In the days following the controversial appearance of the leader of India’s largest far-right Hindu organization at Madison Square Garden (MSG) in New York City, three interfaith leaders who were invited to attend shared on social media that they were not informed that Mohan Bhagwat or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were involved in the event.
Two of the religious leaders who spoke to Prism said an organization called World Council of Religious Leaders “misled” them about an interfaith gathering at The Pierre hotel that would precede the Aug. 29 MSG event. An email invitation, obtained by Prism, showed that the organizers did not reference Bhagwat or the RSS. In the program emailed before the event, the guest of honor section was left blank; however, the program posted to the World Council of Religious Leaders’ website lists Bhagwat as the guest of honor. The program ends with the departure to MSG.
Imam Shamsi Ali learned of Bhagwat’s appearance only after he reached the hotel. “Someone told me that [Bhagwat] was the leader of the RSS,” said Ali of the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens. “During that moment, I realized I was in the wrong place.”
Ali stayed for the interfaith event but refused to go to MSG afterward. “I had been misled by the invitation, which is not transparent,” he said.
“I think they didn’t tell us how it connected to everything else, because they didn’t think we would come,” Rev. Winnie Varghese, the dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, told Prism. “So I think they were deceptive.” Instead of going to the MSG event, she joined the demonstrations outside.
About 100 activists and members of interfaith groups and advocacy organizations protested outside MSG as Bhagwat delivered a speech at the event, called “Universal Oneness Celebration,” which was reportedly attended by hundreds of members of the Indian American diaspora and a number of religious leaders.
“Mohan Bhagwat is here to preach about ‘universal oneness,’ when his ideology on the ground in India is completely devoted to this project of turning India from a secular democracy into a Hindu fascist ethno-state,” said Safa Ahmed, a board member of the Indian American Muslim Council. “So who is this ‘oneness’ for?”
In September 2025, the RSS marked 100 years since its founding in 1925. The organization was established to promote what critics and human rights groups describe as a Hindu state; its followers have been accused of targeting Muslims and other minorities with discrimination, harassment, and violence. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), emerged from the RSS, and Modi himself was once a worker for the organization.
Bhagwat’s MSG address appears to be the latest in a series of outreach efforts to U.S. policymakers, faith leaders, and Indians in the U.S. that began last year. Several individuals and Indian and Hindu organizations based in the U.S. have helped coordinate these efforts.
In November, a Prism investigation uncovered that a high-profile lobbying firm had received $330,000 in 2025 to lobby members of the U.S. Congress on behalf of the RSS. The lobbying efforts raised questions among experts on foreign influence operations about how the RSS conducted its activities without identifying as a foreign entity or without the lobbying firm registering as a foreign agent. Following Prism’s report and the widespread scrutiny it prompted, the RSS officially ended its U.S. lobbying operation in December.
That same month, the RSS organized a five-day training camp in India designed for members of the diaspora to spread the organization’s agenda. According to a guest list obtained by Prism, more than 170 individuals from the U.S. were registered to attend, some of whom are affiliated with major U.S. right-wing Hindu organizations. One individual listed his “current responsibility” as “co-ordinator in AHEAD.” The nonprofit that organized Bhagwat’s MSG appearance is called American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue (AHEAD) Forum.
The RSS did not respond to a request for comment. In response to Prism’s queries, AHEAD Forum said in an email that the RSS had “no role” in the MSG event “other than Speaker’s invitations and logistics.”
“Mohan Bhagwat was sitting there”
Over the past century, the RSS has grown from a small, fringe volunteer paramilitary group into the most influential right-wing Hindu organization in the world. The early leaders of the all-male organization praised Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and a member of the RSS assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.
Rev. Adriene Thorne, senior minister at Riverside Church, said in a video posted to Instagram that she had not been told that Bhagwat or the RSS were involved in the MSG event or the interfaith gathering beforehand.
“Had I known the event centered on the leader of the RSS, I would never have participated,” she said. “The RSS has been widely documented for its role in violence and discrimination against religious minorities in India. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and others. These harms are real, and they matter deeply.”
“What is true of Bhagwat and the RSS made the lack of disclosure even more troubling,” she added.
The email invitation obtained by Prism was signed by Bawa Jain, the secretary-general of the World Council of Religious Leaders. The World Council’s website describes Jain as “a trailblazer in global leadership and religious diplomacy.” However, over the past two and a half decades, Jain has established numerous links and proximity to the BJP and U.S. Hindu right-wing groups. Jain and the World Council of Religious Leaders did not respond to requests for comment.
