PIETER FRIEDRICH
Videos
Told Newark About the RSS: They Kept Signing
In October 2025, I warned Newark City Council about HSS — the U.S. arm of India’s RSS — collecting city proclamations as political capital. They ignored it.
A Nation investigation found HSS gathered 439 proclamations across four yogathons, drafting the text themselves and walking them city to city.
Newark’s signature isn’t ceremonial. It feeds a pipeline to Sacramento, where those endorsements are used to lobby lawmakers — even to help kill SB 509.
Three cities rescinded. Newark hasn’t.
Your signature isn’t courtesy.
It’s ammunition.
GeneratElk Grove Knew About the RSS — And Went Silente excitement
Elk Grove rescinded its HSS proclamation quietly — after Manteca did it the right way in 2022: 150 residents, a four-hour meeting, a unanimous vote, and a public apology.
Manteca fought in the open. Elk Grove slipped it through in the dark.
This is the same city where two Sikh grandfathers were shot and killed in 2011 — a case still unsolved. The council named a park for them. The mayor says that tragedy led her into public service. The city calls itself “No Place for Hate.”
Yet while Elk Grove stayed silent, SB 509 — a bill to train law enforcement to recognize foreign government targeting — was killed.
A city that honors murdered Sikh men but says nothing when protections for Sikh lives are blocked doesn’t get to call itself “No Place for Hate.
HAF Called Your Constituents "Paranoid" — Fremont City Council
Gurdwara Sahib Fremont — five thousand weekly worshippers, one of the most influential Sikh institutions in the world — sent a letter to Attorney General Bondi asking the DOJ to investigate the Hindu American Foundation under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The allegations were specific: HAF facilitated meetings between foreign officials and American lawmakers, hosted foreign officials at its events, and consistently advocated for the interests of India's ruling party. Documents obtained through India's Right to Information Act show the Indian Embassy acknowledged a fiduciary relationship with HAF and refused to release their correspondence. HAF's response was to call the Gurdwara's complaint "paranoid, defamatory, and nonsensical." That is what they said about Fremont's own constituents — people who raised documented concerns through proper legal channels to the nation's top law enforcement officer. Several California cities have already rescinded proclamations to these organizations after learning what they represent.