scorecardresearch
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Support Our Journalism
HomeIndiaNithyananda moves on to his own 'Hindu nation' Kailaasa but memories of...

Nithyananda moves on to his own ‘Hindu nation’ Kailaasa but memories of his dark past haunt

On the run from the Gujarat Police, after being charged in an alleged case of kidnapping and wrongful confinement of children, Nithyananada has now founded his own country.

Follow Us :
Text Size:

Bengaluru: On the run, the rape-accused and self-proclaimed ‘godman’ Nithyananda appears to have found a new abode — his own ‘Hindu nation’ of Kailaasa.   

A website Kailaasa.org, believed to be run by those close to the self-styled guru, has declared that Nithyananda has founded a country that is an island off the coast of Ecuador. 

According to the website, the country — Kailaasa — will revive an ‘enlightened civilisation’ as the only Hindu nation. It claims that the country has been created by dispossessed Hindus from around the world ‘who lost the right to practice Hinduism authentically in their own countries’.

The website provides detailed information about Kailaasa’s flag, passport, national emblem, bird and tree. The flag — Rishabha Dhvaja — features Nithyananda along with Nandi, the mount of Shiva. Kailaasa also claims it stands for universal free healthcare, free education, free food and revival of a “temple-based lifestyle”.  

Its official languages, according to the website, are English, Sanskrit and Tamil. 

Apart from several government departments, Kailaasa is also said to feature a ‘Department of Enlightened Civilisation’, which will revive “Sanatan Hindu Dharma”. It also claims to have a Dharmic Economy, Hindu investment and a reserve bank where cryptocurrency will be accepted. 

Citizens of Kailaasa will also be given a Kailaasa passport which, “by the grace of Paramashiva, the holder of this passport is allowed free entry in all eleven dimensions and fourteen lokas, including Kailaasa”. 

This is the latest in a series of absurd assertions that have made Nithyananda a sensation, particularly on social media. And before he fled the country, after the Gujarat police charged him in an alleged case of kidnapping and wrongful confinement of children, his social media antics had hidden a dark past — one that involved rape charges.

The social media sensation with a dark past

In recent years, Nithyananda has been a rage on social media for his outlandish claims that border on the preposterous — from stating he could make cows, monkeys, tigers and other animals speak in Tamil and Sanskrit and offering to safeguard the wealth of billionaires like Bill Gates for the next life to insisting that he has the ability to stop the sun from rising.

The bizarre videos, however, relegated a far darker side of the ‘godman’ — a rape-accused whose controversial Nithyananda Dhyanapeetam, the organisation he founded, was accused of abuse, including forcing devotees to sign ‘sex-contracts’.

Nithyananda is once again in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.

Late last month, the Gujarat Police announced that Nithyananda had fled the country after being named in an FIR for alleged abduction, child labour, criminal intimidation and causing hurt.

The FIR had been filed in Ahmedabad on 19 November after a Bengaluru-based parent, Janardan Sharma, had first approached the Gujarat Child Rights Commission and then the state high court alleging that his children — a 13-year-old boy, a 15-year-old girl and a 19-year-old girl — had been taken to Nithyananda’s Ahmedabad ashram from Bengaluru, where he had admitted them.

While the two minors were rescued and handed over to their father, the 19-year-old is still missing. She had, however, earlier released a video on Facebook claiming that she was in Trinidad and Tobago and that her sister was with her.

While the police were able to speak to older teenager on Skype, they could not confirm her location. Police sources said she had claimed on the Skype call that she was out on her own will and would return once her work was complete.

Police, however, had formed a special investigation team and on 20 November raided the ashram, located in the premises of a school around 50 kilometres from Ahmedabad. This is when the two other minors were freed. Following the raid, the SIT arrested Pranpriya and Priyatattva, two managers of the Yogini Sarvajnapeetham Ashram in Hirapur, said R.V. Asari, Superintendent of Police, Ahmedabad Rural.

A chequered past

This isn’t, however, Nithyanada’s first run-in with the law.

In 2010, police filed a charge sheet against Nithyananda at the Ramanagara court in Karnataka based on a complaint filed by Lenin Karuppanan, one of the guru’s former disciples, who claimed that he had shot a video of the guru in a compromising position. The charges included rape, cheating, unnatural sex, intimidation and criminal conspiracy.

