From India to the US, the Islamo-leftist cabal is rattled by the New York visit of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. Khalistani terrorists and ‘liberal’ outfits like USCIRF to Democrat politicians, in the last few weeks the Islamo-leftist coterie has demanded US sanctions on the RSS, vilified Mohan Bhagwat and churned out Muslim victimhood propaganda. One of the key politicians to back this anti-RSS/Mohan Bhagwat campaign is Jim McGovern.
On 31st August, Massachusetts’s 2nd congressional district representative, Jim McGovern, published an X post amplifying a propaganda article authored by former USCIRF chairs Stephen Schneck and Nadine Maenza. Jim McGovern claimed that RSS contributed to making discrimination and violence against religious ‘minorities’ mainstream in India.
Demanding accountability from RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat, Jim McGovern wrote, “Former USCIRF Chairs @StephenSchneck & @NadineMaenza are right: The Hindu nationalist RSS helped make discrimination & violence against religious minorities mainstream in India. Its chief, Mohan Bhagwat, should face accountability—not be given a platform to foment hatred.”
Stephan Schneck, Nadine Maenza, and the anti-India USCIRF
Notably, Stephan Schneck and Nadine Maenza are notorious anti-India propagandists, who contributed to several dubious reports published by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
As USCIRF Commissioner, Stephan Schneck amplified the erstwhile Canadian Trudeau Government’s falsehoods that India was involved in transnational repression, particularly the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
In 2023, Schneck said that India’s purported part “in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada and the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in the United States was deeply troubling” in 2023. He added, “We call on the Biden administration to acknowledge the Indian government’s perpetration of particularly severe religious freedom violations and designate it as a country of particular concern (CPC).”
Later, Canada admitted that it had “no evidence” against India or the Indian government in the killing of Khalistani terrorist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Similarly, Nadine Maenza, the former Vice Chair of the USCIRF, has also demonstrated her anti-India leanings through her work during her time in the USCIRF and afterwards. Maenza had aggressively pushed for designation of India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ (CPC) during her vice chairship in the USCIRF.
During her tenure, Islamist lobbying against India was rampant. Maenza regularly attended anti-India and anti-Hindu events organised by the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC).
The Indian American Muslim Council is reported to have links with the banned Islamic terror outfit, Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). Besides, the Indian American Muslim Council has ties with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) through its founder Shaik Ubaid. The IAMC is a Jamaat-e-Islami-backed lobbyist organisation claiming to be a rights advocacy group.
The IAMC is also accused of collaborating with and even paying money to various groups in the USA to get India blacklisted by the USCIRF. OpIndia has reported on how the IAMC frequently publishes disinformation to peddle Muslim victimhood propaganda against India. The Indian government slapped the IAMC with the UAPA in 2021.
Predictably, the IAMC also backed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani during his mayoral candidacy. Mamdani, a notorious Hinduphobe, had recently lamented not having the authority to cancel the RSS Chief’s event in the city.
During Nadine Maenza’s tenure as USCIRF Vice Chair, the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Roundtable, an informal alliance of NGOs working closely with the USCIRF, became a hub of anti-India elements.
The IRF Roundtable’s India Working Group was headed by IAMC Advocacy Director Ajit Sahi, HfHR’s Raju Rajagopal, and FIACONA’s John Prabhudoss.
Notably, HfHR was formed in the year 2019 by two Islamist advocacy groups: the IAMC and the Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI). The three organisations had formed another outfit called the Alliance for Justice and Accountability (AJA), which, alongside IAMC, had been at the forefront of leading demonstrations against the visit of PM Modi to Houston on September 22, 2019. HfHR ran Facebook ads to promote previous USCIRF reports.
HfHR chief Sunita Vishwanath, who was pictured alongside Rahul Gandhi, had tried to create hysteria and panic among Indian Muslims about the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
Meanwhile, FIACONA, or the Federation of Indian Christian Organizations in North America, has also been involved in fabricating data on atrocities on Indian Christians and is based in the United States. Founded by one John Prabhudoss, the factually incorrect annual reports by FIACONA, riddled with data duplication and other anomalies, have been cited in several news articles to suggest the increasing marginalisation of the Indian Christian community.
