Latest news with #Nithyananda
The Guardian
08-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
‘Magical realism': how a fake Hindu nation tried to take over Indigenous land in Bolivia
Followers of a fugitive Indian Hindu guru on a mission to establish his own state are popping up across Latin America, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy land in Ecuador, Paraguay and now Bolivia. At the end of last year, a representative of the Baure Indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon signed a 'perpetual' contract leasing 60,000 hectares (148,260 acres) of their vast rainforest for $108,000 (£81,910) a year. A representative of the Cayubaba Indigenous people signed a similar contract, leasing 31,000 hectares for $55,800 annually. On the other end of the contracts, the profiteer was the United States of Kailasa, which, despite presenting itself to the Indigenous peoples as a nation, is not recognised by any country or the UN. The fictional nation was created by Nithyananda – a self-anointed 'godman' and the 'supreme pontiff of Hinduism' – in 2019, after he fled India while facing charges of abducting children for his ashram and one of raping a follower. After failed attempts to buy land in Ecuador and Paraguay – and even signing an agreement with the US city of Newark, which was later scrapped when officials realised Kailasa did not exist – the fake country turned to Bolivia. Between September and November 2024, its representatives signed contracts with at least four Indigenous groups for the 1,000-year lease 'with automatic and perpetual renewal' of their lands. Everything seemed to go according to plan until the Bolivian newspaper El Deber exposed it last month. 'When I first read the contracts, I thought, 'I must be imagining this'. They were so irrational that it felt like magical realism,' said Silvana Vicenti, the journalist who broke the story. According to the contracts, seen by the Guardian, Kailasa would control vast swathes of land, 'with full sovereignty and autonomy' within each Indigenous territory including rights over the airspace and all natural resources above or below the ground. The Indigenous groups would be obliged to 'defend Kailasa in any legal proceedings' and support its recognition 'as a sovereign and independent state, protect it against aggression, and back its admission to international organisations such as the UN'. For Vicenti, it seemed like 'a monarchy with Indigenous subjects'. Jhovana Morales, a lawyer from Fundación Tierra, an NGO that works on Indigenous land issues, said the contracts were abusive and violated several Bolivian laws. One example was the perpetual lease clause, as the civil code sets a maximum term of 10 years. 'The contracts are a total scam,' said Morales. 'But the strangest part is that, to this day, no one knows exactly what happened. First, how did they get in? … How did they reach these places and start directly approaching sectors of Indigenous Amazonian territory?' The Bolivian government has yet to provide all the answers. After the case broke, it issued a statement denying diplomatic ties with the fictitious country. A photo of the Bolivian president, Luis Arce, smiling as he receives a book entitled United States of Kailasa from a woman wearing a saffron-coloured sari has begun circulating. Although Arce has not commented, his national director of migration, Katherine Calderón, said the woman had requested a picture with the president during an event – hosted by an Indigenous confederation in October – 'as is common at any public gathering'. On 24 March, Calderón announced that Bolivia had expelled 20 foreigners 'linked' to Kailasa – of different nationalities, including Indian, British, American and Chinese – who had entered the country as tourists but were seeking to 'obtain land' in Indigenous territories. Experts such as Morales have criticised the decision, saying the government should have completed its investigation before expelling those who may have been involved. Bolivian journalist associations issued a joint statement denouncing threats reporters had received 'from representatives of the self-proclaimed state of Kailasa' since they began covering the case. Nithyananda, whose whereabouts remains unknown, gave a 'live presidential address' on social media last Wednesday to dispel 'malicious rumours' allegedly spread by 'anti-Hindu media outlets' claiming he was dead. He did not mention Bolivia directly, but his YouTube channel has published videos where his followers admit to signing the lease agreements and claim they sought to 'support environmental protection … and [provide] humanitarian aid' to the Indigenous communities. The Guardian sent a list of questions to the Bolivian government and Kailasa's 'office of international relations' but has not received a response. The Multi-ethnic Indigenous Territory II organisation, which includes the Ese Ejja people who signed the contract, issued a statement that said Kailasa had 'manipulated' some of its representatives and taken 'advantage of their vulnerability to extract a signature with the promise of easy money'. The group added: 'Our territory is not for sale, it is not for rent, and it is not subject to any kind of negotiation. Our land is the legacy of generations who have cared for and defended it with blood and resistance.'
