India’s opposition leader Rahul Gandhi pleaded not guilty Tuesday to defaming a powerful Hindu supremacist group closely linked to the ruling party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gandhi will fight charges in court that he defamed the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) organisation when he accused the Hindu movement of assassinating Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi. A member of the RSS — a Hindu umbrella group which is the ideological inspiration for Modi’s rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party — sued Gandhi for the remarks made in 2014. Published in Daily Times, June 13th 2018.