Interestingly, in 2022, Nadine Maenza was awarded by Justice for All for “Advocacy for all, especially Muslims.”
Notably, Justice For All is a Chicago-based NGO, which was recently at the forefront of the anti-RSS and Mohan Bhagwat campaign in the US. The Islamist outfit founded by Pakistani-origin Abdul Malik Mujahid, who had links to the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, even launched an online campaign that urged people to put pressure on the US government to bar Bhagwat from entering the United States.
It is unsurprising that the USCIRF, a US bipartisan body dominated by explicitly anti-India elements, churns out propaganda reports every year, pushing the same ‘Hindu nationalism’, ‘democracy under threat’, ‘Muslim persecution’ bogey, to malign the Modi government, the RSS, and India’s global reputation.
More recently, the USCIRF, helmed by a Pakistan-born American Islamist, Asif Mahmood, actively contributed to the sinister Islamo-leftist campaign in the US to stop RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat’s Madison Square event.
Jim McGovern: The US politician consistently involved in anti-India activism
Representing Massachusetts’s 2nd congressional district, James Patrick McGovern, commonly known as Jim McGovern, is more invested in championing Islamo-leftist causes related to India than his own country. McGovern has long been spewing venom against the Modi government and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that violates the limits of constructive criticism. McGovern has on multiple occasions claimed that human rights, religious freedom, and democracy are deteriorating under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership.
McGovern’s CAA disinformation
In January 2022, Jim McGovern, who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, addressed a Special Congressional Briefing called to commemorate India’s 73rd Republic Day.
Jim McGovern claimed that the Modi government has been promoting ‘Hindu nationalist’ policies even as no welfare schemes or any initiative has been launched in over a decade of PM Modi’s government, which exclusively benefits Hindus.
McGovern also claimed that religious freedom and human rights were backsliding. He also amplified the false and alarmist narrative peddled by the Indian Islamo-leftists that the Citizenship Amendment Act, when combined with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) proposal, would institutionalise discrimination against Muslims. This briefing was attended by Hamid Ansari, the former Vice President of India.
Amusingly, this briefing was organised by a coalition of 17 US-based ‘rights’ organisations, including IAMC, HfHr, Sikh Coalition, among others. Most of these organisations have earned notoriety by peddling anti-Hindu and anti-India narratives and indulging in lobbying activities in the US to undermine American Hindus.
“For the first time in 2019, a law was passed that links citizenship to religious identity. There is every reason to fear that this change, combined with the proposal for a National Register of Citizens institutionalizes discrimination against Muslims,” McGovern said.
Relying on the Muslim victimhood propaganda fed by the IAMC and other Islamo-leftist outfits, McGovern peddled alarmist disinformation against the CAA, even as the CAA had a connection with the NRC and had nothing to do with Indian Muslims.
Jim McGovern lied about the FCRA license cancellation of a Christian organisation founded by soul harvester ‘Mother’ Teresa, backed USCIRF recommendation to label India as ‘Country of Particular Concern’
McGovern had also framed the Modi government’s decision to refuse renewal of the foreign-funding license for the Missionaries of Charity, the Christian organisation founded by ‘Mother’ Teresa, as “discrimination against Christians”.
This blatant lie came even though the denial of FCRA license renewal was not an act of discrimination but because the organisation failed to submit some necessary documents. Within days of submitting complete documents, the license was restored.
Backing the USCIRF recommendation for designating India as a “Country of Particular Concern”, McGovern asserted, “The concern about discrimination based on religious identity [was] so great that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that India be designated a Country of Particular Concern.”
McGovern criticised India’s UAPA law, but never demanded relaxation of anti-terrorism laws in the US
Jim McGovern also criticised the UAPA and other strict anti-terrorism laws enacted by the Modi government, falsely claiming that such laws are ‘misused’ to target journalists, activists, attorneys, and other civilians.
