🕵️ FOLLOW THE MONEY - The Little-Known Hindu-American PACs' Political Pipeline

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The Hindu-American Political Network Is No Longer Just Funding Elections. It's Shaping Policy.

June 2023 was an unusually revealing month.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Washington for his state visit. Congressman Shri Thanedar (Michigan 13 District) publicly welcomed Modi and said he wanted stronger U.S.-India ties. Thanedar later joined other lawmakers who met Modi during his visit.

On June 14, at a political summit organized at Capitol Hill by Americans4Hindus (A4H) founder Romesh Japra, Thanedar announced plans to establish a Hindu congressional caucus. Republican Congressman Rich McCormick (paid by AIPAC & HAPAC) attended the summit and said that Hindu Americans "have the power to truly select the next president of the United States."

So this is an organized political network helping cultivate lawmakers who will carry its legislative priorities into Congress.

The following organizations attended the summit:

• US India Relationship Council
• American Hindu Coalition (Founder Shekhar Tewari has remained an active member of the RSS)
• American Hindu Federation
• Americans for Equality PAC
• Ekal Vidyalaya (part of RSS & VHP network)
• Federation of Indian Americans
• Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies
• Hindu Action
• Hindu Action PAC of Florida
• Hindu PACR
• Hindu Swyamsevak Sangha
• Hindu University of America
• Kashmir Hindu Foundation
• Patriot America
• Sewa International (part of RSS & VHP network)
• World Hindu Council of America

By September, Thanedar had launched the Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, and Jain American Congressional Caucus, with 27 members. Some interesting observations:

1. No Sikh, Jain, or Buddhist organizations attended the summit. Sikh organizations said they had not been consulted. The Sikh Coalition reported that Thanedar's office confirmed that no Sikh organizations, leaders, or gurdwaras had been consulted before the caucus was formed. Its conclusion was blunt: the caucus represented the Sikh community "in name only."

2. Thanedar's caucus did not include 2 religious groups that are the largest minorities in India: Muslims and Christians. These groups have been facing persecution in India by the Hindutva right-wing groups.

3. While the caucus insisted that it was organized to fight "Hinduphobia", its narrative indicated its objective to influence American politics.

These organizations are trying to influence what American politicians do.

🏛️WHEN "HINDU-AMERICAN ADVOCACY" BECOMES FOREIGN POLICY

In September 2022, the Biden administration approved a $450 million package to sustain Pakistan's existing F-16 fleet.

India objected publicly. India's defense minister raised the issue with the United States, while India's foreign minister criticized the decision. The Biden administration defended the package as maintenance for Pakistan's existing aircraft.

Around the same time, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was lobbying Congress against the package. According to Al Jazeera's investigation, a lobbyist representing HAF approached a congressional staffer and asked the office to support a ban on the F-16 sustainment package, citing persecution of Pakistan's Hindu minority.

This wasn't an Indian government lobbyist. It was an American nonprofit representing Hindu Americans. And the overlap was striking:

India's government opposed the package.

HAF opposed the package.

The policy objective was the same.

HAF disputes any suggestion that it was acting for India and says its advocacy was independently directed by its board and undertaken on behalf of its American charitable mission.

But it doesn't make the underlying question disappear

When a U.S. organization representing a diaspora community lobbies Washington on a foreign-policy issue in a direction that closely tracks the government of that community's ancestral homeland, where does community advocacy end and foreign-policy lobbying begin?

That is a legitimate question and deserves scrutiny regardless of whether the answer ultimately involves a FARA violation.

🗣️ "HINDUPHOBIA" — THE NEW POLITICAL BATTLEGROUND

Then there is the increasingly important word:

Hinduphobia.

Thanedar has made combating Hinduphobia a central part of his political work. HAPAC explicitly praises him for founding the caucus to combat Hinduphobia, preventing "anti-Hindu legislation," strengthening U.S.-India relations, and expanding H-1B opportunities. These are America's domestic and foreign policies that the Hindu Caucus and PACs plan to influence.

And what exactly constitutes Hinduphobia?

That's where the debate becomes politically consequential.

Criticism of Hinduism?

Criticism of India's government?

Criticism of Hindutva?

Discussion of caste discrimination?

Criticism of the treatment of religious minorities in India?

Or actual discrimination against Hindu Americans?

Those are not the same thing.

Yet political organizations increasingly place some of these disputes under the umbrella of "Hinduphobia." That creates a potential political weapon:

If criticism of a government, ideology, or policy can be reframed as hatred of a religious community, legitimate political criticism becomes much easier to stigmatize.

That deserves scrutiny.

🤔THE INDIA CONNECTION IS NOT INCIDENTAL

HAPAC's own endorsement page provides another revealing window into its political priorities.

Its profile of Thanedar praises him for strengthening U.S.-India relations, engaging with Modi on medicine, energy and supply chains, expanding H-1B visas, and streamlining green-card processes.

Those aren't all "Hindu American" issues.

U.S.-India strategic relations are American foreign policy; H-1B policy is American immigration policy; green card policy is American immigration policy.

And debates over immigration and high-skilled visas have real economic consequences for American workers, employers, and communities.

So the question becomes:

How much of this political agenda is about protecting Hindu Americans in the United States—and how much is about advancing a broader political relationship between the United States and India?

🔵AND THEN THERE IS ISRAEL

The network has also developed significant relationships with pro-Israel organizations.

HAF has repeatedly partnered with StandWithUs, including programs explicitly designed to build cooperation between Hindu and Jewish communities. StandWithUs itself says that Hindu Americans are one of its major interfaith outreach targets and lists HAF, HinduPACT and the World Hindu Council of America among its Hindu-American partners. HAF has also publicly described its solidarity with American Jewish communities and cooperation against antisemitism.

Again, cooperation between communities isn't inherently problematic. But it creates another political question worth watching:

Are we seeing the construction of a broader political coalition linking Hindu nationalism, Indian strategic interests, and pro-Israel politics in the United States?

There is enough documented organizational cooperation to justify watching the issue.

What we should not do is assume that every Hindu-American organization, like Hindus for Human Rights, or every Hindu American shares that agenda.

🪸 THE PATTERN

Put the pieces together.

PACs finance candidates.

Political summits bring lawmakers into the network.

Political academies (Rajneeti Academy) train future candidates.

Voter guides mobilize voters.

Advocacy organizations lobby Congress.

Congressional caucuses turn those relationships into institutional access.

And the policy agenda extends beyond narrowly defined religious issues:

India-U.S. relations.

Pakistan policy.

Immigration.

H-1B visas.

Caste legislation.

Religious-identity legislation.

Israel.

Foreign-policy questions involving South Asia.

This is what political power looks like when it becomes institutionalized.

🔎 THE WATCHDOG QUESTION

There is nothing inherently wrong with Hindu Americans organizing, funding candidates, advocating for stronger U.S.-India relations, opposing caste legislation, building relationships with Jewish or pro-Israel organizations.

All of that is protected political activity.

The question is whether voters are paying attention to who is organizing it, who is funding it, which lawmakers are participating, and what policies they are trying to move.

It becomes dangerous when any organized interest becomes powerful enough that its political agenda escapes scrutiny. And the Hindu-American political network is now sophisticated enough that it deserves the same scrutiny routinely applied to AIPAC, labor unions, corporate PACs, evangelical organizations, trial lawyers, environmental groups, and every other organized political constituency in America.

Not because Hindu Americans are uniquely suspect.

Because organized power should never be invisible.