RSS has engaged US lobbying firm to influence US Congress members
Islamabad: Since January 2025, India’s ruling party’s parent organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)—a far-right Hindu ultranationalist group—has engaged the prominent US lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, reportedly receiving $330,000 to influence members of the US Congress.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the objective of the lobbying is to improve “US-India bilateral relations” by directly engaging senators and representatives.
Alarmingly, this marks the first reported RSS lobbying effort in the United States, signaling an unprecedented push of Indian Hindu nationalist influence on American soil. The lobbying registration under the US Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), rather than the more transparent Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), raises questions about the campaign’s opacity and intent.
The timing of the campaign coincides with the 100th anniversary of RSS, reflecting a broader effort to expand Hindutva networks internationally. This initiative is linked to US-based Hindutva organizations, including Council of Hindus of North America (CoHNA), Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) and Hindu American Foundation (HAF), demonstrating a coordinated transnational influence campaign.
High-profile US visitors to RSS headquarters in Nagpur in June 2025—such as Congressman Bill Shuster, policy expert Bob Shuster, foreign affairs specialist Bradford Ellison, scholar Walter Russell Mead, and Bill Drexel of the Hudson Institute—highlight the strategic targeting of American political and policy elites.
Financial contributions for this lobbying campaign reportedly come from both Indian sources and US-based Hindutva-affiliated organizations, underscoring a concerted effort to shape US policy in favor of India’s ruling party agenda. This emerging pattern reveals the RSS’s ambitions to export Hindu nationalist ideology globally while bypassing full transparency requirements, raising serious concerns about foreign influence in American policymaking.
