The Supreme Leader of the World's Largest Far-Right Network Is Coming to America. Denounce Him.

In late August, Mohan Bhagwat arrives in the United States. Bhagwat is the sixth Sarsanghchalak—supreme leader—of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the largest far-right organization on Earth. 

He is coming in person because a quieter approach failed. Last year, the RSS paid Washington lobbyists $330,000 to introduce itself to Congress, filing under domestic lobbying rules rather than the Foreign Agents Registration Act (which requires disclosing whom they met and what was said), and routing the work through a second firm hoping that the RSS’s name would never appear as the client. Weeks after reporters produced the filings, the contract was terminated and the paperwork retroactively amended.

Founded in 1925 and modeled by its early ideologues on the fascist movements of interwar Europe, the RSS is a uniformed paramilitary formation that has spent a century pursuing one objective: turning India from a constitutional democracy into a Hindu ethno-state, with its religious minorities eliminated, expelled, or reduced to second-class subjects.

They have been present for over 50 years in the U.S. Their primary aim here is to spread anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, and anti-Sikh hate to radicalize Hindus against sister communities of color, and to provide funds and diplomatic support to the supremacist project in India.

This is a tightly controlled far-right network. The RSS operates through 100+ U.S. fronts spanning politics, religion, labor, education, and social service, including the U.S. arm of India’s ruling party and registered foreign agent the Overseas Friends of the BJP. These are not independent affiliates but are directed by pracharaks: full-time cadre who renounce family and career, are trained and assigned by the RSS to steer front organizations. The structure allows the RSS to disclaim responsibility for what its fronts do while retaining control over their actions.

In the U.S., this machinery spreads anti-Muslim hate and kills civil rights legislation. Last year, the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the American wing of the RSS, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America sponsored a 38-day, multi-city speaking tour for Kajal Hindusthani, ranked among India’s worst purveyors of hate speech and facing multiple cases for inciting violence. In Edison, NJ, she called Muslims “braindead zombies,” urged an economic boycott of Muslim businesses, and said there were “only two options: fight or get converted.” An NYC mayor and Rhode Island lieutenant governor were manipulated into honoring her before backing down.

In February, the movement’s most visible Washington advocacy arm, the Hindu American Foundation, devoted a segment of its podcast to laughing about a foreign government’s botched plot to assassinate a U.S. citizen on American soil. Its policy director went on to state about the failed attempt: “if you’re gonna do a job, fucking do it right.” HAF’s harm was not restricted to rhetoric. It opposed and managed to secure a veto of SB 509, a bill to address transnational repression by foreign governments, from California Governor Gavin Newsom.

HAF was also at the forefront of efforts to kill SB 403, a bill designed to outlaw discrimination on the basis of caste. SB 403 also passed both houses of the California legislature with sizable majorities before being vetoed, once more, by Gov. Newsom. Organizations like HAF and the Coalition of Hindus of North America (CoHNA) called for the veto. Later, reporters showed how Hindu supremacist leaders openly bragged about using donor influence to secure the veto.

The network sees itself as a partner—and potential leader—of the global far-right. At the 2024 National Conservatism Conference in Washington—headlined by Stephen Miller and Jack Posobiec—the RSS sent Ram Madhav of its National Executive to present Hindutva’s capture of India as a model for American conservatives. Months earlier, Madhav had called for India to lead this global, multiracial far-right—despite its vicious targeting of the global Indian diaspora. 

The centerpiece of Bhagwat’s visit is a public event at Madison Square Garden on Aug. 29. He is not the first far-right leader to use that stage to launder a movement’s image before an American audience. But he enters a city whose mayor has been unambiguous that those who incite and excuse mass violence do not receive New York’s welcome as a courtesy. We expect that clarity to hold when the Garden’s lights go up, and we call on the Mayor to say so plainly.

In 2024, 100+ organizations took note of the “alarming rise of Hindu supremacy” in the U.S. Now, during Bhagwat’s visit, we ask U.S. civil society to affirm our shared commitment to pluralism, religious freedom, and equal dignity of all people, and reject supremacist politics.

We, the undersigned, pledge:

To reject Hindu supremacy. We will not lend our institutions, stages, honors, proclamations, or presence to the RSS or its U.S. affiliates, and we call on elected officials at every level to decline meetings, citations, and photo opportunities with Bhagwat and his network.

To learn about Hindu supremacy. We pledge to learn to recognize the movement and its fronts, and to share what we learn with our members, congregations, and coalitions.

To defend one another. We support protections against caste discrimination, anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh hate, and transnational repression. Attacks on any of these are attacks on all of us.

To stand with the majority. We stand with the Indian and South Asian American organizers building a pluralist, anti-caste, multiracial vision of who we are—the true majority of this community, and the people Hindu supremacy most fears.