The Country Was Fake. But Its Land Grab in Bolivia Was Real.

Asia Pacific|The Hindu Nation Was Fake. But Its Land Grab in Bolivia Was Real.

They call themselves emissaries of the world’s first “sovereign nation” for Hindus, with its own passports and “cosmic constitution.” They claim to have created an official currency in sacred gold, managed by a “reserve bank.”

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.