On April 23, 2026, the Hudson Institute’s New India Conference brought the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to within shouting distance of the White House. The agenda sounded innocuous-panels on India’s place in the world and its evolving economy-but the third panel (“New Paths Forward for US?India Relations”) seated Ram Madhav, president of India’s powerful India Foundation and a former national general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), alongside Kurt Campbell, who only recently served as US deputy secretary of state, and the Stimson Center’s Elizabeth Threlkeld.
Later that afternoon, Hudson welcomed Dattatreya Hosabale, the RSS general secretary, for a “fireside chat.” It was a rare high-profile appearance by the RSS leadership on an American think-tank stage. The organisation, whose cadres once marched in khaki shorts, has reported more than 83,000 shakhas across India. That number should not distract from the larger fact. An Indian movement long accused by critics of majoritarian politics was not on the margins of Washington’s conversation. It was inside the room. By that logic, Hudson was not merely renting a hall or hosting a diaspora reception. It curated the guest list, framed the discussion, supplied the Washington audience and gave the RSS leadership the one thing it has long sought abroad: institutional legitimacy.
That does not change the fact that a congressionally mandated watchdog had named the RSS in a sanctions recommendation, and weeks later, Hudson elevated the organisation’s top leadership.
Think?tanks justify tax?exempt status by claiming to be forums for independent research. The Think Tank Funding Tracker compiled by the Quincy Institute reveals that among the top fifty US foreign?policy think?tanks, only 9 (18 per cent) are fully transparent about donors, while nearly one?third (18) conceal funding sources entirely. Foreign governments and government?owned entities poured over $110 million into those think?tanks between 2019 and 2024. These figures do not merely fund institutions; they help decide who speaks in the name of neutrality, and why (in this instance)voices from Pakistan, Indian Muslims and other communities affected by the politics under discussion were absent from the stage. Neutrality, hence, is often defined by who is invited, not by how balanced the conversation actually is.
The power of a think tank lies not only in the papers it publishes but in the stage it constructs. Hudson’s programme placed RSS and BJP-linked voices within the vocabulary of strategic partnership, technology cooperation and bilateral renewal. The question, then, is not whether Hudson had the right to host them. Of course it did. The question is whether a policy institution claiming intellectual independence has an obligation to confront the ideological baggage its guests bring into the room.
After the Hudson event, a coalition of American civil?rights groups-including Hindus for Human Rights and the Indian American Muslim Council-issued a statement criticising Hudson for giving a platform to RSS-linked figures and citing concerns raised by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom regarding the RSS. Their statement argued that giving such groups a prestigious stage risks normalising extremism and undermining US policy objectives. They also pointed to broader transnational repression concerns, including the US federal case involving Indian national Nikhil Gupta. Many civil society organisations have raised the same concerns, imploring Hudson to reconsider future partnerships.
The timing of Hudson’s invitation could hardly be more provocative. Earlier in March, USCIRF released its annual report and recommended that the US government impose targeted sanctions on individuals and entities such as India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the RSS for responsibility for, or tolerance of, severe violations of religious freedom. The report also recommended that India be designated a Country of Particular Concern and urged Washington to press India on religious-freedom conditions.
That religious-freedom conditions in India have continued to deteriorate, citing anti-conversion laws, attacks on minorities and discriminatory legislation, is an open secret now, and media outlets have repeatedly criticised measures, including the Waqf Amendment Act, raising concerns about communal violence and the role of groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. The Indian government rejected the report as biased and politically motivated. That does not change the fact that a congressionally mandated watchdog had named the RSS in a sanctions recommendation, and weeks later, Hudson elevated the organisation’s top leadership. Hudson, like many Washington think tanks, frames such engagements as part of its role in facilitating dialogue between policymakers and global actors.
For decades, the RSS avoided this kind of direct scrutiny in Washington. Through a diaspora network of affiliates, it has built community centres and youth camps abroad, trying its best to change the overall narrative. Its intellectual ecosystem, including the India Foundation, cultivated relationships with foreign-policy circles. Many of these partnerships passed without much public attention until the BJP consolidated political power at home, and arguments once treated as fringe entered mainstream policy conversation.
Dattatreya Hosabale’s Washington appearance signalled a bolder strategy. In his fireside chat, he argued that the RSS was not the “Indian version of the Ku Klux Klan,” or in any way anti-Christian, anti minority, anti-development of women or anti-modernisation. “What is pro is not always told,” he quipped while citing “service projects” and insisting that Hindus have nothing to apologise for. He told his audience that the “umbilical cord” between the RSS and the ruling BJP “cannot be wished away”. Such declarations were once whispered. Now they are delivered from a D.C. stage with senior US officials nodding along. The event thus becomes part of a broader contest to shape how America perceives South Asia.
Why would a US think?tank risk reputational damage by hosting a group facing sanction recommendations? Money and strategic calculus provide answers. The Hudson-India Foundation collaboration has lasted more than thirty months and includes joint conferences and study trips. While tax?exempt, the Institute receives contributions from corporate and private donors whose identities cannot be fully disclosed.
The effect on public discourse is insidious. Panels that should interrogate human?rights abuses instead celebrate geopolitical “partnerships.” The Hudson agenda did not foreground the USCIRF sanctions call, instead focusing on “new paths forward” for bilateral relations. When US congressman Ro Khanna learned that his recorded video message had appeared in connection with an event featuring Hosabale, he publicly distanced himself, saying he had “no idea” about the guest list and did not support the RSS.
Think?tanks have become an arena for information competition among foreign governments. India’s diaspora networks now compete aggressively for attention in Washington. Smaller or poorer countries in the region lack comparable resources, and their stories rarely receive the same institutional stage. In the vacuum, donors curate discussions that serve strategic interests while masking uncomfortable realities. When a think-tank takes money from foreign-linked interests, invites aligned officials or ideologues to speak, and declines to question them on violence or rights, independence evaporates.
As former US diplomat Jon Danilowicz put it, “Think tanks play an important role in the Washington DC policy ecosystem. With shrinking US government funding, think tanks often have to look elsewhere for resources. This creates a risk that they will be captured by special interests who are trying to push their own agendas. The relationship between the Hudson Institute and the India Foundation raises this type of question, particularly when it comes to helping to launder the RSS’s image.”
Hudson and its defenders would argue that engagement is not endorsement and that U.S.-India relations are too consequential to be filtered through activist vetoes.
American society has, nonetheless, begun to confront the problem. The Quincy Institute’s recommendations propose that Congress require nonprofits influencing public policy to disclose all corporate and foreign donors above $10,000.
The writer is OpEd Editor (Daily Times) and can be reached at durenayab786 @gmail.com. She tweets @DureAkram.