India, Globally: Problems With India’s Growth Model, Vishwa Vibhag of the RSS and the Modi-Adani Regime

The Narendra Modi government frequently posits India as a ‘Vishwaguru’ or world leader. How the world sees India is often lost in this branding exercise.

Outside India, global voices are monitoring and critiquing human rights violations in India and the rise of Hindutva. We present here monthly highlights of what a range of actors – from UN experts   and civil society groups to international media and parliamentarians of many countries – are saying about the state of India’s democracy.

Read the monthly roundup for August 1-31, 2026.

International media reports

Financial Times, UK, August 7

Michael Stott describes structural problems plaguing the Indian economy which underlay “the wave of youth malaise” behind the recent protests, reflecting “deeper problems with India’s growth model”. These range from unemployment or under-employment of India’s youth, hurried policies like demonetisation and GST, to extreme cronyism, and loss of investor confidence due to failed rule of law. 

Jacobin, US, August 12

Anuj Behal illustrates the implications of the Andhra Pradesh government’s decision to build a large Google AI data centre. Land is being forcibly acquired from Dalit and small landholding families “being paid a fraction of what the land is actually worth”. Water and electricity needs are akin to what a town or small city would need. Despite these demands, Behal reveals that data centres are being treated as “conventional construction projects” enabling state-level appraisal processes which cut down public consultation. 

BBC, UK, August 18

Zoya Mateen and Dilip Kumar Sharma report on the incarceration of Pranab Doley, an indigenous rights activist from Assam. Doley was arrested after joining a protest against a planned luxury hotel near Kaziranga National Park which threatens land rights and conservation in the area. The Assam government invoked a preventive detention law – the National Security Act – after Doley was granted bail, keeping him in custody.   

Indian diaspora and international civil society groups

South Asia Solidarity Group held an online panel discussion titled Students Fighting Fascism: What Lies Ahead? with writer Arundhati Roy, Neha Bora (President of the All-India Student’s Association of India, AISA), Danish Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) Joint Secretary) and Anant Gupta (journalist) on August 9, focussing on the recent student and youth-led protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. 

South Asia Solidarity Group held the second session of their webinar series, The Resistible Rise of Adani, to discuss “the deeper links between imperialism, global finance capital and the Modi-Adani regime” on August 15. The conversation “examines the processes through which Western financial institutions and investors are getting rich off Modi's economic model which is transferring India's public sector infrastructure into the private hands of Adani.” 

Forty diasporic and human rights groups, including South Asia Solidarity Group, UK, International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India, India Labour Solidarity UK, and South Asian Diaspora Action Collective, Canada, expressed solidarity with journalist Ravi Nair in a statement released on August 24. Among other demands, they jointly call for “an immediate end to the harassment of Ravi Nair by Indian courts and police and the withdrawal of cases against him”.

Savera released a report on August 26 revealing the existence of the ‘Vishwa Vibhag”, or overseas department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The overseas department is located in the US and responsible for running the RSS’ global operations.  Sunita Viswanath, Hindus for Human Rights, says this report “put[s] the paperwork on the table”. It draws on the “RSS’s own publications, internal bulletins, tax filings, event records and leadership biographies to reconstruct a command structure the organisation has never publicly acknowledged”.

Sixty-five organisations released a joint statement on August 27 denouncing the visit of Mohan Bhagwat, “supreme leader” of the RSS, two days before Bhagwat’s August 29 appearance at Madison Square Garden. Signatories include national civil rights groups, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Dalit organizations, and Asian American and South Asian organizations. They state the RSS spearheads a “tightly controlled far right network” in the US which “spreads anti-Muslim hate and kills civil rights legislation”. 

The Indian American Muslim Council, along with other faith and civil rights groups, held a demonstration at the entrance to Madison Square Garden on August 29, the day of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit with hundreds of protestors. They declared, “Hindutva not welcome in USA.” The rally followed an official body’s call to revoke Bhagwat’s visa and sanction RSS officials over religious-freedom concerns.

Hindus for Human Rights Action and SACRED Acts announced on August 31 that nearly 100 American political leaders have pledged to reject political donations from the RSS or any of its affiliates, dubbed the Nonviolence Pledge. Signatories include both Democrats and Republicans, both elected officials and candidates at the federal, state and local levels, across eight states. 

