What the RSS didn’t tell its New York guests | Let Me Explain 161 | Pooja Prasanna

We all saw the images from Madison Square Garden.

Thousands of people.

 
Aarti.
A packed hall.
And RSS Sarsangchalak Mohan Bhagwat at the centre of it all.

On the surface, it looked like a big success for the RSS.

But there was a problem.

Some of the religious leaders invited to events around Bhagwat’s visit say they did not know what they were being invited to.  And who they were being invited to stand alongside.

And the emails we reviewed suggest the same thing.

These leaders were invited to what was presented as an interfaith gathering called One World, One Humanity.

Absolutely no mention of the RSS

The guest of honor slot was left empty. 

Watch the full episode as I take you through these e mails. 

And also explain an important point- What exactly is the Sangh trying to build outside India? And why did its big international showcase raise so many questions?

Let me explain.

On August 29, Mohan Bhagwat addressed around 5,000 people at Madison Square Garden at the Universal Oneness Celebration.

The event presented a very particular image of the RSS – religious unity, diversity and harmony.

But earlier that day, several religious leaders had been invited to an event at the Pierre Hotel.

Before I tell you what happened next, here is a quick pause. 

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At least three American religious leaders who got invites for the interfaith gathering–One World, One Humanity, have publicly said that they had no idea that Mohan Bhagwat was the guest of honour.

In one invitation, the guest-of-honour slot was simply blank.

 Hmm. We wonder why.

[CLIP: Rev Adriene Thorne- just two lines]

Rev Adriene Thorne, a senior minister at Riverside Church, says she was invited repeatedly by the World Council of Religious Leaders and its Secretary General, Bawa Jain.

She received nine emails.

Nine.

But not one mentioned the RSS.

Not one mentioned Mohan Bhagwat.

And even when she was invited to the Madison Square Garden event, the email did not mention Bhagwat.

So she understood the event to be an interfaith gathering.

After learning more, Thorne called her participation a “terrible mistake” and said she had been “hoodwinked”.

Then there was Imam Shamsi Ali.

He says he was invited to the Pierre Hotel event and was told that Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa, the Secretary-General of the Muslim World League, would be involved.

Al-Issa did attend.

But when Imam Shamsi Ali arrived, he noticed unusually tight security around someone seated near him.

He asked who it was.

He was told: Mohan Bhagwat.

The Imam says he considered leaving.

And later, he said that had he known the gathering was organised to honour Bhagwat, he would have declined the invitation.

Imam Talib shareef also said the same thing.

But here's what makes this more interesting.

While the emails sent to these religious leaders did not mention Bhagwat or the RSS, the programme on the organisers’ website did.

We reviewed nine emails sent to Reverend Thorne between July and August.

There was no mention of India, Hinduism, the RSS or Mohan Bhagwat.

And there was another detail.

The participants had been asked to make “commitments” around the theme of unity.

Those statements were later compiled into a declaration.

And Bhagwat read them out.

The declaration was then published by the RSS magazine Organiser.

But the participants were reportedly not told that their statements would be used in this way.

So the question is simple:

Did everyone who was invited actually know what kind of event they were walking into?

For the RSS, despite the protests and other glitches, its New York events are a success story.

The RSS has spent decades building an international ecosystem.

One of the most prominent of these is the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, through which the RSS operates overseas shakhas and activities.

And around this network is a much larger ecosystem.

Take Sewa International for example

It is closely linked to Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh.

According to its US tax filing, Sewa International reported more than $8.2 million in revenue in 2024.

Then there is VHP of America, the US counterpart of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which was founded by senior RSS leaders and is part of the wider Sangh Parivar.

It reported another $3.6 million in revenue in 2024.

And then there is the India Development and Relief Fund, or IDRF.

It is a separate US nonprofit, not an RSS organisation.

But it has faced scrutiny over the years because some organisations it has funded in India have been associated with the wider Sangh Parivar.

IDRF reported about $7.45 million in revenue in 2024.

Now, this does not mean the RSS controls all three organisations.

And it does not mean all this money is being used for political activity.

But it does show the scale of the institutional ecosystem that has developed around the Sangh in the US. Along with the financial network that supports it.

And once you have that kind of infrastructure, influence can take many forms.

Community organising.

Charitable work.

Advocacy.

Fundraising.

And political access.

In January 2025, Washington lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs registered to lobby US lawmakers on behalf of the RSS.

The filings showed payments of about $330,000 in the first three quarters of 2025.

The lobbying, through another firm called One+ Strategies, included US-India bilateral relations and introducing the RSS to US officials.

The RSS denied hiring the firm.

But historian Audrey Truschke told The News Minute that she received an email from a lobbyist at Squire Patton Boggs saying the team had been “recently retained by the RSS to educate lawmakers”.

So, international events.

A growing institutional ecosystem.

And attempts to cultivate political access.

The RSS has been busy.

Which brings us to the bigger question:

What does the RSS actually want its global image to look like?

Bhagwat was not simply addressing a diaspora event.

He was presenting an image of the movement to an international audience.

And the message was strikingly conciliatory.

He spoke about an “innate, eternal oneness” connecting humanity and nature.

He said diversity should be “celebrated, respected, and accepted”.

And he said that if a Hindu believes Muslims have no place in India, “he will not remain Hindu”.

This got me thinking of the obvious: 

How does that message look against the reality unfolding in India?

An Alt News report published on September 9 documented several incidents involving Muslims in the ten days after Bhagwat’s speech.

In Jharkhand, a BJP booth-level agent was arrested over allegations that he submitted 200 applications seeking deletion of Muslim voters from electoral rolls.

In Uttar Pradesh, an FIR was registered against a Muslim politician over offering namaz in a public place.

In Maharashtra, VHP functionaries called for Muslims to be barred from Garba and Dandiya events.

And in Bhopal, BJP MLA Rameshwar Sharma spoke about firing a missile at Qazi Camp, a Muslim-majority area. He later said he was referring to a place in Islamabad 

And these aren't isolated questions.

The Association for Protection of Civil Rights recorded 602 hate crimes against minorities in the first year of Modi's third term, with 25 deaths, all of them Muslim.

Housing and Land Rights Network data also show that evictions across India rose sharply between 2019 and 2023. Those whose homes were demolished were mostly Muslims.

Now, none of this means that every incident can be directly attributed to RSS or even the BJP.

But when the RSS chief goes to New York and talks about Hindu-Muslim coexistence as a core principle, people are also going to look at what is actually happening politically and socially back in India.

And this is where the RSS's challenge abroad becomes clearer.

In India, the Sangh has had a century to build a vast ecosystem around its ideological project.

But in the US, it can also face many questions: 

Who exactly are we dealing with?

Is this a Hindu cultural organisation?

A charitable organisation?

An advocacy group?

Or an organisation connected to a much wider ideological network?

And that question becomes even harder to avoid when the organisation is trying to enter international spaces under the banner of religious unity.

While the emails suggest there was some reluctance behind the scenes, the New York episode exposed something more fundamental.

The RSS wants the legitimacy that comes with being seen as a mainstream religious, cultural and community movement.

But it also carries an ideology, a history and a network of political relationships that invite difficult questions.

Because global influence isn't just about getting people into the room.

It's about being honest about why they're there.

And perhaps that is the biggest roadblock the RSS faces abroad.

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Produced by Megha Mukundan, script by Lakshmi Priya, Edit by Nikhil Sekhar ET, Camera by Ajay R