The RSS’s Handmaiden at the Helm: Why Tulsi Gabbard’s Targeting is a Compromised Threat Assessment

It was in March 2026, when holding the Annual Threat Assessment presentation before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the new US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard, surprisingly dropped a geopolitical bombshell. Without a clear explanation, she put Pakistan on the same list as Russia China North Korea, and Iran by alleging that Islamabad was engaged in the development of long-range ballistic missile systems possibly including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)which have the capability to hit the US homeland.

Pakistani officials and nuclear experts quickly dismissed the claims as ridiculous and not in line with the strategic realities. They rightly noted that Pakistan’s nuclear policy and the development of its missiles are entirely directed towards India, calibrated for regional deterrence rather than global power projection. If that is the case, why would the head of US intelligence provide such a highly exaggerated, worst-case story that quite eerily appears to be in line with New Delhi’s points of view?

To answer that, one only needs to look at the deeply troubling financial and ideological machinery that built Gabbard’s political career: the “American Sangh.”

The Hindutva Bankroll

Long before Gabbard was given access to the inner workings of the US intelligence, she went through the training and got financial support from a set of US-based Hindu nationalist groups ties to India’s Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)a right-wing exclusivist paramilitary group which is also the progenitor of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

According to investigative reports, at least 105 current and former officers of various overseas Sangh affiliates must have generously funded her congressional campaigns since 2011. She was mainly funded by leading members of the Hindutva ideology such as Ramesh Bhutada (Vice President of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh, the US wing of the RSS), Bharat Barai, and Vijay Pallod. In addition to that, she got extensive financial support from the Hindu American Foundation (HAF); during the 2017-2018 period, she received more than $24,000 from HAF board members, with HAF Chairman Mihir Meghani being the major contributor who donated $15,400 to both her campaign and leadership PAC.

A Bizarre Metamorphosis Rooted in a Cult

Only Gabbard’s being raised in the Science of Identity Foundation (SIF), a very secretive Hawaiian Hare Krishna offshoot group led by Chris Butler, enabled her utility for the American Sangh . According to former members, SIF was an abusive cult with Islamophobic and anti-LGBTQ+ tendencies, and it was this Hindu identity that the RSS network used to present Gabbard as a sympathetic voice. She was so financially reliant on this controversial sect that even after she became a national figure, her financial machinery was still connected with it. Her 2020 legal defense fund set up to sue critics like Hillary Clinton was significantly funded by SIF supporters, which points to a double dependence on both Hindutva cash and the followers of her controversial guru.

Operating as New Delhi’s Mascot

In return for the Hindutva money, Gabbard was practically an RSS “American mascot” in Washington D.C. Soon after the 2002 Gujarat pogroms, that resulted in more than a thousand Muslims being killed, Modi was the most hated international figure with an almost universal denial of his US visa. Gabbard was among the very few who managed to change the perception of his global image. She was very vocal in her opposition to US House Resolution 417 that was a bipartisan endeavor condemning the religious persecution in India and that her Sangh donors rejoiced in her stance She also agreed to chair the 2018 World Hindu Congress in Chicago—an event headlined by RSS supreme leader Mohan Bhagwat—before quietly withdrawing amid massive public backlash.

Her alignment wasn’t only legislative but also deeply personal. As a matter of fact, during a 2014 trip to India, she not only met senior BJP and RSS leaders but also gave PM Modi the Bhagavad Gita she had since her childhood. At her 2015 wedding in Hawaii, Ram Madhav a lifelong RSS operative and then-National General Secretary of the BJP was the person who took the stage to present the pashmina shawl and a Ganesh statuette piece as gifts from Modi himself.

Deflection by Design

When challenged about these connections, Gabbard uses a very predictable way of changing the subject. When a reporter tried to question her about receiving funds from RSS at a 2019 Los Angeles town hall, she very aggressively refused to admit the existence of the paramilitary group and changed the topic by saying that her questioner was “Hinduphobic” and practicing religious bigotry.

However, this defense seems disingenuous to the marginalized Indian diaspora communities. Dalit Sikh Christian, and Muslim organizations among the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) and the Organization for Minorities of India (OFMI)have regularly protested her campaigns, accurately equating the supremacist ideology of the RSS to that of white nationalism and the KKK.

A Compromised Intelligence Chief

Now, as Director of National Intelligence, Gabbard’s former affiliation with a foreign religious-nationalist paramilitary goes beyond the mere campaign finance scandal; it is a serious national security risk that cannot be ignored.

Gabbard is not doing a rational examination of the intelligence when she uses her Senate platform to proclaim that Pakistan’s deterrence focused on India is posing an ICBM threat to the US homeland. What she is doing is laundering New Delhi’s strategic anxieties through the megaphone of US intelligence Her recent statements about Pakistan have shown that national security experts’ worst fears are coming true: the American Sangh’s long-term plan has yielded results .The US intelligence community is currently being steered by a politician whose career was meticulously built by Hindutva operatives, which brings up an alarming question: Is the Director of National Intelligence really working for the security of America, or is she the most effective sleeper asset of the RSS?