Today, Explained - The fake nation of Kailasa

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Newark officials rescinded a sister city agreement with the United States of Kailasa after finding out it wasn’t actually a real place. Reporter Sushmita Pathak explains how a fugitive cult leader from India created a fake nation that conned everyday people, government officials, and the UN. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Amina Al-Sadi and Amanda Lewellyn, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Earlier this year, in a ceremony at City Hall, Newark, New Jersey entered into a partnership. Mayor Ross Baraka invited what he thought was the Hindu nation of Kailasa for a cultural trade agreement. The Newark City officials attending the ceremony look bored as a woman in an orange sari with a unique left arm tattoo takes the stage and makes some remarks. The mission and mission of Kailasa is to create this enlightened... All of this, though, would become a lot less boring just a few weeks later.

Turns out Kailasa isn't a real nation, but rather the invention of a scam artist and fugitive who's from India. The self-proclaimed leader of Kailasa likely knew that people wouldn't bother to look things up because this was not his first time misleading people wildly. Coming up on Today Explained, a cult leader for the internet age. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points.

Visit superstore.ca to get started. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Okay, so that woman in the orange sari in Newark had this tattoo on her arm, as I mentioned. It's strange. It's very large, and it is a face. It's the face of a man named Nityananda. So Nityananda is a spiritual guru. He tells people that he's going to help them achieve enlightenment.

Reporter Sushmita Patak is a freelancer in Delhi. I'm actually speaking to you from my apartment here. And so if you hear some kids, you know, playing and screaming outside, you know, I'm in Delhi. It's noisy here. She's been following the story of this man. World is a mirror and stands as a reflection of your inner space every moment. He was born in the late 1970s. He actually tells people that he had his first spiritual encounter when he was just a child sitting on a hill in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

I was not even meditating. I was just sitting in a very relaxed way. And he had a very divine experience where he saw the whole world in 360 degrees. Like he saw the entire world at the same time, something like that. Not only that, I was able to feel that whole 360 degree is me. His story starts in the early 2000s or the late 1990s. He's this very charming, lanky young man with a very smiling face. He's always smiling in public. And he has this wavy shoulder-length hair. And he's always in his orange robes. And he's very charismatic.

And he speaks English. So he's able to reach a lot of people and in his early 20s he sets up his ashram which is like his you know camp or institution near Bengaluru in southern India and he becomes popular because he used to hold these healing camps where you know a lot of people would attend them and feel like they've been cured of diseases. There are so many of our devotees, disciples who are doctors, medical doctors who practice this technique. Where you have pain, just put your awareness

in that area. Do not remember the word pain and look what is happening. So he has established himself as a healer. Who comes to follow him? A lot of people from various different backgrounds, rich, poor, famous, non-famous. It's essentially people who are, you know, looking for a higher purpose. Anything which tries to own your time, hate it. Just escape from it. Even if it is Guru.

If you think I am trying to own your time, escape from me. He talks about Hindu teachings like non-violence. He talks about yoga, philosophy, meditation. Own your body, own your mind, own your living, own your lifestyle. That is what I call yogic body, vedic mind, zen living. There's no single message that he was after, but essentially Hindu teachings, yoga, meditation, enlightenment. When does he reach the peak of his popularity? When does he become kind of an established figure? In the late 2000s.

At that point, he's opened ashrams or camps across the world, including in several cities in the U.S. And he's attracting a lot of very famous people like celebrities, film stars, even Narendra Modi, who is currently India's prime minister and who was then the chief minister of Gujarat state. He met with him. So I would say that was the peak of his good popularity. What's the evolution? When do things start to go wrong or sideways for him? It all starts with a

sex tape in 2010. A news channel gets hold of this video showing Nityananda lying on a bed and a woman in a white sari comes near and they're interacting in a white sari, you know, comes near and they're interacting in a very intimate sexual way.

And for a lot of people, that was like so shocking, especially devotees, because they were thinking of him as, you know, someone who is their guru, who is showing them enlightenment. And so for them, he was above all these materialistic things like sex or urges. He did lose devotees there. An attack on the ashram of Swami Nithyananda, after visuals were aired on TV channels, allegedly of the godman in a sexual encounter with an actress.

And at the same time, there's also allegations against him of rape. A woman in Michigan said that he had raped her repeatedly over five years and is the one who places this hidden camera in his room to record this scandalous footage. And that leads to his arrest. Nithyananda faces charges of rape and unnatural sex, besides fraud and hurting religious sentiment. He was in jail for 50 days or something. It's a very astonishing matter that the Baba has been indulging in this sex and this crime activities. He should be punished. But that's not to say that he totally crashed. He still had a group of devotees who stuck

by him. At this moment, we feel a mix of conspiracy, graphics and rumour at play in these recent events that have unfolded. He was able to spin the narrative in a way that, you know, I am doing this great work and there are some people who don't want me to do this righteous work and that's why they are trying to stop me and they're attacking me. But if you really want me to carry on this great work, you have to support me. And this is something that is not unusual in India. There are a lot of gurus who have been accused of

everything from murder to rape, and they still continue to hold on to their followers. So yeah, the sex scandal, the allegations, they do turn his world upside down for a while, but he manages to come out of it. And then he carries on his activities. You know, he attracts a lot of devotees. You know, we see people from outside India come and join his mission.

