Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He's The Most Hated Man in India // The Sanal Edamaruku Story

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Sanal Edamaruku is a prominent Indian author and president of the Indian Rationalist Association who spent decades debunking superstitious claims, famously making headlines in 2012 by exposing a "weeping" crucifix miracle at a Mumbai church as nothing more than capillary action from a leaky sewage pipe. Following this revelation, Catholic organizations filed multiple police complaints against him under India's strict blasphemy laws, forcing him to flee into self-imposed exile in Finland to escape potential imprisonment.

So this man asked to be killed in front of millions of people live on national television. Why did he ask to be killed? So the man's name is Sinal. And Sinal is 52 years old when this story starts and he's living in New Delhi, India. And Sinald, he considers himself to be a rationalist. He wants people to follow science. He doesn't want anyone getting scammed or living in fear because of religion. And more than that, he wants to expose religious fraudsters.

So one day in 2008, an Indian TV station puts together a panel for a live debate, tantric power versus science. And Sinal is there debating, representing science. And on the other side is a self-proclaimed holy man, kind of like a priest who claims to practice black magic. And this priest is like, magic is real! Like, you know, like the Harry Potter type of magic. And he claims that I can kill anyone within three minutes using nothing.

Nothing but my magical powers. And immediately, Sinald wants to prove this guy to be a fake. So Sinal's like, all right, if you can really do that, kill me on stage, right here, right now. And the people watching at home are like, oh, shit, because either Sinal is about to die live on TV, or this priest is going to be absolutely humiliated. Either way, this is going to be fun to watch. So this priest gets to work. He starts spouting these magic.

chance and then he gets out a knife and he starts waving it around Senol's body and you can see Senol is just laughing through this whole ordeal. And so three minutes passes and Sanal still isn't dead. So the priest asks for more time and then he asks for more time and then more time until he's been trying to kill Sanal with his black magic for nearly two hours straight. And at this point, Senol just looks bored. And the TV state. is loving this because there are allegedly a hundred million people watching this live the highest ratings they've ever had So finally, senol basically tells the priest you've done nothing magic isn't real So eventually after many, many tries the priest has to stop

Me, he can't do it, Senal just won't die So senol has successfully debunked a religious superstition in front of a hundred million people So from there, kaboom, his career takes off. He's now famous all over the country. Some people love him, while other people hate him. And he has no idea just how hated he's about to become. Because it's now 2012. And in Mumbai, there's a Christian church,

and outside the church, there's a statue of Jesus on the cross, like a lot of churches have. And one day, a local woman is passing the church. is passing by and she sees something incredible. This Jesus statue is dripping water from its feet. And so the woman goes and she points this out to the church leaders. And the church leaders see this and they start freaking out like, oh my God, it's a miracle. And word of this gets out and news spreads around the area like wildfire. And the locals start believing that the water is the tears of Jesus. Like he's weeping through his feet. Here is a

picture of the dripping water. You can see it's just kind of dripping from the statue's toes. Anyway, so pretty quickly, hundreds of people every single day are coming to this church to see this miracle statue. And the priest of the church, he starts holding prayer ceremonies in front of it. And people are down on their knees, praying, believing that this is a miracle. And soon, some of these people want to drink this water, because they believe it'll fix their problems and like cure their illnesses. So the priest starts collecting this water and handing it out to people. And people crowd around desperately wanting to drink the tears of Jesus. Then rumors about this start to spread around that this magical water cured someone's cancer and it caused a blind

man to be able to see again. Now at this point, this event is getting a lot of attention. And Naturally, people want a rational opinion on it. So a TV station reaches out to Sinal like, We want you to investigate this Jesus statue while we film you. So Sinald shows up to the church with a film crew following him. And one of the church's bishops, he hears about this film crew, and he's probably all excited to be on TV. So he's there at the church waiting with a crowd of believers.

And Sinal, being ever so skeptical, he starts his investigation, and he's like looking around the place, and he walks to the wall behind the statue, and he notices this wall is wet, like really wet. In fact, it's so wet that algae has started growing there. So he takes a closer look, and he sees that the ground is all wet because of what appears to be a clogged, overflowing drain. Then he traces the water in the drain all the way back to a dirt. dirty, smelly, toilet. Meaning, the miracle water that people have been lining up to drink is, in fact, sewage water. At IKEA, we make things just for college life, like the Rosenmandel blackout curtains in gray.

They say you can't put a price on sleep, but we did for the low, low price of $49. Why are you in my room? Shh, go back to sleep. You have a big exam tomorrow. Shop back to school and IKEA. So not only would these Jesus tears not cure people's illnesses, it could actually make them really sick. So immediately, Senal starts explaining to the crowd of churchgoers

that they're actually drinking sewage water. So now the church bishop, he's all pissed off, and this is clearly not how he thought. this TV filming event was gonna go. So he starts screaming at Sinal. You're an idiot. Water only ever goes down. It never flows up. So it couldn't flow up the statue. And Sinal's like, well, actually, this is basic science. Think about putting a rolled up toilet paper into a glass of water and the water flows upward. We actually made this video just to show you how it works. You can see it flowing upward. But anyway, the bishop, he ain't trying to hear all that science. He's like, this is blasphemy. You

You better apologize. And now, Senol's all mad too. He's like, no, you apologize for handing out dirty water to people that could have killed them, all because you wanted their donations. But then, Sanal looks around and he sees that the crowd of people, the whole crowd, is pissed off. Not at the bishop for giving them a bunch of turd water to drink, but they're mad at him. And some of these people look like they want to kick his ass. So he gets the hell out of there.

Now, the TV station who filmed all this, they air it on TV as like this shocking, breaking news. And around this time, they get Sinal on and they have him talk about what he discovered. And one of the bishops at the church, I guess he's watching this on TV, and he gets really upset. And he calls the TV station like, you have to take this off the air. And the station is like, yeah, we're not going to do that. But how about you go on the air with Sinal? And so eventually they put this bishop through on a panel via phone live on the air with Sinal. And so they debate.

And during this debate, the bishop is madder than he's ever been. And they fight and they argue on live TV. And while that's going on, people watching realize that Sinal is at the TV station. So then an angry mob starts forming outside the building. And they're like holding sticks. And they're demanding that he show his face. Anyway, so Sinal is inside debating this guy, and the bishop starts like yelling at him. You've insulted my faith.

I'll punish you for this. Apologize or you'll be behind bars. And the bishop means it. I mean, he wants Sinal arrested. Apparently a lot of people do, because from here, several religious organizations file official complaints against him to the police. And unfortunately, this works. Police officially charged Sinal with deliberate and moral.

malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, which is a real law in India. It's part of their blasphemy laws. So anyway, so from here, a huge segment of the public is mad at him, and he starts getting death threats. And he fears for his safety, and he fears getting imprisoned. So he flees the country, and he moves to Finland. 14 years later, he's still living in Finland, and he hasn't been back to India. and he still, to this day, gets threats of what will happen to him if he were ever to return. That is wild.