Don’t Insult Our Flag: Rijiju’s Warning After Tiranga Tied to a Foot Outside Madison Square Garden
Union Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday drew a hard line after videos from New York showed protesters allegedly treating the Indian national flag as a prop. One clip circulating online appears to show a demonstrator tying the tricolour around his foot and posing for cameras. Another shows people pulling a second flag and tearing it while dancing and cheering. The scenes were filmed outside Madison Square Garden on Saturday, 29 August, while Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat addressed a large diaspora gathering inside.
Rijiju’s response was short and pointed. Posting the footage on X, he wrote: “We always said, you have freedom to criticize RSS, BJP or Govt. but don’t abuse our nation. Listen carefully.. Don’t insult our flag and my country. It will cost you very dearly.” In Hindi he added the same warning: do not insult the flag or the country; it will prove very expensive.
That distinction is the political core of his statement. Criticism of the RSS, the Bharatiya Janata Party or the Union government, he argued, is fair game. Insulting India and its flag is not. The message was aimed less at New York street politics than at a familiar pattern: overseas protests that begin as opposition to a leader or organisation and end with the national flag being dragged, torn or used as a stage prop.
What happened outside the Garden
Bhagwat was in New York for the “Universal Oneness Celebration,” organised by American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue (AHEAD) at Madison Square Garden’s Infosys Theatre. Organisers described an audience of more than 5,000 to 6,000 people drawn from dozens of US states, hundreds of cities, student groups and community organisations, along with interfaith speakers. Inside, Bhagwat spoke of unity in diversity as part of India’s “DNA,” invoked Swami Vivekananda on every nation’s mission, and told the diaspora to remain loyal to their karmabhumi — the country where they live and work. He also said a Hindu who believes Muslims should be driven out of India “will not remain a Hindu.”
Outside, the picture was different. Protesters gathered to oppose Bhagwat’s presence. Indian media reports linked the flag videos to supporters of Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), an organisation the Government of India has designated as a terrorist group. Reports said Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is also designated a terrorist by India, had called days earlier for supporters to assemble at the venue. Demonstrators carried banners and posters targeting the RSS and the Indian government, raised pro-Khalistan and anti-India slogans, and placed a garland of shoes around a cutout of Bhagwat.
The protest was not only an SFJ event. Sikh groups on the US East Coast, including organisations listed by community coordinators such as the Sikh Coordination Committee East Coast, also turned out and described the demonstration as a stand on minority rights and self-determination. A separate coalition involving the Indian American Muslim Council and other civil rights and interfaith groups had already campaigned against the programme, calling it a platform for Hindutva. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly opposed the event while saying the city likely lacked the power to cancel a private booking. The controversy around Bhagwat’s visit had been building all week.
Videos from the street therefore sit inside a crowded story: a high-profile RSS outreach event in one of America’s most famous arenas, a multi-group protest against it, and a smaller set of images that, if authentic as presented, turn political anger into desecration of a national symbol.
Why the flag changes the argument
In India, the national flag is not treated as ordinary cloth. The Flag Code and public sentiment treat the tricolour as a symbol of the Republic, not of any party. Tying it to a foot or ripping it apart is read as an insult to the country, not merely a jab at the RSS or the current government. That is why Rijiju’s wording matters. He did not defend Bhagwat’s speech line by line. He did not claim protesters had no right to oppose the RSS. He said the nation and the flag are off-limits.
Similar images have appeared before at Khalistan-linked events, including referendum rallies in Canada in 2023 and 2024, according to Indian reporting. Each time the cycle is the same. Videos travel faster than verification. Officials in New Delhi condemn the act. Supporters of the protest say they are targeting a political project, not 1.4 billion people. Critics reply that once the flag is under a shoe or in torn pieces, the distinction collapses.
There is also a legal and diplomatic layer. SFJ is banned in India. Pannun faces Indian terrorism-related designations. The National Investigation Agency was reported to be looking at the New York incident. What any of that means in a US courtroom is another matter. American law protects a wide range of political speech and protest, including speech that is deeply offensive to another country. Indian officials have long argued that protection should not become a shield for groups New Delhi considers extremist. Rijiju’s “it will cost you dearly” leaves the form of that cost unstated — political isolation, legal action at home, diplomatic pressure, or simply public backlash among the Indian diaspora — but the intent is unmistakable.
Two stages, two Indias
The contrast between the hall and the pavement is what makes the episode so combustible. On stage, Bhagwat presented the RSS to an American audience as a civilisational organisation talking about oneness, service and the idea that diversity need not destroy a shared identity. He told Indian-Americans to honour the United States as their place of work and life. Critics of the RSS reject that framing. They point to the organisation’s history, its influence over Indian politics, and allegations of majoritarian pressure on Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Sikhs. That debate is old. It will not be settled by one evening in Manhattan.
What is newer is how quickly diaspora politics now plays out in iconic Western venues. Madison Square Garden is not a community hall in New Jersey. It is a global stage. A speech there is meant to project legitimacy. A protest there is meant to deny it. When the Indian flag enters that contest as an object to be tied, torn or danced over, the argument stops being only about Bhagwat or Hindutva. It becomes about whether opposition to a government or an ideology is allowed to shade into contempt for the country itself.
That is the line Indian ministers have tried to hold for years in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. They say Sikhs who disagree with New Delhi are not the problem; organised Khalistan campaigning that targets Indian missions, leaders and symbols is. Community voices on the other side say New Delhi uses the Khalistan label to dismiss all criticism of Punjab policy and minority rights. Both claims now travel on the same smartphone videos.
What Rijiju is really saying
Read plainly, Rijiju’s post is a warning to a small set of protesters and a message to a much larger audience. To the people in the clips, it says the act will not be treated as street theatre. To the Indian public, it says the government will not stay silent when the flag is mocked abroad. To the diaspora, it says political protest is one thing and national humiliation is another.
Whether the warning changes behaviour is doubtful. Groups that already treat the Indian state as illegitimate are unlikely to start folding flags with ceremonial care. US police are also unlikely to treat flag desecration as a crime in the way Indian law would. The practical effect is political: it keeps the incident alive in Indian media, hardens official language, and gives New Delhi another exhibit in its case that some overseas networks have crossed from dissent into hostility toward the Republic.
The facts that can be stated with confidence are limited and still depend on circulating footage. A protest took place outside Madison Square Garden on 29 August during Bhagwat’s programme. Videos purport to show the Indian flag tied to a foot and another flag torn. Pro-Khalistan slogans and anti-India banners were reported. SFJ and other Sikh and civil rights groups were part of the wider opposition. On 30 August, the Union minister for parliamentary affairs and minority affairs told those involved, in public and in two languages, that insulting the flag and the country would cost them dearly.
That is the story New Delhi wants remembered from the night: not only that Bhagwat spoke of oneness inside the arena, but that outside it, someone put the tricolour underfoot.
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