Self-styled godman Nithyananda aka Arunachalam Rajasekaran, a fugitive who is facing sexual abuse charges and kidnapping in India, may have established a fantasy land for himself – a nonexistent so-called Hindu nation ‘United States of Kailasa’ – but he is now facing real-world trouble! His followers from Kailasa have been arrested for allegedly trying to take over land parcels in Bolivia.

The Bolivian officials have told the New York Times that as many as 20 people, linked to Kailasa, were arrested on the charges of “land trafficking” after they signed deals with indigenous groups to lease large parts of the Amazon for 1,000 years.

They said that the members of Kailasa were also deported to their home countries – India, the United States, Sweden and China.

In a statement, Bolivia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, “Bolivia does not maintain diplomatic relations with the alleged nation ‘United States of Kailasa’.”

How Kailasa members managed to grab lands in Bolivia

According to the NYT report, Kailasa members entered Bolivia on tourist visas and connected with Indigenous groups promising assistance during forest fires.

Pedro Guasico, a leader of ‘Baure’, one of the groups, said the contact with the Kailasians turned into the signing of a 25-year lease worth $200,000 annually.

When the members of Kailasa returned, the deal mentioned 1,000-year lease with permission to ‘extract natural resources’.

But on paper, the $200,000 seemed more significant than the change in lease years. And Baure chief signed.

“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,” he was quoted as saying.

The land-grab controversy came to light after Bolivian newspaper ‘El Deber’ investigated and discovered that members of the nonexistent nation had signed 1000-year leases with the groups.

Is Kailasa an official country?

No, the United Nations has not recognised ‘Kailasa’ as a country and India has kept its distance. In a bid to gain international recognition, Nithyananda sent a delegation to the United Nations where it sought protection for the “supreme pontiff of Hinduism”.

In August 2022, a Karnataka court had issued a non-bailable warrant against Nithyananda in connection with a rape case. The case against the fugitive spiritual figure was filed in 2010 based on a complaint by his former driver Lenin. The controversial guru has, however, failed to respond to all the summons issued against him since 2019.

According to reports, Nithyananda fled India in 2019 and after about a year, announced the founding of ‘Kailasa’ with its own passports, currency and ‘reserve bank’.