The recent iteration of the Congress party's Bharat Summit, hosted in Hyderabad, has ignited a fierce and necessary political debate. While organizers expertly branded the gathering as an intellectual forum for global dialogue, a closer examination of the guest list reveals a deeply troubling pattern.

The event prominently featured individuals with extensively documented histories of anti-Hindu sentiments, hostility toward India’s sovereign decisions, and robust financial and operational ties to billionaire George Soros’s international network. The presence of these highly polarizing figures, compounded by a European political leader openly interfering in India’s domestic electoral battles, has led observers to ask a vital question: Was this summit a genuine diplomatic exercise, or was it a calculated international extension of an "anti-national agenda" pushed by the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi?

A Gathering of Thousands: The Scale and Stated Mission of the Congress-Backed Global Conclave

On November 13 and 14, the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC) became the staging ground for the second Bharat Summit. Orchestrated by the Samruddha Bharat Foundation and officially convened by the Telangana state government, the event attracted an impressive crowd of over 1,000 delegates representing 70 different nations. The overarching theme of the conclave was "Forging a New World".

However, beneath the surface of grand declarations regarding social equality, global justice, and electoral integrity, the carefully curated roster of speakers quickly became the epicenter of a political firestorm. Rather than focusing on neutral diplomatic exchange, the panel heavily favored domestic critics and international operatives linked to George Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF)—an entity historically criticized for attempting to engineer political outcomes within sovereign democracies. The guest list included individuals who have mocked the Hindu faith, challenged India’s integration of Kashmir, ridiculed the military's Operation Sindoor, and been implicated in the tragic 2020 Delhi riots. The most notable controversial figures include:

1. Salil Shetty
2. Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd
3. Prof. Sujatha Surepally
4. Sir Iqbal Sacranie
5. Anies Baswedan
6. DU professor Apoorvanand
7. Guillaume Long
8. Patrick Gaspard
9. Giacomo Filibeck
10. Jayati Ghosh
11. Nurul Izzah Anwar

Salil Shetty: The Former Amnesty Chief and Open Society Leader Walking Alongside the Opposition

Leading the pack of controversial invitees is Salil Shetty, a man deeply entrenched in global left-wing advocacy. Having served as the global vice-president of the Soros-funded Open Society Foundations, Shetty is a familiar face within opposition circles. He famously marched alongside Rahul Gandhi in Harthikote, Karnataka, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Before his tenure at OSF, Shetty led Amnesty International—a group whose Indian branch was forced to halt its operations in late 2020 following regulatory scrutiny over severe foreign funding violations.

Shetty's activism frequently spills into direct domestic agitation. During the 2020 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), he was a prominent voice on the streets, addressing crowds in New Delhi and Bengaluru. When the CAA was officially notified, Shetty took to social media to aggressively declare, "We will never allow #India to be divided by the Hindutva fundamentalists. We will unmask them." He also actively addressed demonstrators at the infamous Shaheen Bagh protest site, a prolonged blockade that severely heightened communal tensions, ultimately culminating in the devastating February 2020 anti-Hindu riots that claimed 53 lives in the national capital.

Furthermore, Shetty routinely uses international platforms to attack New Delhi. Following the abrogation of Article 370, he used a September 2019 forum at Harvard University’s Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute—titled “Salil Shetty: Decoding the Kashmir Crisis”—to launch a blistering attack on India. He accused the government of harboring majoritarian designs, asserting that New Delhi had "decided to sacrifice the people of Kashmir to achieve its Hindu national hegemonic goals in mainland India." His consistent stream of anti-BJP and anti-Modi rhetoric leaves little doubt as to why the Congress leadership enthusiastically welcomed him to the Hyderabad stage.

Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd: A Career Built on Deeply Polarizing Rhetoric Against the Hindu Faith

Another highly divisive figure given a platform at the summit was academic and writer Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd. His extensive career has been largely defined by a relentless ideological campaign against the Brahmin community and the broader Hindu religion—a stance that the Congress ecosystem appears entirely willing to accommodate.

Ilaiah’s hostility toward the faith is a matter of public record, articulated in his own words. In a widely cited January 17, 2000, interview with Rediff, he made his feelings explicitly clear: "Yes, I hate Hinduism, Hinduism is not ours, it is against us." In the same candid conversation, he directed profound anger toward Hindu deities and sacred traditions, declaring, "If we have to become Hindus, the Brahmins will have to change the entire religious texts, our food habits, our gods and goddesses and images. I am angry at the Hindu gods."

