Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: When a senior RSS functionary enters Stanford’s policy-tech circuit and Washington’s strategic think-tank ecosystem — spaces where it has long faced scrutiny — the move reads less as routine outreach and more as a calibrated attempt to contest a global narrative.That is the light in which RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s tour of US and Germany in April, undertaken as Sangh marks its centenary year, needs to be seen. American academic spaces, particularly Ivy League ecosystems, have produced some of the sharpest critiques of RSS and Hindutva. Against this backdrop, Hosabale’s itinerary stood out: an address at Stanford-linked THRIVE 2026 in Silicon Valley, policy engagement at Hudson Institute on April 23, interactions with Indian diaspora and an interview with NPR.At Hudson Institute, Hosabale directly addressed the perception battle. “This mis-propaganda has taken place for decades. They have portrayed RSS as a Hindu supremacist organisation, as anti-minority, anti-women,” he said. In another interaction, he said, “All these years, RSS was working silently… now we thought that it’s better to reach out. Our words should also become the message.”The Stanford leg — THRIVE 2026 — was pitched differently, aimed at a global technology and academic audience. There, Hosabale leaned into civilisational and ethical themes. “We are all part of the same source of energy… one planet, one family, one shared future,” he said, calling for science and technology to be guided by ethical frameworks.The NPR interview, conducted in Washington, carried a more direct political articulation. “We are not establishing anew any Hindu nation,” he said.The body of sustained academic and student-led criticism in the US of Sangh and Hindutva is significant. Columbia University-based publication The Morningside Post (March 24, 2021) described RSS-linked networks as tied to an “ethnofascist paramilitary group”, a 2020 paper in SAGE Journals (Sliding from majoritarianism toward fascism: Educating India under the Modi regime, Bhatty & Sundar) characterised RSS as having an “umbilical relationship” with a “semi-fascist” ideological project aimed at establishing a Hindu rashtra, while the 2021 Dismantling Global Hindutva conference — backed by multiple Ivy League departments — framed Hindutva as a political ideology distinct from Hinduism and warned of its global implications, triggering pushback from Indian groups.Engaging with leading German policy institutions such as Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and members of the Abgeordnetenhaus of Berlin, Hosabale said, “RSS’s vision for the next 100 years is to contribute to building sustainable societies at every level, from families to societies and environmental responsibility, grounded in shared universal values.”The outreach also signals a shift in RSS’s communication strategy. According to a Sangh insider, “from an organisation that historically relied on grassroots work and limited global articulation,” it is now seeking to “engage directly with international opinion-makers”.
