“Atul Keshap’s inexplicable whitewashing of the RSS demands a rapid and relentless interrogation of the Biden administration and its intentions towards the persecuted peoples of India.”
“Speakers variously termed the RSS as supremacist, militant, and violent, arguing that Atul Keshap’s meeting legitimizes the outfit, which they compared to everything from ISIS to the Taliban to the Ku Klux Klan and even the Nazis.”
“The Biden administration, and particularly Secretary of State Antony Blinken, must answer for Atul Keshap’s meeting, explain its purpose, and transparently disclose its views about the RSS and its Hindu nationalist agenda.”
“‘Keshap has got to go,’ declared the protestors as they gathered outside the office of US Congressman Ami Bera…. Marching through the corridor to stand outside Bera’s office, they displayed signs reading: ‘Atul Keshap, your RSS visit stained your hands with the blood of Indian minorities.'”
“The way in which this was done, where it came across as a photo-op, it was public, it platformed and promoted this fascist (and many call it ‘terrorist’) organization, and appeared to legitimize, normalize, and whitewash them — that’s what’s deeply concerning.”
“We should focus on things like, for instance, the US Chargé d’Affaires, Atul Keshap — acting ambassador — meeting with the head of the RSS,” said Sifton. Comparing Keshap’s meeting with the RSS to the US Ambassador to Germany in 1933 attending a Nazi rally at Nuremberg, he noted that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and ‘its ideological backbone, the RSS’ are ‘essentially taking over’ India and ‘making it a one-party state.’”
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