Mumbai: A Change.org petition demanding US Consul General, Mumbai David Ranz’s ouster for visiting the RSS Headquarters in Nagpur is being circulated online. The CG paid homage to the first Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Chief by placing flowers at KB Hedgewar statue’s feet. The petition was started by South Asia analyst and author Pieter Friedrich, who called for President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to remove the envoy.
The Indian Express quoted Nagpur RSS President Rajesha Loya when he stated that Ranz was curious learn how the Sangh undertakes volunteering efforts and build up the characters of its cadres.
Despite the Central Intelligence Agency declaring RSS umbrella units like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal as “religious militant organisations,” Ranz paid his respects to an early stalwart of those factions’ parent group. The petition points out the problematic nature of Ranz’s actions by stating the following:
“Ranz’s visit condones the RSS paramilitary as well as its ideological and institutional inspiration by European fascist movements like those of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. Its earliest leaders praised Nazi racial policies and said that Indian Muslims should be treated like German Jews. They demanded that India be declared a Hindu nation and thought that non-Hindus were traitors.”
Thus far, the petition has gained more than 18,000 signatures and it continues to amass more.
Speaking to a Washington DC-based online diaspora news outlet, American Bazaar Online, Friedrich ruled out the possibility of Ranz’s ignorance regarding the RSS’s history before and after India’s independence in1947.
That too, seeing as how the CG is deemed as an expert on South Asia.