He “Founded Hindu Nation”, Then Attempted To Take Over Land In Bolivia

Self-styled godman Nithyananda fled India in 2019, leaving behind a sprawling religious empire, after being accused of child abduction, sexual assault and abuse, and claimed to have founded the nation of ‘Kailasa’, calling it a “safe haven for practising, aspiring or persecuted Hindus”. Representatives of the ‘country’ attended a UN meeting in 2023, signed a ‘sister cities’ agreement with Newark in the US and had their photos taken with many leaders across the globe. But their luck may have finally run out.

Officials in the South American country of Bolivia said last week that they have arrested 20 people linked to ‘Kailasa’ after they signed 1,000-year leases with indigenous groups in the country for vast tracts of the Amazon, the New York Times reported.

The agreements were nullified and the representatives of the fake country were deported to the real nations they belonged to, including India, the US and China.

“Bolivia does not maintain diplomatic relations with the alleged nation ‘United States of Kailasa,'” Bolivia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the New York Times.

Representatives of ‘Kailasa’ had managed to get a photo taken with the president of Bolivia, Luis Arce and Bolivian newspaper El Deber said leases had been signed with indigenous groups.

Pedro Guasico, a leader of the Baure, one of the indigenous groups, said its contact with ‘Kailasa’ representatives had begun in late 2024, after they offered help with forest fires.

They then negotiated a lease for land “three times the size of New Delhi” and the Baure agreed to a 25-year deal which would net them nearly $200,000 annually. The ‘Kailasa’ representatives’ draft, though, was for a lease of 1,000 years and included the use of airspace and extraction of natural resources.

The Baure signed the lease. “We made the mistake of listening to them. They offered us that money as an annual bonus for conserving and protecting our territory, but it was completely false,” Mr Guasico was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

New ‘Country’

Nithyananda had a large following in India before he was arrested in connection with a sex scandal in 2010. Reports had said that after fleeing India in 2019 following sexual assault allegations, he had bought an island off the coast of Ecuador, another South American country. ‘Kailasa’, Nithyananda and his followers announced on YouTube, was dedicated to the “preservation, restoration and revival of an enlightened culture and civilisation based on authentic Hinduism”.

Nithyananda had said that his new status as the head of a state granted him immunity.

In 2023, representatives of ‘Kailasa’ had attended a United Nations meeting and demanded protection for the “supreme pontiff of Hinduism”.

The meeting of United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) was held in Geneva and videos showed one of the representatives – a woman in a saree wearing a turban – extolling the sustainable development initiatives taken by her ‘country’.

She also claimed Nithyananda has been targeted for reviving the ancient traditions of Hinduism and was banned from his birth country and asked the UN body what measures can be taken ”at national and international levels” to stop his persecution.

Quotable quotes

Nithyananda is known for his quotable quotes, many of which are shared widely and often mocked on social media.

“So the me resides in this as me is residing in all of that as me so that me through this me talking to me,” the self-styled godman had famously said.

“I am going to be active, healthy at least for the next 150 years. The Hindu enemies and Hindu traitors wasted a lot of my time and I don’t go and attack them or react to them… I just decide to live longer,” he had said.