Parliamentarians and public officials advocate 

Members of Parliament (MPs) Heather McPherson and Jenny Kwan of the New Democratic Party (Canada) urged their government ministers for public safety, immigration and foreign Affairs to ban the RSS and deny Mohan Bhagwat entry to Canada for his planned visit in end August, in a letter dated August 7. They cited alleged hate speech, intimidation and violence against minorities. Kwan reiterated these concerns on X, “Govt must put public safety and rights of Canadians ahead of political interests. Anti-Sikh/Islamophobic hate speech has no place in Canada.”

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani opposed Mohan Bhagwat’s event in Madison Square Garden, saying, “I don’t support the rally,” while noting the city may lack jurisdiction over a private event. Mamdani described the RSS’s rise as “incredibly troubling” and “predicated on an exclusionary vision,” contrasting it with his understanding of India as “a pluralistic society” and “a secular Republic”. 

US democratic representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jim McGovern condemned RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's visit to New York, stating that the RSS promotes discrimination and violence against religious minorities in India. Tlaib tweeted that “Mohan Bhagwat and his hateful Hindu nationalist ideology are not welcome in our communities. His paramilitary organization the RSS is responsible for violent attacks and pogroms against Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, Christians, and more”. McGovern reiterated, “He should face accountability - not be given a platform to foment hatred.” 

On August 26, the eve of Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to New York, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) expressed deep concern about his visit to the US. Chair Asif Mahmood said, “religious freedom conditions in India continue to deteriorate as violence and incitement are frequently used to target religious minority communities. We urge the U.S. government to consider targeted sanctions against RSS members and Indian officials complicit in religious freedom violations, including revoking the visa issued to Mohan Bhagwat and making him ineligible for future entry into the United States.” 

Experts say

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued findings on India (and three other state parties) in its latest session, on August 26. The findings contain the committee’s main concerns and recommendations on the implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. While the committee highlighted some positive aspects, it also called on India to urgently address discrimination, hate speech and hate crimes against Dalits, Rohingya, Bengali-speaking Muslims, migrants and asylum-seekers, by protecting their rights and ceasing collective expulsions.  

India ranks second to last, at 176 out of 177 countries, in Yale’s 2026 Environmental Performance Index, with particular weaknesses in air quality and biodiversity. 

The Academic Freedom Index finds that academic freedom in India in 2025 is below that of the Emergency years between 1975 and 1977 (see 1900-2025 graphs below). The latest Index places India in the category of countries where “political attacks, legal reforms, and administrative interventions have gradually undermined the autonomy of higher education institutions”. India has declined in performance on all scores between 2015-2025.

Adam Tooze, a history professor at Columbia University and economics columnist at Foreign Policy, in conversation with FP deputy editor Cameron Abadi, discusses India’s growing unemployment crisis among young college graduates. About 40% are struggling to find work. Tooze and Abadi talk about the implications for India and the potential impact of the Cockroach Janata movement. 

In the run-up to Mohan Bhagwat’s visit to the US, Nadine Maenza, co-chair of the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Roundtable based in Washington D.C. and former Commissioner of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) urges Bhagwat to meet the USCIRF in person “to hear directly what they have documented, and respond to it in the same room rather than from a stage surrounded by well-wishers”. She also asks him to meet religious minorities in America. Maenza reiterates, “if Bhagwat wants Americans to believe the RSS stands for unity and global harmony, he should be willing to face those who have documented a very different record”. 

Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS and King’s India Institute (KCL), argues that the “expanding role of vigilante organisations aligned with the Sangh Parivar” is producing a Hindu nationalist “deeper state”. Thereby Hindutva vigilantism is not spontaneous but embedded in the long-term organisational project of the RSS. 

Democracy Now offers an update on the crackdown on youth protestors, including the targeting of Muslims, in conversation with Neha Bora, AISA President, and writer and artist Shuddhabrata Sengupta. Both commented on past protests and reiterated the severe persecution of Muslims particularly under the BJP government. 

Read the previous roundup here (and July’s special edition here).  

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