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In a rare interview, a leader of the world's largest right-wing group talks to NPR

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers take part in the Hindu nationalist organisation's centenary celebrations at Reshimbagh Ground in Nagpur on October 2, 2025.
IDREES MOHAMMED
/
AFP via Getty Images
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) volunteers take part in the Hindu nationalist organisation's centenary celebrations at Reshimbagh Ground in Nagpur on October 2, 2025.

The largest right-wing group in the world is in India.

That group is an all-male, Hindu Nationalist organization called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It's better known by its acronym, the RSS.

Its goal is to undo the founding fathers' vision of India as a secular country, home to people with many faiths.

Some of its members and those of some of its sister organizations have been implicated in – or accused of - instigating attacks against India's Muslim and Christian minorities. Famously, a former RSS member assassinated one of the most famous Indians in history, Mohandas Gandhi, in 1948.

Critics say Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is hostile to Muslims in particular and borrows from the organization's Hindu nationalist ideology.

The leaders of the movement rarely talk to the Western press, which is why it was surprising when a lobbyist representing one of those leaders asked NPR to set up an interview.

The General Secretary of the RSS, more or less the second in command of the organization, Dattatreya Hosabale, was in Washington D.C. this week for a talk at the conservative think tank the Hudson Institute.

NPR's Rob Schmitz spoke with Hosabale to learn why he was in the nation's capital, and why he was speaking with the press.

Listen to the full interview by clicking on the blue play button above.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.
Henry Larson
Adam Raney

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Federal funding is gone.

Congress has eliminated all funding for public media.

That means $2.1 million per year that Connecticut Public relied on to deliver you news, information, and entertainment programs you enjoyed is gone.

The future of public media is in your hands.

All donations are appreciated, but we ask in this moment you consider starting a monthly gift as a Sustainer to help replace what’s been lost.

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