The Hindu American Foundation ( ) is an American non-profit Hindutva organization founded in 2003. The organization has its roots in the Sangh Parivar, a collection of Hindutva organizations led by the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and more specifically in the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America and its student wing Hindu Students Council.
The HAF's activism aligns with the Hindu nationalist ideology of Hindutva, alongside impinging on academic freedom. The organization argues that its advocacy focuses on protecting the rights of Hindus in the United States, drawing attention to Hindu persecution abroad, pushing back against the cultural appropriation of yoga, and opposing laws prohibiting caste-based discrimination. However, the HAF is thoroughly embedded in networks of Hindu nationalist politics and seeks to weaponize Hindu victimhood to bolster this agenda. Additionally, a Coalition Against Genocide report argues that one of its co-founders uses the organization to push Hindutva as an issue of "Hindu rights" to situate it in the mainstream politics of multiculturalism in the United States.
Establishment The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) was founded in September 2003 by Mihir Meghani, an emergency care physician; Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery; his wife, Suhag Shukla, an attorney; Nikhil Joshi, a labor law attorney; and his wife, Adeeti Joshi, a speech therapist. Describing itself as a human rights and advocacy group, it emphasized upon the "Hindu and American ideals of understanding, tolerance and pluralism". Vinay Lal, a professor of South Asian history at the University of California, Los Angeles noted that the organization appeared to have banked on the enormous goodwill created by Mahatma Gandhi in the West.
Previously, in 1991, Meghani had founded the University of Michigan's chapter of the Hindu Students Council (HSC), a nationwide network of student societies affiliated with the Vishwa Hindu Parishad America (VHPA). He went on to serve on the governing council of VHPA and authored an essay for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) comparing Hindus, a religious majority in India, with Jews, Black Americans, and colonized groups, whose bottled-up anger, for over a millennium, allegedly found a channel of outburst in the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Coalition Against Genocide (CAG), a platform established in the aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots against Hindu nationalist violence directed at Muslims, stated that the formation of the HAF has been the outcome of Meghani's parleys on the governing council of the VHPA and an effort to rebrand the Hindutva agenda as "Hindu rights" to suit mainstream American politics.: 'With the VHP-A led by first-generation immigrants who are unable to penetrate the mainstream American political framework, Meghani's creation of the HAF provided a hitherto unavailable opportunity to bridge the gap between the Hindutva agenda and mainstream American politics. By situating the HAF's work within a framework of American multiculturalism, Meghani effectively gained the ability to push the VHP-A's Hindutva agenda as an issue of "Hindu rights".' They further note most of the HAF office bearers to have been drawn from HSC activists. The HAF rejected that their founders had any ties with Hindu Nationalist politics and accused CAG's "leaders and member organizations" of "espousing Marxist ideology or fringe Islamist positions, openly advocating anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-India views".
Activism The HAF was the first American Hindu advocacy organization to have a professional organizational structure as well as full-time staff and is widely considered to be the most prominent organization in the Hindu advocacy field. The organization was aided by Jewish advocacy groups during its development; it continues to work with the Anti-Defamation League.
Highlighting Hindu persecution During 2004–05, the organization held events to educate legislators about issues of concern to Hindu Americans. These included the abuse of Hindus in the Muslim-majority regions of South Asia, including Kashmir, Bangladesh and Pakistan, as well as in the Buddhist-majority regions of South Asia of Bhutan and Sri Lanka, and outside South Asia in Fiji, Malaysia, and Trinidad and Tobago; since then, they have continued to publish regular "Hindu Human Rights" reports. The HAF critiqued Pakistan's treatment of Hindus and advocated for better assimilation and integration of Pakistani Hindu migrants and refugees in India. Additionally, they have argued that in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Hindu women are "especially vulnerable" to kidnappings and forced conversions.
Advocacy for Hindu rights in the United States In 2004, the HAF unsuccessfully challenged the public display of the Ten Commandments in Texas, appearing as amici curiae in Van Orden v. Perry in the United States Supreme Court; they argued that the display represented an "inherent government preference" for Judeo-Christian religions over others and hence, violated the state's obligation to maintain religious neutrality. In 2008, the HAF, along with Americans United for Separation of Church and State and congregational leaders of various religions, filed a lawsuit and blocked the issuance of Christian-themed license plates in South Carolina.
In 2015, as a part of the Hate Crimes Coalition, the HAF participated in the drafting and submission of edits to an FBI manual to track hate crimes against Hindus specifically. However, scholar Azad Essa has stated that the HAF has exaggerated the hate crimes faced by Hindus in America. Essa found the HAF's alarmist statements about a "rise" in Hinduphobic hate crimes in 2019 to not correspond with reality which was out of the 7,120 hate crimes which were reported to the FBI in 2018, only fourteen concerned Hindus; the years before, this count was stable at eleven and ten. Additionally, a review of HAF public communications by Jewish Currents found the organization had labelled more than 200 separate incidents as "Hinduphobic" or anti-Hindu between 2019 and 2024, regularly misclassifying anti-Asian racism, anti-Muslim violence, and criticism of Hindu nationalism as anti-Hindu hate.
