Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Chief Mohan Bhagwat on 30 August called on religious leaders gathered in New York to stop waiting for global summits to deliver change and instead build grassroots models of unity and selfless service in their own communities. Speaking at the 'One World, One Humanity' programme, Bhagwat argued that durable global transformation can only be achieved when interfaith resolve is translated into local, visible action.

The Core Message: Start at Home

Bhagwat urged every participant to carry their collective commitment back to their home countries and convert it into concrete community initiatives. 'Whatever we decide to do today, we should start in our own country and create pockets of such selfless service, such atmosphere of unity,' he said. He stressed that successful local projects must then be networked across regions and nations to create a broader shift in social atmosphere.

'We should create at our own place the models of the world we want,' Bhagwat said, adding, 'And we should connect. We should keep on this dialogue.' The emphasis on sustained, multi-level engagement marked a departure from the typical conference-resolution format that rarely outlasts the event itself.

Dialogue Must Reach Districts and Blocks

The RSS Chief argued that interfaith engagement had so far remained confined to senior religious figures and international forums. He called for that dialogue to be pushed down to provinces, districts, and administrative blocks. 'This dialogue also we should take to the lower level,' he said. 'If we start at this level and start instructing our own people and then try to have this dialogue in all the countries, in the provinces of those countries, district level, block level, if you go like that, then the atmosphere will change,' he added.

RSS Experience With Interfaith Dialogue in India

Bhagwat drew on the RSS's own track record to illustrate that patience was indispensable. He noted that the organisation had been conducting structured dialogue with Muslim and Christian communities in India since his address in Delhi in 2018, and that the engagement had continued despite frustration over slow results. 'So we started that dialogue. Mainly with Muslims and Christians of Bharat,' he said. 'And step by step we are going ahead.'

He acknowledged that some participants had grown impatient, quoting them as saying: 'We have sat for seven times, nothing has happened.' His response, he said, was: 'Okay, continuously, something will happen.' The candid admission of slow progress was notable coming from the head of one of the world's largest volunteer organisations.

Habit, Not Just Understanding, Is the Goal

Bhagwat argued that intellectual acceptance of values such as goodness and love was insufficient on its own. Behaviour change, he said, required those values to become deeply ingrained habits capable of resisting the pull of material gain, power, and status. 'We have to instill the practice,' he said. 'Habit should be changed so radically and new habit should be so strong that it should fight this deflection of the lure of material happiness.'

He closed with a call for tireless perseverance: 'We have to add one more resolve there. That we will pursue this code untiringly for the time it takes.'

About Mohan Bhagwat and the RSS

Mohan Bhagwat has served as Sarsanghchalak (Chief) of the RSS since 2009, holding the organisation's highest office and guiding its ideological and organisational direction. The RSS was founded in Nagpur in 1925 by K.B. Hedgewar and completed its centenary year in 2025. The New York address is among Bhagwat's most prominent recent international appearances and signals the RSS's growing engagement with global interfaith platforms.