India’s RSS Launches Western Lobbying Campaign as Minority Attacks Surge at Home

Dattatreya Hosabale, general secretary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), speaks to foreign media at the RSS office in New Delhi, India, on May 12, 2026 [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]

The Hindu nationalist organization behind India’s ruling party is touring the U.S., U.K., and Germany to reshape its image abroad — even as data shows a sharp rise in hate crimes against Muslims and Christians inside India.

IMAM Action – 5 min read

India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the far-right Hindu nationalist organization widely regarded as the ideological parent of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — has launched an active lobbying campaign in Western nations, visiting lawmakers, think tanks, and diaspora communities in the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany. The outreach comes as documented hate crimes against Muslim and Christian minorities inside India continue to climb.

RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale held a rare briefing with foreign media in New Delhi on Tuesday, announcing that the organization would continue dispatching senior leaders to Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia to counter what he called “misgivings and misconceptions” about the RSS. Critics, however, say the campaign is a direct response to growing international pressure — including a U.S. federal recommendation to impose targeted sanctions on the organization.

The numbers behind the lobbying

13% Rise in hate speech against minorities in India in 2025 (India Hate Lab)

41% Increase in hate speech events targeting Christians from 2024 to 2025

According to the India Hate Lab, a U.S.-based research group, hate speech incidents targeting religious minorities rose 13 percent in 2025, with the majority occurring in BJP-governed states. Anti-Christian hate speech events alone jumped from 115 in 2024 to 162 in 2025. Muslim communities have faced targeted violence, mob lynchings, and bulldozer demolitions of homes and mosques under what critics describe as state-enabled persecution.

“What we’re seeing is a disturbing escalation in hate crimes, violence, bulldozer demolitions, discriminatory laws and hate speech targeting minorities along with the state using its full might to systematically disenfranchise minority communities.” – Raqib Hameed Naik, Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH)

What is the RSS?

Founded in 1925 by physician and Hindu nationalist Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the RSS describes itself as a “Hindu-centric civilisational, cultural movement.” It leads a network of more than 2,500 affiliated right-wing Hindu organizations known as the Sangh Parivar and advocates for Hindutva — an ideology that seeks to redefine India from a constitutionally secular state into a Hindu nation.

The organization has been banned in India multiple times, including in 1948 following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi by a former RSS member. Prime Minister Modi has been affiliated with the RSS since 1972 and joined the BJP in 1987. Scholars note that the organization’s early ideologues drew explicit inspiration from European fascism, with its second chief citing Nazi Germany’s minority policies in a 1939 publication.

Why the Western Outreach – And Why Now?

Experts say the timing of the RSS lobbying push is not coincidental. In November, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) — a bipartisan federal body advising the President, Secretary of State, and Congress — published a report stating that the RSS “has been involved in acts of extreme violence and intolerance against members of minority groups for decades.” The report recommended imposing targeted sanctions against the organization and its leadership.

RSS Western Outreach – Key Stops

• Six days in London and Rugby, including a dinner with Members of Parliament from the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat parties
• Meetings at Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) in London
• Ten days in the U.S., engaging the Indian-American diaspora across multiple cities
• Meeting with the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C. conservative think tank
• Two days in Germany, meeting with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

Raqib Hameed Naik, founder of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate and the real-time hate crimes database HindutvaWatch.org, described the RSS tour as “essentially a knee-jerk reaction to the USCIRF recommendation.” He warned that if the recommended sanctions were enacted, they could effectively make the RSS a “pariah” — particularly among diaspora Indians who have played a significant role in funding the organization, especially before Modi came to power in 2014.

“The RSS has no option but to send their leaders to the U.S. and other countries to do damage control and to push a counternarrative against the sanctions discourse that’s been gaining ground in policy circles,” Naik said.

What This Means for Muslim Communities

For Muslim Americans and Muslim communities globally, the RSS lobbying effort represents a well-funded attempt to neutralize the momentum building in Western capitals toward accountability for anti-Muslim persecution in India. The meetings with parliamentarians in London, conservative think tanks in Washington, and foreign policy institutions in Berlin signal a sophisticated and coordinated influence campaign.

Apoorvanand, a professor of Hindi at the University of Delhi and a prominent cultural critic, told Al Jazeera that the Hindu diaspora has grown increasingly financially powerful in the U.S. and other Western countries — and that many diaspora supporters of the RSS “want India as a Hindu country” while enjoying full rights as citizens of their adoptive nations. He described the RSS’s long-term goal as building “a network of right-wing conservative organisations worldwide.”

IMAM Action urges Muslim communities, civil rights advocates, and faith leaders to stay informed about these developments and to engage their elected representatives about the importance of maintaining principled foreign policy positions on religious freedom and minority rights in India.

Source: Al Jazeera — “Why India’s RSS is lobbying the West amid attacks on minorities at home” (May 15, 2026). Reporting by Sarah Shamim.