In 2016, the HAF along with Indiaspora and other organizations convinced the United States Postal Service to issue a stamp commemorating the festival of Diwali.
Pro-India advocacy In 2002, Gujarat witnessed widespread violence against Muslims under the Chief Ministership of Narendra Modi; the incumbent government has been widely blamed for active complicity. In 2005, when the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association invited Narendra Modi for an address, activists, including John Prabhudoss, lobbied the United States Congress to introduce a resolution criticizing him for his role in those riots. Joseph Pitts and John Conyers introduced House Resolution 160 to such effects. The HAF opposed this resolution, deeming it "Hinduphobic" and criticizing the Congressmen for making India the "focus of a resolution condemning religious persecution in South Asia" while ignoring Pakistan and Bangladesh. Nonetheless, the State Department denied Modi a visa two days after the bill was introduced.
In 2013, the HAF again opposed a fresh bill by Pitts that commended the 2005 visa denial, encouraged the federal government "to review the applications of any individuals implicated in religious freedom violations under the same standard", and urged for the repealing of anti-conversion laws in several Indian states. The HAF mounted fresh criticism, arguing that the bill ignored the impact of Islamist and Maoist terrorism in the country, and selectively targeted Hindus; a few Indian activist groups who supported the bill were denounced for supposedly being unpatriotic.
In 2016, the HAF hosted briefings for legislators about Pakistan’s support for terrorism in Kashmir and raised concern about how US aid might be diverted against India. In August 2019, after the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, which took away the autonomy of the province and rendered it a union territory, the HAF published a "Reporter’s Guide" which emphasized about how the new regulations would ensure equal property rights for women, protections for the queer community, and better opportunities for Dalits in the region.
In 2022, the HAF co-sponsored a nationwide screening tour of the Hindi-language film The Kashmir Files, which scholars and critics characterised as anti-Muslim propaganda. HAF board member Rajiv Pandit hosted a screening in Dallas alongside the film's director, Vivek Agnihotri. That same year, HAF's year-end fundraiser, titled "Distortions of India and Hinduism", featured Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a right-wing commentator with a documented history of anti-Muslim speech.
In 2024, the Congressional Research Service listed the HAF among Hindu nationalist groups operating in the United States, noting that the organization had for two decades sought to influence the presidency, Congress, and state governments, "by some accounts directly on behalf of the New Delhi government". Journalist Zahir Janmohamed recounted a congressional staffer telling him the "HAF is not promoting Modi but they are definitely trying to undermine anyone in Washington who is critical of Modi".
In 2025, the HAF was named in a complaint to the United States Department of Justice, alleging that under the Foreign Agents Registration Act the HAF operates as an unregistered foreign agent of India's BJP and is in a "fiduciary" relationship with the Indian Embassy in D.C., as per embassy-provided documents. The HAF dismissed the charges as false; they argued the complaint was filed by Lex Politica, a right-wing law firm, at the behest of groups supportive of the Khalistan movement.
The HAF supports strong ties between India, Israel, and the US to create an axis of countries against Islamic terrorism.
Anti-conversion laws and Hinduization The HAF has been a vocal defender of anti-conversion laws enacted by several Indian states, contending that such statutes shield socioeconomically vulnerable populations which includes children, the poor, and the illiterate from being induced into changing religion in exchange for medical aid, education, or employment.
Writing in Byline Times, columnist CJ Werleman stated that while the HAF actively promotes anti-conversion legislation in India, it has remained silent on forced conversions to Hinduism and on the "Hinduization" or ghar wapsi (homecoming) campaigns conducted by affiliates of the Sangh Parivar, in which Christians and Muslims are pressured or coerced into adopting Hinduism.
Varghese K. George, resident editor at The Hindu, states the HAF opposes conversions, except to Hinduism, and that it opposes missionary efforts, except by Hindus, and opines that it makes "the argument that poor, uneducated people in India are gullible to the machinations of evangelists".
In November 2013, a bipartisan group of fourteen U.S. Representatives introduced House Resolution 417, which praised India's religious diversity but urged the Indian government to act against violence directed at religious minorities, criticized Narendra Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat violence, and called for the repealing of state anti-conversion laws. The HAF mobilized against the resolution, lobbying every co-sponsoring office and pressuring several lawmakers to withdraw their support; a Congressional staffer told a journalist that the HAF was working to undermine the bill, and the resolution ultimately stalled.