Extremist Hindu organization hires US lobbyists for political influence

India’s largest far-right Hindu organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has hired a powerful American lobbying firm to influence US lawmakers, according to a report.  

The RSS, in January, hired Squire Patton Boggs, an influential lobbying firm in the US, to engage with officials in both the US Senate and the House of Representatives, in exchange for $330,000, which the Indian organization paid during the first three quarters of 2025, Prism reported.

Experts on foreign influence operations say the RSS’s lobbying activities in the US raise serious questions about transparency under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a law that requires representatives of foreign interests to disclose their activities.

When US President Donald Trump took office in January, he directed his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to scale back enforcement of FARA and to disband the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force, creating a regulatory loophole that allowed groups like the RSS to lobby in the US without transparent registration as foreign agents.

Despite its clear Indian origin, neither the RSS nor Squire Patton Boggs was registered under FARA. Instead, the firm filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA), a transparency law for activities to influence the federal government, which requires less detailed public reporting.

According to the report, the law does not list the RSS as Squire Patton Boggs’ direct client. Rather, the client is State Street Strategies, doing business as the lobbying firm One+ Strategies, on behalf of the RSS.

As a result, the general lobbying issue is noted as foreign relations in Squire Patton Boggs’ lobbying registration form for the RSS, and the specific lobbying issue is “US-India bilateral relations.”

Among the lobbyists named in the filings are Bill Shuster, a former US Republican congressman, as well as Bradford Ellison, a US lobbyist who previously represented the interests of foreign governments such as South Korea and Ethiopia in the US.

In January, Ellison reportedly contacted Rutgers University historian Audrey Truschke, introducing himself as part of a team “retained by the RSS to educate lawmakers about the group’s mission and impact.” When Truschke asked about their registration status under FARA, she received no response.

In June, Ellison and Shuster visited Nagpur, India, the RSS’s headquarters, where they attended training camps and meetings with members.

The Prism report also notes that American figures and think tanks, such as Bill Drexel from the Hudson Institute, Walter Russell Mead, a Wall Street Journal columnist, and Jim Geraghty from the Washington Post, have engaged with the RSS.

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Founded in 1925, the RSS is a Hindu majoritarian organization that promotes right-wing Hindutva ideology. The all-male organization is notorious for instigating harassment and violence toward Muslims, Christians, and other religious minorities.

Notably, it led a campaign to build a Hindu temple at the site of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya that culminated in the destruction of the mosque by its activists in 1992, triggering a series of communal riots that were among the deadliest in Indian history.

The RSS leaders have a record of praising Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, and a member of the RSS assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in 1948.

Furthermore, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), emerged from the RSS, and Modi himself was once a volunteer for the organization.

Legal expert Ben Freeman expressed concerns regarding the issue, saying, “Registering under the LDA and not FARA really keeps this influence campaign in the shadows.”

“What matters is who the ultimate client is — and that’s clearly the RSS,” said Freeman.

The lobbying classifications matter, experts say, because registrants under FARA have to publicly disclose significantly more about which lawmakers they engage, as well as other particulars such as details of meetings, emails, texts, calls, receipts, transactions, and disbursements. Under the LDA, the RSS’s lobbyists do not need to disclose any such details.

Raqib Hameed Naik, the founder and executive director of the US Center for the Study of Organized Hate, said the RSS’s lobbying activities in the US could be part of a broader campaign to reshape its global image.

“The RSS might have become a mainstream force in Indian politics, but globally, it is still seen as a fascist paramilitary group,” he told The Prism. “So what they’re trying to do right now is to invest in changing the perception of the policymakers.”

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