The Country That Never Was,

or is it?

photographs Oddity Central, founded by Indian fugitive and self-proclaimed godman Nithyananda Paramashivam, the United States of Kailasa claims to be the first sovereign state for Hindus,

but here is the thing, no one knows where it actually is, in 2019, when Nithyananda announced the formation of Kailasa as a state, he claimed to have bought an island off the coast of Ecuador as its headquarters, but the government of the South American country denied any knowledge of the transaction,

 

although Nithyananda has not made any public appearances in the last 4 years, the fictional nation’s ambition has grown, and this year its representatives have attended two UN meetings, the United States of Kailasa – named after a mountain in the Himalayas that is considered the home of the Hindu god Shiva – has been around for a few years, it only started getting international attention in 2023, after its representatives were spotted at a couple of United Nations meetings. A woman who introduced herself as Vijayapriya Nithyananda, “the permanent ambassador of the United States of Kailasa”, even took the microphone and asked about “indigenous rights and sustainable development”. A UN official later said that their submissions were “irrelevant” and “tangential” to the issues being discussed at the meetings in Geneva,

and amazingly in January of this year, the United States of Kailasa announced that it had been officially recognized by the United States of America, citing a sister-city agreement with the US city of Newark as proof. That agreement was recently rescinded by US authorities, suggesting that Newark officials had been deceived by the fictional nation’s representatives, Nithyananda Paramashivam, known as the “supreme pontiff of Hinduism” by his followers, has a rather complicated past, a female disciple had accused him of rape in 2010, but he was only briefly arrested and then released on bail, He was later accused of kidnapping and confining children at his ashram in Gujarat, India, but days before he was due to show up in court, Nithyananda disappeared and has been on the run ever since, so is the United States of Kailasa, on an island, in a unknown part of Asia, or an imaginary country?