Mysterious New Outfit Hosting Mohan Bhagwat in New York Has Old RSS Links

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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Saturday, 29 August was hosted for a grand event titled ‘Universal Oneness Celebrations’ at the Madison Square Garden in New York. On paper, Bhagwat was being hosted by a new, little-known body called American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue or AHEAD.

On its website, AHEAD describes itself as a non-profit that has a “non-partisan approach”, a vision to build “an inclusive future” with one of its key objectives being “interfaith dialogue.”

This is revelatory because the RSS has repeatedly insisted that it “works only in Bharat (India)” and that “the Sangh does not control, neither directly nor remotely” any foreign bodies.

AHEAD was incorporated as recently as May 2025, and became tax-exempt by September. Its registration records, accessed by The Quint, show that its incorporating agent is an individual called Khanderao Kand.

Kand is the founder and president of Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS), another non-profit that routinely organises events to “strengthen US-India relations”, including most recently at the US Capitol. It has previously also hosted External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

FIIDS had co-sponsored a trip of a Washington Post columnist to RSS’ centenary celebrations event in Nagpur, Maharashtra, last year. Kand, who has been described as being “intimately associated with the RSS for most of his life”, was involved in hosting Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his visit to the US back in 2015 as well.

Besides being in the RSS, Kand was also an office bearer in the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), which is widely known to be the RSS’ international wing, even as the body insists that it is an independent volunteer group. HSS has previously hosted Bhagwat for multiple events. Older news reports document Kand as being involved in brainstorming for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) during past elections in India. Kand welcomed PM Modi in New York as recently as September 2024, and posted about it on his own instagram, along with his photos with a slew of BJP leaders.

In March this year, Kand stopped being AHEAD’s principal incorporating agent, as per registration documents, and a man called Harish Kandpal took over that post. But Kandpal, too, is associated with the FIIDS.

As per its tax filings, AHEAD has three listed directors: Sudesh Agrawal, Naresh Rajanna, and Rasita Vishnuram. Vishnuram is a Senior Fellow for the Viksit Bharat Fellowship at the BlueKraft Digital Foundation, a pro-Modi digital communications platform, run by Hitesh Jain, a BJP functionary. The fellowship was launched on Modi’s birthday in 2024, for experts “within the nation and around the globe to contribute to a meaningful narrative about India.”

The Quint has reached out to Kand, FIIDS, Kandpal, and AHEAD for a response. The story will be updated when there is one.

This event comes months after it was revealed in an investigation by Prism that the RSS had hired a major Washington DC lobbying firm to lobby the US Congress on its behalf. Even after that revelation, the RSS’ Sunil Ambekar doubled down, saying it hasn’t employed any lobbying firm and that it only “works in Bharat”.

Critics have expressed concern that Bhagwat’s event is aimed at increasing the RSS’ global presence, and influence in international politics.

“We know that the RSS and the BJP make regular global tours. The diaspora is as much, if not more, the battleground for the war between inclusive Indians and Hindutva-aligned Indians,” said Sunita Viswanath, the executive director of Hindus for Human Rights, a nonprofit group also based in the US. "The stakes are very high, and all of our democracies are at stake.”

“This event is problematic because the RSS is being given a platform to whitewash itself as seeking “Universal Oneness,” while minorities pay the price with their lives,” said Safa Ahmed, board member of Indian American Muslim Council, a non-profit which is part of Savera, a coalition of groups trying to combat the rise of Hindu nationalism.

“If the RSS insists they only work in India, why is Mohan Bhagwat even here? His organisation first sought to secretly lobby Congress, and is now organising a propaganda event through shell entities – one of hundreds that do the RSS's dirty work in the US,” added Ahmed.

According to Audrey Truschke, history professor at Rutgers University, “The RSS operates outside of India, both under that name and as the HSS. The RSS has contributed significantly to projects of religious-based oppression, especially of Muslims. Like many violent far-right groups, the RSS regularly misrepresents itself.”

Earlier in the week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani expressed that he doesn’t support the event, but it isn’t in his jurisdiction to stop it. “It is incredibly troubling to see the rise of a movement that is predicated on an exclusionary vision,” Mamdani said in a press conference.

A day later, X briefly took down AHEAD’s account. After the account was restored, AHEAD posted, “We got 'botted' by misguided opponents who tried to game the X algorithm and get our handle blocked.”

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also issued a statement expressing concern over the event, saying that the BJP has enforced policies in India “that closely align with the RSS’ Hindutva ideology, inherently discriminating against religious minority communities.”

The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan federal government entity established by the US Congress that monitors and makes recommendations regarding religious freedom world over.

“The government has also engaged in acts of transnational repression to target religious minorities beyond its borders, including assassination and assassination attempts on members of Sikh communities in North America,” the statement further said.

(Fatima Khan is a New York-based journalist. With over six years of experience as a roving reporter in India, she has covered national politics, hate crimes, gender, and social justice with a sharp investigative lens.)