With at least five million members, India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) may be the world’s largest and most influential paramilitary group. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and most top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) officials are longtime members of the Hindu-nationalist organization, as was the man who assassinated Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1948. The RSS also grows its ranks through its overseas affiliates, which promote Hindutva ideology while sometimes presenting themselves as benign cultural groups.

Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the RSS’s international wing, was founded in Kenya in 1947. Today it has thousands of chapters spread across more than 40 countries, including more than 200 chapters in the United States alone. Some of these branches act like their parent organization: Nepalese HSS cadres, for instance, hold armed drills, march through the streets chanting Hindutva slogans, and vociferously advocate against the state’s secular constitution. “We can’t sit back and just watch,” one HSS member told a researcher, in reference to the idea that mosques support terrorism in Nepal. “If the state’s mechanisms fail, we have to act.”

Yet in Western countries like the United States and the United Kingdom, you’re more likely to see HSS members leading yogathons than rioting. In 2023, the Nation reported that the HSS had received 439 proclamations commending its cultural activities from US elected officials, none of whom were aware of its right-wing ties.