Through controversial books like 'Why I Am Not a Hindu' and 'Post-Hindu India', Ilaiah has attempted to aggressively deconstruct classical Hindu epics. He bizarrely reimagined the Mahabharata's Kurukshetra war through the lens of modern caste conflict, writing, "The hundred Kauravas stood against brahminical dharma and represented Dalit-Bahujans, the majority; whereas the five Pandavas stood for brahminical dharma and represented the brahminical minority." In the same text, he claimed that Bhagwan Shri Krishna's Yadava upbringing was a mere political ploy designed to co-opt the community into supporting the Brahminical order.

His attacks even extend to dietary habits; as reported by The Times of India in 2016, Ilaiah proclaimed that "vegetarianism is anti-nationalism," framing a vegetarian diet as something that weakens the populace, contrasting it with what he called B.R. Ambedkar’s vision of "food democracy." He has also peddled baseless historical conspiracies, suggesting that ancient Brahmins invented cremation specifically to destroy the physical evidence of massacres against marginalized groups.

Dr. Sujatha Surepally: The Academic Who Derided the Armed Forces' Response to Terrorism

The Congress party also extended an invitation to Dr. Sujatha Surepally, Principal of the Arts College at Satavahana University in Karimnagar and a member of the Telangana State Higher Education Council. Dr. Surepally became a lightning rod for national outrage in the wake of the horrific Pahalgam terror attack, an atrocity in which Pakistani terrorists systematically identified and murdered 26 innocent Hindu civilians.

While the rest of the nation united in grief and stood firmly behind the Indian Armed Forces during their retaliatory military strike—Operation Sindoor—Dr. Surepally chose a remarkably different path. On May 7, she took to Facebook to openly mock the military operation's name and belittle the armed forces' response. She eventually deleted the post after facing massive, justified public backlash. A self-proclaimed human rights activist and Ambedkarite, she is also known for participating in forums that lend ideological cover to Maoist narratives.

Sir Iqbal Sacranie: The British Islamist Leader Lobbying Against India’s Kashmir Sovereignty

Adding a troubling international Islamist dimension to the guest list was Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the founding Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). Sacranie has spent years utilizing global platforms to campaign against India’s sovereignty over Jammu and Kashmir while simultaneously maligning the Indian military.

During the tense military standoff between India and Pakistan in May 2002, Sacranie released a formal MCB statement demanding a "free and impartial plebiscite" in Jammu and Kashmir, seamlessly mirroring the diplomatic talking points of Islamabad. His hostility dates back even further; in an April 14, 2000, MCB release, he leveled severe and entirely unsubstantiated accusations of war crimes against Indian security forces, stating, "The British Muslim community is appalled at the continuing killing, rape, arson and destruction in Kashmir by 700,000 Indian forces." The decision to invite a foreign operative with a documented history of accusing the Indian Army of mass atrocities raises profound questions regarding the vetting process and the true intent of the summit organizers.

Anies Baswedan: The Southeast Asian Leader Endorsed by an Al-Qaeda-Linked Extremist Cleric

Looking toward Southeast Asia, the organizers flew in Anies Baswedan, the former Governor of Jakarta and Indonesia's former Minister of Education and Culture. Baswedan’s political trajectory in Indonesia is notoriously intertwined with severe religious polarization. During the highly fractured 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial race, he actively aligned himself with hardline Islamist factions. These radical groups weaponized religious verses against his opponent, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (commonly known as Ahok), an ethnic Chinese Christian. This toxic campaign ultimately led to Ahok’s political defeat and his highly controversial imprisonment on blasphemy charges.

Even more alarming, during Indonesia’s 2024 presidential race, Baswedan secured the vocal endorsement of Abu Bakar Bashir—a radical Islamist cleric and convicted terrorist with deep ties to Al-Qaeda. Bashir, who served as the spiritual mastermind behind the tragic 2002 Bali bombings that claimed 202 lives, had also publicly pledged loyalty to the global terror syndicate ISIS while serving his prison sentence in 2014. By giving a platform to a politician backed by an ISIS-sympathizing, Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist, the Congress party showcased deeply troubling, radical international alliances on a prominent stage.

Professor Apoorvanand: Accused in Riot Conspiracies and Critical of Sacred Hindu Traditions

On the domestic academic front, the summit featured Delhi University Hindi professor Apoorvanand, a deeply controversial figure whose name surfaced during the Delhi Police investigation into the violent February 2020 anti-Hindu riots. According to the official police chargesheet, both accused Gulfisha Fatima and a protected witness known as GAMA explicitly implicated Apoorvanand in the broader conspiracy that sparked the bloodshed in the national capital.