“This kind of misguided anti-terrorism legislation is not the sign of a healthy democracy. We cannot be silent when measures are taken that discriminate against whole populations or when inflammatory language is used that could incite violence against those populations,” McGovern said in condemnation of the so-called ‘targeting of journalists, activists and other dissenters, under the UAPA and other such laws.
McGovern’s comments came in complete neglect of the fact that journalists, activists, and any civilian, for that matter, are not immune to prosecution over anti-national activities. Those booked under the UAPA and other stringent provisions were not targeted for their journalistic work or activism but for alleged involvement in activities jeopardising India’s national security and/or territorial integrity.
Jim McGovern is a blue-eyed boy of the IAMC and extended Islamo-leftist coterie
In 2016, the IAMC testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Washington, DC, at the hearing titled ‘Challenges & Opportunities: The Advancement of Human Rights in India.’ McGovern echoed the IAMC’s propaganda about discrimination against religious ‘minorities’. McGovern, however, never questioned IAMC’s own lies with the banned Islamic terrorist outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and LeT ties.
McGovern cried hoarse over abrogation of Article 370 and 35A
Back in 2019, when the Modi government repealed Article 370 and 35A, discontinuing Jammu and Kashmir’s “special status”, McGovern claimed that India was indulging in “massive human rights violations by detaining politicians, restricting ground access to journalists, and using ‘brute force’ against protestors.”
McGovern was joined by Jamie Raskin, Jan Schakowsky, and Lloyd Doggett in co-sponsoring a House resolution “Urging the Republic of India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir as swiftly as possible and preserve religious freedom for all residents.”
Jim McGovern advocated for designating India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’
In June 2025, the IAMC-founded HfHR group member Ria Chakrabarty advocated for designating India as a Country of Particular Concern for religious freedom. At that time, Jim McGovern came out in support of Khalistani separatist terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannu, who repeatedly threatened violent attacks against India. He claimed that India orchestrates ‘transnational repression’. The Democrat leader made mention of the anti-India activities of Khalistanis and projected the situation as India ‘persecuting’ Sikhs.
McGovern signed letter demanding ‘fair trial’ for 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots accused Umar Khalid
In January 2026, 8 US lawmakers signed a letter to the Indian government demanding bail and a free trial for Umar Khalid, the accused mastermind of the 2020 anti-Hindu Delhi Riots. Jim McGovern was a signatory of this trashy letter alongside rabid anti-India Islamist Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Jim McGovern, Jamie Raskin, Chris Van Hollen, Peter Welch, Jan Schakowsky, and Lloyd Doggett.
While Umar Khalid’s case is sub judice, the US lawmakers gave their own verdict on Khalid, declaring him innocent. They demanded that Umar Khalid be released from jail. They claimed that the anti-CAA protests were ‘peaceful’ and even painted Muslims as the victims of the anti-Hindu riots in 2020.
Jim McGovern even called the CAA, the provision to grant citizenship to persecuted minorities from Islamic or Muslim-majority neighbouring countries, “fundamentally discriminatory” merely because the law excludes Muslims. McGovern, however, failed to explain how Muslims can be persecuted in Islamic countries for being Muslims.
The letter amplified the Indian Islamo-leftist propaganda that Umar Khalid has been deliberately stuffed in jail without a trial for years. However, Contrary to the false narrative peddled by Islamo-leftists to garner support and sympathy for Umar Khalid, OpIndia has reported earlier that out of the 14 adjournments in 2023 and 2024, 7 delays and adjournments were sought by Umar Khalid himself. It therefore becomes evident that the withdrawal was certainly not due to the famed “delay” in the hearing. While the Islamo-leftists in India and abroad continue to cry ‘injustice’, it is the alleged failed forum shopping attempts of the accused’s lawyer that have Khalid rotting in jail for so long.
Clearly, Jim McGovern is a part of the global Islamo-leftist coterie actively pushing anti-India narratives and contributing to the manoeuvers to tarnish India’s image by relying on fake Muslim victimhood propaganda, ‘minorities under threat’ bogey, and turning a blind eye to the religious hate-driven anti-Hindu crimes.
