The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, is an all-male Hindu nationalist organisation based in India and widely described as the world’s largest right‑wing group. Critics say the movement seeks to reverse the founding vision of a secular, multifaith India.
Members and affiliated groups have been accused of involvement in or instigating attacks on Muslim and Christian minorities. The group is also linked historically to the 1948 assassination of Mohandas Gandhi by a former member. Critics further allege that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government borrows from RSS ideology and pursues policies hostile to Muslims in particular.
Leaders of the RSS seldom grant interviews to Western media, so it was notable when a lobbyist for one of the organisation’s top figures arranged a meeting with NPR. Dattatreya Hosabale, the RSS general secretary and effectively the movement’s second‑in‑command, was in Washington, D.C., this week to speak at the conservative Hudson Institute.
NPR’s Rob Schmitz interviewed Hosabale to find out why he traveled to the U.S. capital and why he chose to speak with the press. You can hear the full conversation on NPR.