He also starts coming up on social media a lot. This man even claimed to have proven Einstein wrong. He sort of becomes the butt of a lot of jokes because of his, you know, ludicrous speeches and lectures. Some of the major scientists and their theories I am debunking. E equal to not MC square cannot be. He becomes kind of meme material. And then what happens? So in 2014, there's a 24 year old woman called Sangeeta who suddenly dies in his ashram in Karnataka state. And her mother is told that she had a cardiac arrest.

But the mother, who was already a bit skeptical of Nityananda, doesn't believe this. And she insists that her daughter was actually tortured. And somehow that led to her death. And she also goes to the court to try to get to the bottom of this. She asks India's Central Bureau of Investigations to look into the matter. But at the same time, the allegations against him of rape, you know, those allegations are progressing in the legal system. And they sort of start coming to a head. And then in 2019, something happens that, you know, is a very, very huge blow to Nithyananda.

Allegations come out by one of Nithyananda's most loyal devotees at that point. She's a Canadian woman named Sarah Landry. I'd like to give a little bit of background information as to what prompted me to leave that organization, why I now call it a cult, why I'm so sorry for all the years I spent promoting that place, thinking it was good. She meets with a few kids who are residents in Nithyananda's ashram in India, and they tell her some pretty horrible things. They tell her that

they're being starved, that they are being forced to beat one another, and that they're being forced to fake spiritual powers. Basically, what these kids would do is sit on a throne, chant a mantra to connect themselves to that guru, and then proceed to express what most people think of as miraculous powers. So these pretty horrible things come out, and she's trying to process them, and she makes a video of herself talking about all this in 2019, and sort of exposes Nityananda and says that, you know, I've been fooled. I've fallen into this trap. And just this is who he really is.

He's a cult leader. To this point, we've heard the story of a man who, he's a guru. He's a healer. There's always a sense that maybe this is a type who wants power or at the very least wants a following. But what you've just described is absolutely evil behavior. Are these reports credible? And if they are credible, particularly when we're talking about children, what does that tell us about this man? They are credible.

And there wasn't just this one case about the child abuse. There were many parents in India who complained about this. There was this one couple in particular who, you know, both their daughters were attending the ashram and for some reason Nithyananda's organization wasn't letting them meet their daughters. So the daughters were essentially missing. And it was pretty dramatic the way the parents, you know, went to the ashram. This was in the state of Gujarat in Western India and literally like begged at the ashram gates to, you know, let them meet their daughters. That for a lot of people was an eye opener. And at this point point I think people, there was a shift in people's attitude

of how they saw Nithyananda. So there's a manhunt for him that's launched. The police in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu have launched a massive manhunt for Swami Nithyananda, the self-styled God-man who had disappeared from his ashram in Bidadi. At that point it's been a long time since he'd made public appearances. And so when that manhunt is launched, a few days later, police tell the media that he's probably out of the country. Okay, so this is 2019. He's now vanished. And then surely this is the end of him, right?

He's been accused of some really bad stuff here. He's vanished from the country. It's over. Not at all. It's just the beginning of his next chapter. He surfaces and announces on video that he's creating this new country called Kelasa. We already have a sovereign territory in more than one place far Kailasa and diplomatic relationship with many countries far Kailasa and I am safe. So there are rumors that it's on an island off of Ecuador in South America. Then in a video in 2020, he invites people basically to, you know, come to Australia.

And from there, I'm going to send my chartered flight to fly you to Galasa. And you can come for three days and you can see me only once. He doesn't exactly say where the country is. But yeah, at that point, the rumors are swirling. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket. Ramp says they give finance teams unprecedented control and insight into company spend. With Ramp.com Ramp.com

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Visit connectsontario.ca. How can an entire city get catfished? It's Today Explained. We're back with reporter Sushmita Patak in Delhi. Sushmita has been covering this guru, a man named Nityananda. Here's your chance to take a three-day tour of the hindu sovereign nation kailasa founded by the absconding godman nithyananda do not ask for more than three-day visa kailasa can accommodate anyone only for three days for now so i hear that this man has vanished, created his own country, and I'm getting Waco vibes, I'm getting Jonestown vibes, I'm getting Osho vibes.