Beyond his legal controversies, Apoorvanand frequently denigrates Hindu religious expressions. In a May 2019 opinion piece published by the left-leaning portal The Wire, he shockingly described the sacred traditional chant of "Jai Shri Ram" as an "expression of hooliganism." In that same piece, he defended West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's aggressive reaction to citizens chanting the phrase, framing the Prime Minister of India as an "instigator" and attacking veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani as a "bahurupiya" (imposter). He argued the slogan was manufactured solely to incite hatred against Muslims.

His dismissal of historical and demographic threats is equally glaring. In an April 2023 social media exchange with Yogendra Yadav regarding Khalistan, Hindu Rashtra, and Ghazwa-e-Hind, Apoorvanand completely brushed off the latter, writing, "Found it disappointing that while discussing Khalistan and Hindu Rashtra, it is thought necessary to bring GEH. Has any Indian organisation, or any individual, given a call for it like the earlier two? GEH is evoked by Hindutvavadis to justify their violence. No Muslim talks about it."Guillaume Long: The Soros-Backed Diplomat Who Sparked a Fierce Domestic Political Showdown

The invitation extended to former Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Guillaume Long triggered an immediate and explosive political confrontation between the ruling BJP and the Congress. Long is deeply embedded in networks financed by George Soros; he is a Senior Research Fellow at the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), an organization that received a massive $420,000 grant from the Soros-backed Open Society Policy Centre in 2021. Long himself has been directly tied to these funding streams while also operating as a Senior Diplomatic Advisor at The Hague Group.

BJP leaders seized upon Long’s presence, accusing Rahul Gandhi of importing Soros affiliates to meddle in India's sovereign affairs. BJP national media convenor Ashish Usha Agarwal demanded transparency on social media, forcefully asking, "Congress must answer: What is the agenda behind inviting Guillaume Long to its Bharat Summit 2026 in Hyderabad? Long is a Senior Research Fellow at CEPR, which reportedly received $420,000 in grants from the George Soros-backed Open Society Policy Centre in 2021."

Agarwal noted the extreme sensitivity of this connection, given that in March 2025, India’s Directorate of Enforcement (ED) raided eight locations in Bengaluru linked to OSF beneficiaries over suspected violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Questioning the opposition's endgame, Agarwal asked, "By inviting individuals like Guillaume Long, is Rahul Gandhi seeking international backing for an anti-India agenda? Is Congress bringing together international forces under the banner of regime change to question India’s democratic mandate and weaken its democratic and constitutional institutions? Is there a larger political agenda behind this gathering?" He firmly concluded, "Rahul Gandhi must answer the nation. What is Congress’s objective in providing a platform to such individuals and networks? India’s democracy is strengthened by the people’s mandate, not by international networks seeking to undermine it."

Echoing these grave concerns, BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari stated, "Bharat Summit 2026 speakers organised by Congress include individuals with links to George Soros-backed networks and a record of anti-India statements." Pointing to Long’s roles alongside the presence of other Open Society executives, Bhandari declared, "Rahul Gandhi wants to bring regime-change operators into India’s political discourse while preaching about democracy."

Patrick Gaspard: The Chief Architect of Soros’s Global Network Headlines the Summit Closure

Validating the BJP's allegations regarding the profound influence of George Soros's inner circle at the event, the organizers invited Patrick Gaspard to deliver remarks during the summit's closing session on November 14. Gaspard is far from a peripheral beneficiary of Soros’s philanthropy; from 2017 to 2020, he served as the full-time President of the Open Society Foundations. In this capacity, he directly managed the billionaire’s sprawling global empire of political and ideological grant-making operations.

Elevating the former chief executive of Soros’s primary foundation to headline the valedictory session of a major Indian opposition conclave sent a clear and unmistakable signal, firmly cementing the operational ties between the Congress party and the global Open Society apparatus.

Giacomo Filibeck: The European Politician Parroting Domestic Opposition Slogans on Indian Soil

The summit's audacity regarding foreign interference reached a crescendo on Saturday, November 14, when Giacomo Filibeck, Secretary General of the Party of European Socialists, took the microphone. Addressing a room full of foreign delegates and Congress elites, the European leader brazenly chanted Rahul Gandhi’s aggressive street slogan, "Vote Chor, Gaddi Chhod" (Vote Thief, Leave Your Seat).

While Rahul Gandhi smiled and applauded enthusiastically from the dais, Filibeck waded directly into India's sovereign electoral rivalry, taking a distinctly partisan stance by declaring, "The Congress Party built the democratic foundation of modern India. Today, it is fighting to protect them. And progressives everywhere stand with you." This slogan was originally engineered by Gandhi during his domestic campaigns to cast unverified aspersions on the Election Commission, electronic voting machines, and the mandate secured by the BJP-led government. Watching a European political operative repeat a partisan street attack against India's democratically elected government on Indian soil was widely condemned as a catastrophic breach of diplomatic propriety and an open embrace of foreign political meddling.

