TORONTO - Canada shouldn't allow a movement out of India that "disseminates hate" and victimizes religious minority groups to entrench itself in this country, according to a report released Wednesday by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization of Canada, according to CBC News.
The report, called Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Network in Canada, documents the roots of the RSS movement in India and its extensive global reach, promoting far right views in various ways.
"It's one of the most influential organizations in the world," said Steven Zhou, a spokesperson for the National Council of Canadian Muslims. The council and the World Sikh Organization of Canada are trying to draw attention to what academics, including some in Canada, say they have witnessed for years — an increasing influence and threat from a movement closely linked to the government in New Delhi that they say promotes discrimination against minority religious groups at home and abroad.
"[The RSS] poses a major challenge to Canadian commitments to human rights, to tolerance and multiculturalism," said Zhou. According to the report, the RSS is at the core of a network of groups "seeking to remake India into a country run by and for Hindus first at the expense of the country's dizzying slew of minority groups."
Researchers say the ideology espoused by RSS is commonly known as Hindutva.
The Indian state has not always supported the RSS and Hindutva, banning it three times since its inception in 1925 as a paramilitary volunteer organization.
In an interview with CBC News in April 2022, Franco-Indian journalist Ingrid Therwath said the RSS network was founded on the principles of Italian facism, is ideologically similar to Nazism and was exported abroad by some in the Indian diaspora, said Therwath.
Therwath, who has been researching Hindu extremism for more than 20 years, said the first Canadian branch of the RSS's international organization was established in Toronto in the 1970s.
Human Rights Watch has also attributed religious and ethnic violence to groups that espouse the Hindutva ideology.
In December 2021, in the northern Indian city of Haridwar, Hindu religious leaders openly called for a genocide against Muslims at an event organized by right-wing and Hindutva-following leaders.
Violence against other minority groups like Sikhs and Dalits has increased in India in recent years, say academics. Dalits are members of a caste who do not belong to the social order, according to the caste system.
According to multiple media outlets, the RSS has an estimated membership of more than five million worldwide, including Modi and the majority of ministers in his government.
Academics have documented and noticed an increased attempt to challenge and silence criticism by supporters of the BJP and the RSS and Hindutva movement since the party came into power.