New York Times
03-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Hindu Nation Was Fake. But Its Land Grab in Bolivia Was Real.
They call themselves emissaries of the world's first 'sovereign nation' for Hindus, with its own passports and 'cosmic constitution.' They claim to have created an official currency in sacred gold, managed by a 'reserve bank.' Representatives of this nonexistent country have given statements at U.N. events and posed for photos with global statesmen, American congressmen and the mayor of Newark. Their leader, a fugitive holy man, professes to be able to guide the process of reincarnation, guaranteeing that billionaires who use his services won't be paupers in the next life. But the self-proclaimed United States of Kailasa has now collided with reality. Last week, officials in Bolivia said they had arrested 20 people associated with Kailasa, accusing them of 'land trafficking' after they negotiated 1,000-year leases with Indigenous groups for swathes of the Amazon. The agreements were declared void, and the Kailasans were deported — not to Kailasa, but to their actual home countries, among them India, the United States, Sweden and China. 'Bolivia does not maintain diplomatic relations with the alleged nation 'United States of Kailasa,'' Bolivia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Kailasa's 'press office of the Holy See of Hinduism' did not respond to requests for comment. The bizarre story of Kailasa stretches back at least to 2019, when the guru known as Swami Nithyananda — a.k.a. His Divine Holiness, the Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism — fled India after being accused of rape, torture and child abuse. Born Arunachalam Rajasekaran in southern India, he became a Hindu monk and started his first ashram in his 20s near the tech hub of Bengaluru. He quickly built an empire across India and in cities around the world. Nithyananda was also grandiose, linking himself to long religious and royal lineages. He claimed miracle powers, like helping the blind see through a 'third eye' or delaying the sunrise by 40 minutes. 'I am a totality of unknown in your life. I'm the manifest of un-manifest,' he said in one sermon. 'The moment you sit in front of me, enlightenment starts.' During a conversation in front of a large crowd, he endorsed the idea of 'the world's first inter-life reincarnation trust management.' Rich people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could invest a few billion dollars in a trust; Nithyananda said he possessed the knowledge system to ensure they got the money when they were reborn. That would be important, Nithyananda's interlocutor said, 'because it is possible Bill Gates will be born very poor, Warren Buffett may be born in some African village as a very poor guy.' When the accusations of rape and sexual assault started piling up and the government went after Nithyananda, he claimed that the cases were an anti-Hindu conspiracy 'to grab my land.' It is not clear where he went after fleeing India, but reports put him in South America or the Caribbean. A couple of years later, he resurfaced with the declaration that he had founded the United States of Kailasa, which he said was the revival of past Hindu kingdoms. The new nation's website — where 'free e-citizenship' is just a few clicks away — said its sovereign lands were 'in the Andean region.' Nithyananda, who is now in his late 40s, was up front about the benefits the location offered. 'Many people asked me, 'Swami ji, why did you leave such a huge empire you built in India and are sitting in a corner?' he says in a video, referring to himself using an Indian honorific. The answer, he said, was 'immunity' that made him 'non-prosecutable' as the head of his own state. Since then, Kailasa had popped up now and again when its emissaries caused embarrassment for politicians around the world. In 2023, a senior official in Paraguay resigned after he had signed a memorandum of understanding with Kailasa. Earlier that year, the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, rescinded a sister cities agreement with the fictitious nation days after holding a ceremony announcing the partnership. In Bolivia, the Kailasa followers, who officials said had arrived on tourist visas, managed a photo with the country's president, Luis Arce. There is no evidence that Nithyananda joined them there. Scandal erupted after an investigation by the Bolivian newspaper El Deber revealed the leases that the Kailasans had signed with Indigenous groups in the Amazon. Pedro Guasico, a leader of the Baure, one of the groups, said its contact with the Kailasa emissaries had begun late last year, when they arrived offering help after forest fires. The conversations eventually turned to a lease of land three times the size of New Delhi, and the Baure agreed to a 25-year deal that would supposedly have paid them nearly $200,000 annually. But when the Kailasa representatives came back with a draft in English, it covered 1,000 years and included the use of air space and the extraction of natural resources. Mr. Guasico said his group signed anyway. 'We made the mistake of listening to them,' he said by phone. 'They offered us that money as an annual bonus for conserving and protecting our territory, but it was completely false.'