Jayati Ghosh: An Academic Tied to Riot Probes and Supported by the Global Progressive Network

The summit also prominently featured Jayati Ghosh, an economist with a well-documented history of anti-government sentiment and robust financial ties to the Open Society network. Professor Ghosh's name notably appeared in a disclosure statement during the investigation into the anti-Hindu Delhi riots, although she was not officially chargesheeted. She has partnered with Soros's foundations on several initiatives, including a 2018–2019 cross-country research project exploring the "Gender implications of formalising the informal sector." Notably, her daughter, Jahnavi Sen, is the deputy editor at The Wire, a left-leaning publication frequently criticized for amplifying anti-government narratives and whitewashing the heinous crimes of extremist groups.

Nurul Izzah Anwar: The Malaysian Leader Deeply Embedded in the Open Society Ecosystem

Sharing the international stage was Nurul Izzah Anwar, a former Malaysian Member of Parliament and the Executive Chair of the Suluh Centre. Like many other invitees, Anwar is closely linked to the Open Society circuit, having recently headlined an OSF-sponsored event as recently as 2025. Her presence further highlighted the highly organized, ideologically uniform nature of the global progressive cohort that the Congress party assembled in Hyderabad.

Beyond the Polished Brochures: The Stated Goals Versus the Hidden Blueprint of the Summit

On paper, the Bharat Summit was marketed with the refined vernacular of global statesmanship. Organizers promised rigorous debates on a "new global order,""electoral integrity," and "cooperative federalism," while vowing to counter the "politics of hatred, division and authoritarianism". Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid heavily promoted the event, promising that the 12 international sessions, the eight panels focused on Telangana, and the launch of the 'Our World' think tank would perfectly showcase "Rahul Gandhi’s vision for India and the world".

However, looking past the elegant marketing reveals a highly coordinated international political apparatus. The summit was intimately connected to the Progressive Alliance (PA)—a global syndicate of socialist and Left-wing parties formed in Leipzig, Germany, in 2013, after breaking away from the Socialist International. Comprising 119 parties from 97 countries (including the UK’s Labour Party and Germany's Social Democrats), the PA is essentially a war room designed to share campaign tactics and combat what they label as "right-wing populism" and "dangerous authoritarianism." By aligning so closely with this foreign coalition, the Congress party appears to be utilizing an international platform to paint India’s democratically elected government as a global "threat" that requires foreign intervention to dismantle.

Rahul Gandhi is not merely a passive participant in this network; he sits at its absolute apex. He is one of the nine members of the PA's Praesidium representing Asia, alongside fellow Congress figures Sam Pitroda and Jothimani Sennimalai. His dedication to this foreign body is so profound that in December 2025, he abandoned the final day of the Indian Parliament’s Winter Session to attend a PA meeting in Berlin. Earlier, on October 5 and 6, 2024, he attended an alliance gathering in Santiago to "cooperate in the fight against democratic backsliding and rising global uncertainties."

This also wasn't Hyderabad's first time hosting the group; in April 2025, the Congress and the PA jointly held an event titled "Delivering Global Justice", producing the "Hyderabad Declaration" that brazenly accused "far-right leaders and autocratic governments" of spreading falsehoods under the guise of a "strategic dialogue" regarding India’s foreign policy direction.

Final Thoughts on the True Intent of the Event

In the final analysis, the 2nd Bharat Summit in Hyderabad laid bare a massive contradiction between the Congress party’s patriotic posturing and its actual operational alliances. By filling its roster with anti-Hindu provocateurs, defenders of terror-linked figures, individuals implicated in domestic riots, and high-ranking operatives of the Open Society Foundations—all shielded by the benign-sounding name "Bharat Summit"—the party attempted to sanitize an international ideological offensive, granting it a veneer of domestic legitimacy.

However, the mask fully slipped when a European politician stood on an Indian stage and chanted domestic opposition street slogans. Rather than a celebration of the nation, the event functioned as a tightly controlled international echo chamber aimed at invalidating India's democratic reality. Given the heavy presence of OSF leadership, it would be far more precise to label the gathering a "Soros Summit", meticulously orchestrated to provide cover for a regime-change agenda directed at ousting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As media reports have long indicated, this Progressive Alliance shares the same regime-change ideology championed by George Soros, who has openly broadcast his disdain for PM Modi. Furthermore, key Indian figures within this broader global ecosystem, including Prashant Bhushan and Neha Bora, have already publicly declared that recent opposition street protests are designed to topple the democratically elected government, chillingly mirroring the violent, undemocratic upheavals recently witnessed in Nepal and Bangladesh.