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New Delhi: The RSS has spent decades explaining that it works “only in Bharat”, even as evidence continues to point to its expansion across the globe, and the secretive yet bureaucratised and systematic mechanisms through which it operates.

The latest findings come from anti-supremacy platform Savera, which, in a report titled ‘Transnational Entanglements: The RSS ‘Vishwa Vibhag’ or ‘Overseas Department’, which details how the organisation functions through a covert coordinating unit, also known as the Vishwa Vibhag.

Released on August 26, it is the second instalment in a series about the RSS’s hidden machinery. According to the report, the presence and activities of the Vishwa Vibhag lay bare the fact that it is not just “inspiration” that drives the material infrastructure the RSS has across the world. 

The report coincided with the arrival of Mohan Bhagwat in the United States. Bhagwat, the sixth RSS sarsanghchalak (chief), has begun the first leg of his overseas tour as part of the organisation’s centenary celebrations. The Wire has previously reported, based on Savera’s first instalment on the RSS machinery, that a number of discrepancies have emerged regarding the identities and affiliations of the people behind his visit whose links to the RSS appear to have been obscured.

But what is the Vishwa Vibhag and who runs it?

Vishwa Vibhag and the role of HSS

The Vishwa Vibhag, literally meaning overseas department, is an informal umbrella and communication link of the Sangh connecting a number of global organisations that ideologically and culturally align with the RSS idea pan-Hindu unification, while maintaining no official link with it.

Per the Savera report, this global operation is coordinated primarily by the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS) – particularly, the US division, which serves........

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