What exactly is this guy doing? Has he moved into kind of full-on cult leader who has gone elsewhere in the world and is like making his little civilization based on what he thinks is right and wrong, etc? Totally. I think it's aligned with what we've seen with Osho or with other cults. It's just that he takes it one step further and declares this country that has its own constitution, its own national anthem, its own flag, its own currency. Anyone can sign up for citizenship just by scanning a QR code. They issue e-passports. They have their own central bank. He's creating this whole

Kailasa universe, basically. In order to be a country, you have to interact with other countries. Is he doing that? That's exactly what he's trying to do. Bizarre hit a new high when Kailasa was given a platform in the United Nations. And this woman, who claims to be the permanent representative of Kailasa, addressed the assembly looking like she was straight out of a drama set.

He is trying to get recognition, you know, at global forums. His representatives, who call themselves the ambassadors or diplomats of Kailasa, they have made appearances in UN meetings to talk about sustainable development that they're doing in Kailasa and talk about how their leader, Nithyananda, is being persecuted by some people in India. The Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism and Kailasa have gone through intense persecution and human rights violations for reviving the indigenous traditions and lifestyle of Hinduism. They've gone to around 30 cities in the US to sign agreements. They call them sister agreements sometimes.

And this is all basically a way to show the world that we are legit, we've arrived. And so when they are meeting with government officials, when they have meetings at the United Nations, what is it that they talk about? They basically highlight what they say is a large scale Hindu persecution that's going on in the world and that they are trying to preserve Hindu traditions. They talk of a Hindu Holocaust. So they're using all this social justice, minority rights language, and they're twisting it to create a reality that doesn't exist. This gentleman and his followers, there's no evidence that they the conventional sense of persecuted. So for example, they talk about violence against Hindus and violence against them. And while there is violence against Hindus in some countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh, there is no wide scale persecution of Hindus in the world.

Like they compare it to the Jewish Holocaust. And we know that that's not happening with Hindus. Yes, Hindus are being persecuted in some countries where they are a minority, but there's no Hindu Holocaust. What happens when government officials realize that they're partnering with a fake country? At the UN, when Kailasa represented with Spoke, UN spokesperson clarified that, you know, those comments were not relevant to the discussion. So when cities or UN realizes that we've given a platform to someone who doesn't really deserve it, they do their bit to, you know, say that, OK, sorry, we made a mistake. But Kailasa doesn't always share that with its followers. It would be easier for these folks to buy some land somewhere and set up and be themselves.

We've seen that with numerous cults before, right? We've talked about some of them. Why does Kailasa think it needs to be a country? It is inevitably embarrassed when people find out that it is not. What do you think is happening here? New Nation is a way for him to get immunity from arrests. He's trying to protect himself from, he calls them anti-Hindu elements in India who are after him. It's interesting because this country, this fake country, could not really exist if we weren't in the internet age. What I mean is, you just told me I can get citizenship if I apply using a QR code. That is remarkable. It's both a product of the internet age, but also it is inevitably going to be taken down because we are in the internet age. This is one of those things that could only be happening in or around 2023. Exactly. It definitely seems like the only place they exist is on the internet. All the evidence we know till now shows that Kailasa doesn't really exist physically. And I've spoken to religious scholars who scoured the internet to find out clues about where it could exist.

And they say that there is no evidence to say that it actually exists. So Nithyananda and his people are trying to create this nation on the internet and that's why they're using social media so much that's why these appearances that they make in global platforms like the un or sister city agreements those are widely shared on their social media platforms to you you know, create this reality. It's almost as if they want to tweet their way into existence. And that really makes this a classic internet age story about disinformation, doesn't it? Yes, exactly. I think at its core, it is a story about disinformation. There are so many things that they're doing that we've seen in

you know other disinformation wars like you know giving out half information. So for example they posted about their sister city agreement with Newark but they don't clarify on their website that that agreement was taken down after just six days. Another one is exaggeration. When they sign these sister city agreements, they portray it as, you know, they being recognized by the United States of America. So, you know, taking something really tiny and making it very big. And then also just overwhelming people

with a lot of information. So recently on social media, they did like a question answer session with some journalists, and they will just throw so much information at them. And it's just so hard to, you know, go and refute every single thing. And I think that's one tactic because a layperson doesn't have a lot of time or expertise to go and refute everything that they say. And so at some point, they're just going to take things at face value. And when they see photos at the UN, photos with new work officials, that is proof that these people are being allowed on platforms in centers of power in the world.

And that's enough for a lot of people to believe them. I think they're getting away with this because honestly there's a lot of ignorance or naivete still in the west about the Hindu religion. It's not a main religion in the West. And I think we are at a point where, you know, Western leaders probably are, you know, want to give the benefit of doubt to someone who says they are persecuted. So they perhaps don't do as much due diligence. And it's because Kailasa uses these buzzwords

to paint a false picture. And that does a disservice to, you know, Hindus who are actually facing violence. That was freelance reporter Sushmita Patak. Today's episode was produced by Halima Shah and edited by Matthew Collette. Fact-checking was a team effort. It was engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey. I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained. you