The US-based political affiliate of the BJP, the Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP), was forced to register as a foreign agent for aggressive foreign interference on behalf of the ruling RSS-linked Hindu nationalist BJP party in India.

Like other US-based Hindu Supremacist groups, Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP) began as an outreach project of members of India-based Sangh Parivar groups. Specifically, Lal Krishna Advani, one of the BJP’s co-founders and an RSS man, founded OFBJP in 1992. His goal was to do “damage control” surrounding the 1992 Babri Masjid destruction and to solicit financial contributions from a wealthy diaspora.

After Modi became India’s prime minister in 2014, the BJP decided to expand its overseas branches, and in the fall of 2014, Modi personally met with members of the U.S.-based OFBJP in New York. The U.S.-based OFBJP has lived up to its propaganda and financing expectations. For instance, it helped to organize the “Howdy Modi” spectacle of 2019. On the softer side of Hindutva, OFBJP promotes International Yoga Day, a Modi initiative that collapses Indian and Hindu identities