
The Hindu Nation Was Fake. But Its Land Grab in Bolivia Was Real.
Representatives of this nonexistent country have given statements at U.N. events and posed for photos with global statesmen, American congressmen and the mayor of Newark. Their leader, a fugitive holy man, professes to be able to guide the process of reincarnation, guaranteeing that billionaires who use his services won't be paupers in the next life.
But the self-proclaimed United States of Kailasa has now collided with reality.
Last week, officials in Bolivia said they had arrested 20 people associated with Kailasa, accusing them of 'land trafficking' after they negotiated 1,000-year leases with Indigenous groups for swathes of the Amazon.
The agreements were declared void, and the Kailasans were deported — not to Kailasa, but to their actual home countries, among them India, the United States, Sweden and China.
'Bolivia does not maintain diplomatic relations with the alleged nation 'United States of Kailasa,'' Bolivia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Kailasa's 'press office of the Holy See of Hinduism' did not respond to requests for comment.
The bizarre story of Kailasa stretches back at least to 2019, when the guru known as Swami Nithyananda — a.k.a. His Divine Holiness, the Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism — fled India after being accused of rape, torture and child abuse.
Born Arunachalam Rajasekaran in southern India, he became a Hindu monk and started his first ashram in his 20s near the tech hub of Bengaluru. He quickly built an empire across India and in cities around the world.
Nithyananda was also grandiose, linking himself to long religious and royal lineages. He claimed miracle powers, like helping the blind see through a 'third eye' or delaying the sunrise by 40 minutes.
'I am a totality of unknown in your life. I'm the manifest of un-manifest,' he said in one sermon. 'The moment you sit in front of me, enlightenment starts.'
During a conversation in front of a large crowd, he endorsed the idea of 'the world's first inter-life reincarnation trust management.' Rich people like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could invest a few billion dollars in a trust; Nithyananda said he possessed the knowledge system to ensure they got the money when they were reborn.
That would be important, Nithyananda's interlocutor said, 'because it is possible Bill Gates will be born very poor, Warren Buffett may be born in some African village as a very poor guy.'
When the accusations of rape and sexual assault started piling up and the government went after Nithyananda, he claimed that the cases were an anti-Hindu conspiracy 'to grab my land.'
It is not clear where he went after fleeing India, but reports put him in South America or the Caribbean. A couple of years later, he resurfaced with the declaration that he had founded the United States of Kailasa, which he said was the revival of past Hindu kingdoms.
The new nation's website — where 'free e-citizenship' is just a few clicks away — said its sovereign lands were 'in the Andean region.' Nithyananda, who is now in his late 40s, was up front about the benefits the location offered.
'Many people asked me, 'Swami ji, why did you leave such a huge empire you built in India and are sitting in a corner?' he says in a video, referring to himself using an Indian honorific. The answer, he said, was 'immunity' that made him 'non-prosecutable' as the head of his own state.
Since then, Kailasa had popped up now and again when its emissaries caused embarrassment for politicians around the world.
In 2023, a senior official in Paraguay resigned after he had signed a memorandum of understanding with Kailasa. Earlier that year, the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, rescinded a sister cities agreement with the fictitious nation days after holding a ceremony announcing the partnership.
In Bolivia, the Kailasa followers, who officials said had arrived on tourist visas, managed a photo with the country's president, Luis Arce. There is no evidence that Nithyananda joined them there.
Scandal erupted after an investigation by the Bolivian newspaper El Deber revealed the leases that the Kailasans had signed with Indigenous groups in the Amazon.
Pedro Guasico, a leader of the Baure, one of the groups, said its contact with the Kailasa emissaries had begun late last year, when they arrived offering help after forest fires.
The conversations eventually turned to a lease of land three times the size of New Delhi, and the Baure agreed to a 25-year deal that would supposedly have paid them nearly $200,000 annually. But when the Kailasa representatives came back with a draft in English, it covered 1,000 years and included the use of air space and the extraction of natural resources.
Mr. Guasico said his group signed anyway. 'We made the mistake of listening to them,' he said by phone. 'They offered us that money as an annual bonus for conserving and protecting our territory, but it was completely false.'
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San Francisco Chronicle
5 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Pope marks 50th anniversary of Cold War-era deal on security and human rights
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The Hill
5 minutes ago
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The Hill
5 minutes ago
- The Hill
US-China race takes center stage as Trump defines AI policy
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He signed an executive order Wednesday directing his administration to create an American AI Exports Program that will develop full-stack AI export packages, featuring U.S. chips, AI models and applications. 'There's a belief that maybe by dominating the AI race, if we are able to be technology leaders, China will end up becoming reliant on us instead of cutting it out and forcing it to create its own domestic alternatives,' Tedford said. 'It's an argument that didn't really seem to have much weight in the Biden administration but seems to be carrying the day much more with the Trump administration,' he added. Ben Buchanan, a White House special adviser on AI during the Biden administration, argued in a New York Times op-ed Thursday that Trump is making a 'profound mistake' when it comes to China. His criticism centers on a key decision made last week by the Trump administration to once again allow Nvidia to sell its H20 chips to China. Earlier this year, the U.S. implemented new licensing requirements that limited Nvidia's ability to sell the chips in China. However, the company recently revealed it was filing applications to sell the H20s after receiving assurances from the Trump administration that its licenses would be granted. Buchanan argued the decision 'threatens American dominance' over AI because 'Nvidia's chips will give China's A.I. ecosystem, and its government, just what it needs to surpass the United States in the most critical arenas.' Trump's approach also risks alienating the China hawks within his own party, who have voiced concerns that it could boost Beijing's AI capabilities. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, questioned the administration's decision to allow for H20 sales to China in a letter Friday. 'As the Trump administration has repeatedly stated, the U.S. must ensure that American rather than Chinese tech companies build the global AI infrastructure,' he wrote. 'At the same time, however, we must also ensure that the world does not adopt Chinese AI models trained on U.S. technology.' Another outspoken Republican, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), is pushing back on the third prong of Trump's AI plan, which seeks to boost the construction of AI data center and energy infrastructure. The administration has repeatedly underscored the infrastructure needs for building out American AI capabilities, with Energy Secretary Chris Wright comparing the AI race to the Manhattan Project. The tech industry has also ramped up pressure, specifically on the energy front. Anthropic argued in a recent report that the U.S. is 'lagging in bringing energy generation online,' while China is 'rapidly building energy infrastructure for AI.' However, Greene warned Thursday that there are 'massive future implications and problems' with Trump's data center buildout given its potential impact on water supply, while also taking aim at the president's plan to target state AI rules. 'Competing with China does not mean become like China by threatening state rights, replacing human jobs on mass scale creating mass poverty, and creating potentially devastating effects on our environment and critical water supply,' she said.