A NEW report by a group of investigative researchers has revealed how two big front organisations of the RSS funnel funds from US to India, hiding the source of donations through a legal provision in US laws governing non-profit entities. The investigation studied tax filings of Houston, Texas-based Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA Inc (Ekal USA) and Sewa International Inc (Sewa USA) from 2020 to 2024.

In this period, Ekal USA reported receiving more than $48.4 million (Rs.380 crore) in contributions and grants from donors within USA. [An average USD-INR exchange rate of USD 1 = INR 78.58 for the period 2020-2024 has been used throughout] According to Ekal USA’s Form 990s, as studied and reported by the investigation, it transferred $33.7 million (Rs.265 crore) this to Ekal Vidyalaya in India which reportedly used the money for building schools in India. Sewa USA received almost $69.4 million (Rs.545 crore) in contributions and grants from 2020 to 2024, according to its Form 990s, as reported by the investigation. Its expenditure statements show that Sewa USA transferred $29.7 million (Rs.233 crore) to India and South Asia while about $622,613 (Rs.5 crore) was given to US-based recipients. Although it is not specified in the forms whether the funds transferred to India/South Asia went to the Indian charitable organisation Sewa Bharti affiliated to RSS, it is likely that this is what happened.

The investigation was carried out by researchers of Bellingcat, a US and Netherlands based independent collective of open-source researchers and citizen journalists. It is part of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

This investigation provides additional facts about the shadowy network of over 2500 RSS affiliated organisations, 260 of which were located in 39 foreign countries, about which People’s Democracy (in its issue of January 4, 2026) had reported earlier. US itself has 107 such affiliates. As mentioned in that earlier study, several US based affiliates or fronts of the RSS, like India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF), a tax-exempt, non-profit organisation based in Maryland, US are sources of funding to various RSS affiliates in India. IDRF is connected to at least 200 organisations which include such giants as Sewa Bharti, ABVP, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram but also many smaller NGO-type outfits spread across the country. Similarly, Support a Child USA, affiliated to Vishwa Hindu Parishad USA, is another outfit potentially providing funding to RSS supported organisations in India. 

ANONYMOUS DONORS

One of the key findings of the Bellingcat report is that a part of the funding is being derived from undisclosed sources. The investigators found that of the total money raised by Ekal Foundation USA, at least $8.3 million (Rs.65 crore) was from Donor Advised Fund (DAF) grants. Filings listing Sewa USA as a grantee show that at least $16 million (Rs.126 crore) was from such DAFs. The feature that makes DAFs interesting is that organisations that use DAF route do not have to disclose the source of donations, and donors can choose to remain anonymous.

According to the report, DAFs are common vehicles for people in the US who want to make donations to charitable causes while receiving tax relief or benefits. Donors do not control the money once they donate it but can advise on which charities the money eventually ends up at. These funds are legally maintained and operated by non-profit sponsoring organisations. As public charities, DAF sponsor organisations detail the amounts and recipients of grants that they make on behalf of their donors in their Form 990s.

The report refers to experts that told the researchers that “DAF grants undergo less regulatory scrutiny than other charitable donations and that DAF sponsor organisations have discretion over whether to restrict or permit donations to certain recipients”.

“For donor-advised funds, there’s actually less oversight by the IRS because donor-advised funds are considered public charities rather than private foundations,” said Samuel Brunson, a law professor at Loyola University Chicago, was quoted saying in the report.

“If a private foundation were giving money to organisations in India, that would be a little bit trickier. But if it’s a public charity … there’s not really a ton of oversight on that as long as the money that the US tax-exempt organisation is giving meets its charitable purpose.”

Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame who specialises in non-profits, told Bellingcat that it was “irrebuttably presumed” that funds granted to US organisations with the non-profit 501(c)(3) tax status were being used for good charitable purposes.

The analysis showed that Ekal USA and Sewa USA received at least US$24.4 million (Rs.192 crore) from 34 organisations that manage donor-advised funds (DAFs). That’s over one fifth (20.7 per cent) of the total $117.8 million (Rs.926 crore) they reported receiving in contributions and grants during this period. 

The investigation report cautions that the actual amount from DAFs may be higher, as they had included full calendar years only for study and “excluded filings that covered partial years outside of this period – for example, June 2019 to June 2020”.

CLEAR LINKS BETWEEN US FRONTS AND RSS AFFILIATES IN INDIA

The Bellingcat report takes pains to establish that there are clear and incontrovertible links between Ekal USA and Sewa USA on the one hand and RSS in India on the other. This effort may seem excessive to Indian readers but it should be remembered that the researchers are addressing US readership which may not know much about RSS and its vast network, or its activities in India.

Ekal USA, according to its website, was founded in 2001 as part of efforts to “reach out to the global diaspora” in order to achieve a goal to “expand the reach of Ekal to 100,000 villages”. Ekal USA was started in the late 1990s as a programme of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA), or World Hindu Council of America, VHPA spokesperson Shyam Tiwari told Bellingcat in an email response. He added that it was set up as an independent organisation in early 2000. The report says that RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has appeared at multiple Ekal Vidyalaya events in India promoting the initiative over the years, as far back as 2014 and most recently in May. Needless to say, that VHPA is the US branch of Vishwa Hindu Parishad which is an acknowledged front of RSS. According to the RSS website,  VHP was launched to organise Hindus and “reconvert all those who had been knowingly or unknowingly proselytised to alien faiths and are now desirous of coming back to the Hindu fold”.

The Ekal Vidyalaya movement is an instrument of propagating the RSS brand of Hindutva with its intolerance, hostility towards minorities, support of Brahmanical hierarchy, and hyper-nationalism. The report  says that Ekal Vidyalaya “has been criticised over reports that allege the schools are used to indoctrinate millions of India’s poorest and most vulnerable children and women with Hindu nationalist ideology, including that Muslims and Christians are “enemies of Hinduism”. Ekal Vidyalaya in India did not respond to multiple requests for comment sent by the researchers.

SEWA USA

As per the investigative report, Sewa USA, also based in Houston, describes itself as a “Hindu faith-based, humanitarian, nonprofit service organisation” and is listed under the heading of “Sewa Movement” on the website of India-based charity group Sewa International. 

Adopting the usual stance of distancing itself from RSS, Sewa USA Vice President of Public Affairs Rakhi Israni told Bellingcat over email that the organisation “does not operate as a branch or affiliate of the RSS” or participate in political activity. 

It is closely linked to Sewa Bharti which is a well-known RSS front. The RSS website links directly to the main website of Sewa Bharati through a tab on its main navigation bar labelled “Sewa”, and Sewa Bharati is mentioned in RSS’ Annual Reports.

RSS/BJP DIVERSIONARY TACTICS

In India, the Modi government, and Modi’s mentor, the RSS, are under siege by angry and restless people of the country. Years of economic distress, unemployment, growing chasm between the ultra-rich and the rest of population, and the government’s zealous RSS-driven agenda of spreading toxic hatred, curtailment of democracy and dismantling of the Constitution are driving this discontent that has recently seen a massive upsurge, as seen in protests in Delhi and other places. One of the ways in which RSS/BJP is trying to divert attention from this is by blaming ‘foreign powers’ who are supposedly funding Opposition Parties and other protestors to ‘spread anarchy’ in the country. BJP President Nitin Nabin, and several of BJP’s rottweilers have been making these unsubstantiated allegations of late. The Bellingcat report provides a reality check – it is the RSS, BJP and its phalanx of affiliates that are actually getting money from abroad. The report, though dealing with only one slice of the network secretively run by RSS, provides a timely glimpse of RSS/BJP chicanery.