Background

What the published record says.

This page is the framing context, not a finding. It summarises scholarship and investigative journalism on US-based Hindutva organisations so a reader can understand the label “cohort” that appears throughout the site. We do not assert any individual donor is affiliated with any of these organisations. We describe public political giving and link to the primary sources here.

In plain terms

Hindutva is a political ideology. It is not the same thing as Hinduism.

The word was coined in 1923 by V. D. Savarkar in a pamphlet titled Essentials of Hindutva. He used it to argue that Indian identity should rest on a shared territory, a shared ancestry, and a shared civilisation, with the religions that originated in India at the centre and Islam and Christianity outside it.

Scholars including Christophe Jaffrelot describe this as ethnic nationalism rather than religious nationalism. The practical relationship is closer to Christian fundamentalism than to Christianity itself: a political project that uses the religion as identity material rather than as creed.

The ideology's main organisational vehicle is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the RSS, founded in 1925. The Bharatiya Janata Party, India's ruling party since 2014, emerged from the same lineage. Prime Minister Modi is a lifelong RSS member.

The US ecosystem

The organisations cited in scholarly and journalistic accounts.

The collective term is Sangh Parivar, “the family of organisations”. Each of the names below is documented in published research. The descriptions are condensed from the cited sources, not from us.

HSS-USA

Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA

Direct US affiliate of the Indian RSS. Stated mission is youth education and cultural bonding; structure mirrors the RSS shakha model.6 13

VHPA

Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America

Self-described as the oldest and largest Hindu organisation in the US. The CIA World Factbook designated its Indian parent VHP as a militant religious organisation in 2018.7 16

OFBJP-USA

Overseas Friends of the BJP, USA

Registered as a foreign agent. Charter commits the organisation to follow guidance from the BJP in India on political positioning.10

HSS / Sewa / Ekal

Sewa International, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation USA

Service and rural-education arms. Investigative reporting links these to the broader Sangh Parivar through shared personnel and bureaucratic structures.8 13

HAF

Hindu American Foundation

A Hindu-American civil-rights advocacy organisation founded in 2003. Civil-rights critics place it adjacent to the Sangh ecosystem; HAF rejects this framing and emphasises religious-freedom work.9 14 16

COHNA

Coalition of Hindus of North America

Mounted the organised opposition campaign against state and city caste-discrimination legislation. Argues such laws single out South Asians and rely on flawed evidence.27 29

What journalists have documented

Five investigations that map the network publicly.

The Caravan

ongoing

Long-form Indian investigative magazine. The cover story 'The RSS does not exist' documented 2,500 organisations linked to the RSS through shared officers, offices and titles such as pracharak and karyavah.13

Al Jazeera

2024

Investigative documentary on Indian state involvement in plots against diaspora activists in North America, including the 2023 assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar.12

Political Research Associates

October 2024

Report titled 'Hindu Supremacy and the Multiracial U.S. Far Right'. Mapped what it calls the American Sangh and tracked its alignment with US far-right movements after Steve Bannon joined the Republican Hindu Coalition in 2019.15

Pieter Friedrich

ongoing

Independent journalist whose work systematically maps RSS transnational networks, including the cover story 'All in the Family: The American Sangh's Affair With Tulsi Gabbard'.11

Hindus for Human Rights

2018 onwards

Hindu-American organisation that has documented and protested World Hindu Congress events. Its 2018 solidarity statement called the convening organisations 'far-right, Hindu supremacist'.16

Where the cohort label comes from

Public lists. Civil-rights provenance. Contested.

The list of thirty-eight names this site analyses is widely associated with civil-rights research on Hindu nationalist influence in the United States. We do not attribute it to any named organisation until its provenance is documented.

We flag an open caveat honestly: the original compiler of this specific list, and the stated criteria for inclusion, are still to be confirmed in our source records. Until that attribution is documented, we do not over-attribute the list to any single organisation. The honest description of scope is the individuals named in the imported seed list, not a vouched-for membership roster.

These lists are not court records. They are research outputs. Some entries may rest on documented organisational participation; others on public statements or named involvement in specific events. The confidence level varies entry by entry.

We do not vouch for the lists. We use them as the starting point for a question about public political giving. Our findings make a careful distinction between behavioural overlap, which the FEC data can show, and organisational affiliation, which it cannot. We never assert coordination or intent.

Supplementary evidence

Useful leads, not headline evidence yet.

The partner workbook helps identify possible missing recipients, alias patterns, and donor records that need human review. It is not blended into the public story until each identity question and fundraising-route question is settled.

checked Tue, 26 May 2026 18:27:03 GMT

112,892

records reviewed

$35,338,596

raw amount to reconcile

6,471

possible donor identities

52%

routed through memo or earmark fields

Largest leads to adjudicate

ASHA JADEJA$5,529,101

MOTWANI JADEJA$2,972,000

SHACHI RATTAN$1,040,800

RAJEEV SINGH$1,016,980

VINOD GUPTA$869,356

ASHA JADEJA$663,877

These are not final public identities. The same person can appear under several name and location variants, so the rows stay in review.

What must be true before publication

Identity resolutionpartial

Workbook rows are normalised and lineage-preserved; aliases still need adjudication.

Address privacypass

The public JSON suppresses street addresses and exact ZIP5 values.

Conduit and memo handlingneeds review

Memo and earmarked rows are counted and flagged; final totals need conduit reconciliation before publication claims.

Affiliation and causation wordingpass with limits

Site copy must continue to describe reported contributions only.

33 high-priority rows have confirmed address matches.

799 high-priority rows still carry ambiguity flags.

91% need adjudication before use in named claims.

Counter-voices

What organised Hindu American voices push back on.

The Hindu American Foundation has documented a rise in attacks on Hindu places of worship and submitted testimony to the US Senate Judiciary Committee on hate crimes.²⁸

COHNA and allied organisations argue that caste-discrimination legislation rests on flawed evidence, singles out South Asians, and risks workplace profiling of people who display Hindu identifiers like a tilak or bindi.^{27 29}

These are real disagreements about evidence, scope, and unintended consequences. The site does not adjudicate them. It links to both sides.

What we do not say

Three boundaries.

01

Not affiliation.

We do not claim that any individual on the list is a member of, donates to, or works for any organisation named on this page. The data shows public political giving, not membership.

02

Not causation.

We do not claim that contributions caused any policy outcome, vote, or appointment. We describe correlations between donor identity and recipient identity.

03

Not the whole population.

The thirty-eight names are not a representative sample of Indian American donors, who number in the hundreds of thousands. The cohort is the cohort.

Not all recipients are the same

We keep two categories of recipient visibly separate. Sangh-aligned PACs, such as the Hindu American Political Action Committee and Americans4Hindus, are tied to the organised Hindu-nationalist advocacy ecosystem. Mainstream Democratic infrastructure, such as the Indian American Impact Fund, the Indian American Victory Fund, and the ActBlue conduit, is not. A gift to ActBlue or the Impact Fund is not evidence of a Hindutva donation, and we never imply that every recipient sits in the Sangh ecosystem.

See full methodology →

Sources

All cited material is public.

Numbered to match the inline references on this page. Generated via Perplexity Sonar Deep Research with citation-required prompt; verified manually.