau on October 30, calling for listing of India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) movement and its affiliates in Canada as hate groups and far-right extremist entities.
The political arm of the RSS is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is the political party of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The community groups noted that a recent RCMP announcement revealed the “involvement of agents of the Government of India in serious criminal activity in Canada” and that the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies in Canada have investigated and charged a “significant number of individuals for their direct involvement in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence.” The groups say that the assassination last year of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar and the alleged involvement of by India’s Hindu nationalist government appears to be “the tip of the iceberg.”
Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports that the “allegations of an India campaign of transnational violence and harassment have emerged not only in Canada but in the US, Britain and Pakistan, where prominent Sikh activists say they have received threats to their lives.”
A report published in March 2023 has linked anti-Sikh violence in Canada to extremist groups like the RSS and its family of Hindu nationalist organizations, Sangh Parivar. “The presence of Sangh Parivar and RSS-related groups sadly but predictably overlaps with various incidents of Hindu supremacist rhetoric and actions in Canada,” states the report.
The open letter to Trudeau notes that India’s ruling BJP is the political arm of RSS, which the community groups describe as “a paramilitary organization which promotes ‘Hindutva’ or Hindu nationalism, inspired by European fascism.” The letter says that the founders of RSS explicitly espouse fascist ideology. “In the ten years of BJP rule in India we have seen blatant examples of this, as the government takes India toward their goal of making the country a Hindu ethno-nationalist state in which the 200 million Muslim population and other minority populations such as Sikh, Dalit, Adivasi (Indigenous peoples) and Christians are made second class citizens.”
Under Modi’s government, atrocities against minorities in India have been carried out with impunity and often with government complicity. Recent reports confirm a network of these extremist groups are targeting Sikhs and other Indian minority communities and activists in Canada and the US. There is ample evidence of an extensive network of Hindu nationalists and their affiliates in Canada and worldwide, and now there is evidence that this network in Canada is involved in a pattern of coercion, crime and deadly violence.
In their open letter, the groups call on the Canadian government to extend protection to South Asians and other minority communities at risk, investigate the human rights violations and influence of the RSS and its affiliates in Canada, and list the RSS and its affiliates in Canada as hate groups/far right extremist entities.
Signatories to the letter include Academics for Palestine – Concordia, Association des Femmes Musulmanes de Québec, Canadian Council of Indian Muslims (CCIM), Canadian Council of Muslim Women – Montreal, Canadian Forum for Human Rights and Democracy in India, Canadians Against Oppression and Persecution (CAOP), Canadians for Indian Democracy (CID), Canadians for Peace and Justice in Kashmir (CPJK), Centre sur l’asie du sud (CERAS), Critical Diasporic South Asian Feminisms, External Affairs – Students’ Society of McGill University, Femmes de diverses origines/Women of Diverse Origins, Hindus for Human Rights, International Council of Indian Muslims (ICIM), Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste, Justice For All Canada, Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU), Quebec Public Interest Research Group – Concordia (QPIRG), Rang Collective: Arts for Solidarity, Solidarity Across Borders, South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network – Canada (SADAN), South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC), South Asian Women’s Community Centre (SAWCC), Tadamon!, Teesri Duniya Theatre
[Photo: Indian PM Narendra Modi at RSS convention]
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