Ali and Varghese said they received invitations that did not indicate Bhagwat’s or the RSS’s presence, and several follow-up emails Prism viewed about the event did not mention them, even as late as Aug. 26, by which time Bhagwat was slated to have arrived in New York.
Varghese told Prism that based on the invite, she expected “an interreligious event, a dialogue based on the themes of interreligious unity.” However, when she arrived at The Pierre hotel, “Mohan Bhagwat was sitting there and was the guest [of honor],” she said. “We didn’t know there would be a chief guest of that event.”
Diaspora training camp
In December 2025, over 1,600 people from more than 75 countries gathered at a wellness center outside the city of Hyderabad in southern India for a five-day RSS training summit curated for the diaspora. The Vishwa Sangh Shibir, or Global Sangh Camp, first began in 1990 and is held once every five years.
The RSS serves as the ideological fountainhead of the broader Sangh Parivar, a network of Hindu right-wing organizations encompassing education, social services, and labor; some U.S. Hindu-right groups are considered part of the Sangh.
According to the camp’s itinerary viewed by Prism, attendees participated in sessions such as a “Social media and narrative building workshop,” “False narrative and our efforts to address it,” and “Interacting with non-Hindus in various countries.” The agenda also included a session titled “RSS Centenary: Journey and Impact,” indicating a focus on the organization’s work over the past century.
According to the list of registered attendees, more than 170 people from the U.S. signed up for the camp. The U.S. had the second-highest number of registrants, following Nepal.
Registrants included people linked to U.S. Hindu-right organizations. Around two-thirds of the U.S. attendees said they had responsibilities in the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the diaspora wing of the RSS. Two executive board members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA)—which critics have described as the “central node of the Hindu supremacist network of the United States”—were on the list, as well as one board member of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF), an advocacy group that has been accused of right-wing ties.
The VHPA and HAF have said they are not linked to the RSS or part of the broader Sangh Parivar. “No HAF board member attended the event you’re inquiring about,” HAF Senior Communications Director Mat McDermott told Prism. VHPA did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
Three of the registrants disclosed ties with Ekal Vidyalaya as their “current responsibility.” The U.S.-based nonprofit is reported to have links to the Sangh Parivar and runs a network of schools in rural India that have been accused of imparting divisive teachings that preach Hindu superiority to children.
Another camp registrant, a board member of the RSS-affiliated Sewa International USA, describes himself on his website as an advisory board member of the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS), an organization linked to Bhagwat’s MSG event.
FIIDS is a U.S.-based nonprofit that regularly hosts events to “strengthen the U.S.-India partnership,” according to its website. In October, a contributing columnist at The Washington Post disclosed that his trip to an RSS event in India marking the group’s 100th anniversary “was sponsored by the Hudson Institute and the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies, whose president is affiliated with RSS.” The RSS’s U.S. lobbyists and two Hudson Institute fellows were also part of a delegation to a separate RSS event in India. The Hudson Institute, a right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C., also hosted Bhagwat’s second-in-command, RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale, during his U.S. speaking tour earlier this year.
FIIDS President Khanderao Kand, a long-time HSS member, was the incorporating agent for the AHEAD Forum, a San Jose, California-based nonprofit that organized the MSG event. Kand’s link to AHEAD Forum was first reported by Savera, a coalition of Indian American organizations working to counter Hindu supremacist politics.
Kand told Prism that he incorporated AHEAD Forum because “a group of Hindus wanted to provide American Hindus a platform for dialogue” with “other faiths, communities, and stakeholders.” In March, Kand handed AHEAD Forum over to Harish Kandpal, who had previously served as FIIDS’s vote registration program manager.
Some of AHEAD Forum’s officers also have links to the HSS, according to the Savera report.
Among the registrants at the diaspora training camp was an individual from San Jose who listed his “current responsibility” as “co-ordinator in AHEAD.” Prism could not independently verify the individual’s role in AHEAD Forum.
As Bhagwat continues the RSS’s centenary tour in Canada and the United Kingdom, some protesters outside MSG emphasized that the RSS chief’s visit to the U.S. warranted greater opposition.
“When somebody like Mohan Bhagwat comes and talks about India and Hinduism in a way which is completely contrary to what India’s Constitution stands for and what Hinduism stands for,” Priyali Sur, a senior fellow with Refugees International, told Prism, “it’s basically promoting an ideology, which is extremist … [and] derived from Nazism to American citizens.”
Update, Sept. 3, 2026: This story has been updated to include comments from Khanderao Kand and AHEAD Forum received after publication.
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