The parade was organized by East York Toronto Canada Day Festival, and the festivities ended with a fireworks show presented by the City of Toronto. Ms. Olivia Chow, mayor of Toronto, inaugurated the parade and was part of the march. We publish here a letter written to Olivia Chow by Canadians for Human Rights and Democracy in India (CFHRDI).
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September 17, 2025
Ms. Olivia Chow
Mayor, Toronto
Dear Ms. Chow,
HINDU FASCISTS MARCH IN 2025 CANADA DAY PARADE IN THE GUISE OF ‘ORDINARY’ INDO-CANADIANS
We write to register our deep concern about the inclusion of members of the HSS (Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh) in the Canada Day Parade in East York on July 1, 2025.
The HSS is the overseas wing of the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), a well-documented fascist organization in India, with historic links to Italian fascism and Nazism. A member of the RSS assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948. This year, 2025, the RSS is marking its 100th anniversary with increased programming in India and abroad.
We append a link to photographs of the HSS contingent in the Canada Day parade in Toronto. Of note is their militaristic posturing with lathis (big sticks), as they do in India to intimidate minority communities.
Seeing the HSS in the Canada parade had a chilling effect on South Asians from minority communities like Muslims, Sikhs, and groups subordinated in the caste system. These are communities that historically have felt the blunt end of RSS violence. In fact, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) have called on the Canadian government to ban the RSS. A report published in 2023 by the NCCM and the World Sikh Organization (WSO) states: “Canadian leaders cannot allow individuals and organizations that push a Hindutva vision of India—a supremacist vision that discriminates against minorities and has led to mass bloodshed—to entrench themselves in this country, perpetuate their supremacist ideologies, and radicalize relations between large faith-based communities. We have seen what such entrenchment has led to in India, where RSS-linked groups, militias, and mobs have compiled a disturbing list of pogroms and crimes against India’s minorities and various voices who openly oppose the vision of an intolerant India.” (NCCM-WSO Report)
For a little more context, the RSS are the ‘shock troops’ of a network of organizations committed to Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism, a narrow and exclusionary interpretation of Hinduism that runs counter to the constitutional commitment to a pluralist and secular India. Under the BJP—the political party of the Hindutva network—in power since 2014, here has been a sharp escalation in anti-Muslim violence and violence against Indigenous populations, Christians, and Dalits—lynching, house demolition, arbitrary arrest and detention— carried out by state and non-state actors with complete impunity.
One element of the Hindutva ideology is to uphold and protect the caste system, a socially engineered hierarchy that affords immense privilege to dominant castes and perpetrates extreme exploitation, violence, and bigotry against those deemed to belong to subordinate castes. That the Hindutva forces are well-implanted in Canada can be seen in the pushback they orchestrated against the successful campaign to get the Toronto District School Board to recognize caste as a form of discrimination. To obfuscate their agenda of hatred and domination and confuse people, they used human rights language to accuse those opposed to them of 'Hinduphobia'.
The Hindutva movement with all its allied organizations, already strong in the USA, is striving energetically to put down roots in Canada to gain legitimacy for its exclusionary and violent ideology. While it is understandable that organizers of the parade who are not familiar with the RSS, their history, and the current role they play in India’s polity had the wool pulled over their eyes, it is urgent that all those concerned with stopping the propagation of hate and scapegoating of marginalized communities take note and ensure that the HSS, their affiliates, and allied groupings do not hijack public space and public events to garner legitimacy for their objectives. All sectors of government in Canada—municipal, provincial, federal—as well as civil society must be informed and stay vigilant, lest we inadvertently support forces who have a genocidal agenda.
Due diligence must be exercised to vet organizations that seek to participate in public events, to ensure that this does not happen again.
Sincerely,
Canadians for Human Rights and Democracy in India (CFHRDI)
Canada Day Parade 2025 East York Event Photos and Reports
CP 24 Report – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diAFBPfAlzY
Full Video of the HSS parade – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkWERjMNqEE&t=1389s
Timestamp in the video marked as “Show” starting at 21:20 mins in the video.
The RSS symbols are clear on the videos their organisations posted: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLnerApOIOW/;
Friends of RSS: https://x.com/friendsofrss/status/1941163736036974904)
HSS News release : https://nriglobe.com/news/global-nri-news/hss-canada-day-parade-2025-nri-community-shines-in-toronto/
Related References:
"Bhagwa Dhwaj" - Joint Letter Against Saffron Flag On Parliament Hill, Nov 2022. https://phm-na.org/2022/11/joint-letter-against-saffron-flag-on-parliament-hill/
RSS - Youth Hostels, Blood Banks, Yoga: How One Far-Right Network Spread Across the World
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/opinion/india-far-right-rss-hindu.html?searchResultPosition=1