Over the next six years, police filed several FIRs as and when complaints came.

In March 2010, an intimate video of him with a Tamil Nadu-based actress surfaced. Both, however, claimed that the video was doctored. Nithyananda also obtained an injunction order against any media coverage of the incident. The actress also approached a Bengaluru court in 2011 seeking a CID inquiry into the case. In 2013, she changed her name and joined the ashram full time.

Two years later in 2012, a US-based disciple accused Nithyananda of raping her over a five-year period. In her statement to police, the survivor accused Nithyananda of repeatedly raping her and then threatening her with dire consequences.

In the years since, allegations of devotees being made to sign non-disclosure agreements and ‘sex-contracts’ have surfaced.

According to news reports, the 10-page contract included consent to practice “ancient tantric secrets associated with male and female ecstasy” and activities that involved “nudity, access to visual images, graphic visual depictions, close physical proximity and intimacy”, among other sexual acts. The earliest contract that surfaced was signed in 2005.


Also read: Warring brothers, party-hoppers and rebellion ahead of Karnataka’s make-or-break bypolls 


Delays in cases

The cases hit several roadblocks, including non-appearance by Nithyananda despite several court summons and witnesses fearing for their lives as several of his so-called followers began a smear campaign against those who filed complaints against the ashram and him.

“They would resort to slander, they would character assassinate the victims and troll them in a such a way that there have been instances when they almost backtracked,” said a senior police official in Bidadi, near Bengaluru, where the main Nithyananda ashram is located.

Karuppan said the ‘godman’ has been filing petition after petition to delay proceedings. “He has submitted fabricated documents and evidence to try and derail the case,” he said.

Nithyananda’s counsel C.V. Naguesh argued in court that the case of alleged rape in 2012 did not hold as the victim allegedly had “consensual sex with the godman”.

But charges against him in this case were framed by a trial court at Ramnagara in June 2018.

“The statements of 48 witnesses were not considered by the sessions court while passing the judgement on Nithyananda. The evidence that the prosecution case chose to present in court was assessed by the trial court,” Naguesh told the Karnataka High court during its hearing in March 2018.

Naguesh, who has also appeared for Nithayananda in the Supreme Court, told ThePrint that his role was limited to cross-examining witnesses. He said he will appear for Nithyananda in the trial court in Ramnagara if required.


Also read: After Kerala, Karnataka & Telangana schools start ringing bell to push kids to drink water 


Evading arrest

One of Nithyananda’s defining traits in dealing with the law has been his ability to evade arrest at crucial stages of the investigation.

After he was arrested by the Karnataka CID in 2010, he spent nearly seven days in police custody and another month in judicial custody until he was granted bail. During the course of the interrogation, Nithyanada claimed that he was impotent and thus the allegations of rape did not hold.

“He claimed he was incapable of having sex. He kept telling us that he is half-man, half-women or the avatar of Shiva and Parvathi, Aradhanarishwara. He claims that the rape charges were just being made to malign him,” a senior investigating officer on condition of anonymity told this reporter in June 2010.

“We had to arrest him as he was evading the police and hampering investigations,” the official added.

But just as police was about to conduct a potency test on him at the Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru, Nithyananda fled to Himachal Pradesh. He was finally arrested from Solan in Himachal two years later in 2012.

The police then moved the Supreme Court, which came down heavily on the ‘godman’ and ordered him to undergo the test. The Karnataka CID submitted the test results in the trial court in November 2014 and showed that Nithyananda’s claims of being impotent were dubious.

Sources in the Karnataka CID told ThePrint that Nithyananda may have fled to another country illegally as his passport was valid until September 2018. They said it left with him with little option as his passport cannot be renewed due to the criminal cases against him.


Also read: Kerala Brahmin Arabic teacher’s advice to BHU Muslim Sanskrit professor — go to court 


 

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube, Telegram & WhatsApp

Support Our Journalism

India needs fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism, packed with on-ground reporting. ThePrint – with exceptional reporters, columnists and editors – is doing just that.

Sustaining this needs support from wonderful readers like you.

Whether you live in India or overseas, you can take a paid subscription by clicking here.

Support Our Journalism

1 COMMENT

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Most Popular