New Delhi: Why is the chief coordinator of Mohan Bhagwat’s US trip, a full-time Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) pracharak, listed as a “yoga instructor” in his official documents? And why are the outfits hosting the RSS sarsanghchalak at a mega event in New York being described as mere ‘local organisations’? As Bhagwat prepares to embark on his overseas trip next week for the organisation’s outreach in its centenary year, these discrepancies have raised abundant questions about the identities and affiliations of the people behind his visit – and why their links to the RSS appear to have been obscured.A report by anti-supremacy platform Savera has revealed that the reality of the outreach programme is far more “clandestine”, and those leading the operation include long-standing RSS agents, hiding behind dubious titles.Titled ‘Fibs, Fronts & Fixers’, it is the first part of Savera’s series on the hidden machinery behind Bhagwat’s overseas visit, which is set to begin with the US on August 25.The report comes at a time when the opposition parties have been accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of giving a free pass to the RSS while seeking stricter legislations against other NGOs receiving foreign funds. A mysterious ‘independent’ organisationWhile making the announcement, RSS Akhil Bharatiya Prachar Pramukh (national publicity and media head) Sunil Ambekar had said on X that the three-nation tour – to the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom – was at the invitation of local organisations, and it is just “a coincidence” that this trip is taking place in the centenary year of the RSS’s founding.The “local organisations” that Ambekar mentioned while announcing Bhagwat’s tour include one called the American Hindus for Engagement and Dialogue (AHEAD) Forum, incorporated in May 2025 and given tax-exempt status by the IRS in September that year.The AHEAD Forum is the main organisation hosting Bhagwat for the marquee event at Madison Square Garden in New York on August 29.A map tracing the background of AHEAD Forum, the organisation behind Bhagwat’s Madison Square Garden event on August 29. Source: Savera report.The report states that though the Forum’s own release refers to ‘hundreds of participating’ organisations, it has “the fingerprints of the HSS are visible in the event’s very name”, including the headline celebration ‘Universal Oneness’, which is the New Jersey-based Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS)-USA’s signature branding, used frequently for Raksha Bandhan events.While its current directors are Sudesh Agrawal, Naresh Rajanna and Rasita Vishnuram – all of whom have deep ties with the Sangh, and particularly the HSS – the Forum’s registration records trace it directly to Khanderao Kand, a long-time RSS and HSS leader and the founder-president of the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS). “AHEAD Forum was first registered at Kand’s own address. Kand, who has worked across the RSS, HSS and OFBJP for decades, was exposed by investigative reporting as a key figure involved in the RSS’s illegal lobbying efforts in the US, which caused huge public embarrassment to the RSS and HSS,” the report states.Also read: 80% of Sangh Affiliates Abroad Are Registered, Make Their Tax Records Public. So Why Won’t the RSS?Notably, Kand used to be a familiar face for the Indo-American community in the US, particularly in the West Coast. According to the Savera report, a few months after the exposé by Prism Reports, Kand’s name was removed in March 2026 as the Forum’s principal agent, and handed over to Harish Kandpal – Kand’s FIIDS colleague, who served as its Vote Registration Program Manager and on the organisation’s Silicon Valley team.Ultimately, the AHEAD Forum, which presents itself as an American non-profit, frequently reveals its true identity. The report goes so far as to call it “a clear product of the HSS-FIIDS network, and an effort in continuation with a longer history of the RSS’s overseas lobbying efforts, built for the explicit purpose of propagandizing for the RSS abroad”. “The Sangh’s efforts to use these layers of concealment is, we know, in keeping with a longer history of its most powerful figures operating outside public accountability,” it states.The ‘yoga instructor’More interestingly, the report reveals that the main man coordinating Bhagwat’s trip is Saumitra Gokhale, the ‘Global Coordinator’ for the HSS, per various unofficial records. Yet, on paper, his official designation is that of a yoga instructor.Gokhale likes to maintain a low profile and earns a “humble” salary of US$ 36,000 a year, on paper.“In contrast to his stated job title, this enigmatic individual has travelled to hundreds of locations across the globe in what we show to be his true role: the Global Coordinator of the RSS’s secretive Vishwa Vibhag, or Overseas Department,” the report states.Yoga may feature in the HSS, as part of its focus on physical activity, calisthenics and paramilitary training, it adds, but “we could not find a single record of Saumitra Gokhale personally leading a yoga session, teaching a class, holding a yoga certification, or even demonstrating an asana”.“Gokhale is not a “yoga instructor” – unless the “yoga” in fact refers not to the physical and spiritual practice, but the organizational gymnastics of the global Sangh,” the report notes.He is not only a full-time RSS pracharak, and the top official of the US overseas department, but also its “most powerful official outside India, and part of the inner circle of the RSS executive itself” who attends, every year, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS, or All India Representative Meeting) – the highest decision-making body of the RSS, according to records in the Sangh’s own fortnightly, Samvad.Saumitra Gokhale addressing a diaspora event on ‘Growing RSS and HSS work all over the world’ back in 2016. Photo: Screengrab via YouTube/BharatiyaVicharManchTracing his air miles over the years, the report finds that Gokhale has been coordinating the Sangh’s global network with repeated travel between India and North America, apart from trips to Auckland, Bogotá, Nairobi, Tokyo, Mexico City, Guyana, Trinidad and Suriname, too.On “the cloak of secrecy” surrounding Gokhale, as with the Sangh’s functioning, the report alleges that “operating in the shadows allows the RSS to work outside legal or democratic structures, which its leadership has long abhorred”. Recently, a letter by Karnataka home minister Priyank Kharge also brought this to the fore, compelling the RSS into defensive over questions raised over its legal status and financial probity in the historical context, raising further questions over its funding, taxation and legal framework. The RSS had also been weathering over recent months an unprecedented escalation in international scrutiny with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the bipartisan US advisory body explicitly recommending that the US government impose targeted sanctions – such as asset freezes and travel bans – on the RSS as an organisation.The report concludes that the RSS must keep the existence of the Vishwa Vibhag under wraps and maintain a separation between the HSS and RSS, despite evidence to the contrary. Otherwise, it asks, “How can Mohan Bhagwat shake hands with his MAGA counterparts” and build a global far-right alliance if the “reality of the RSS’s influence in the US through the HSS is visible?” The report questions if the only way Bhagwat and his allies in India can “crush opposition” in the name of receiving foreign funding and being “anti-national” was if their own organisation hides all evidence pointing to its own foreign funds and political support.