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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Tiago Rogero South America correspondent

‘Magical realism’: how a fake Hindu nation tried to take over Indigenous land in Bolivia

Hindu guru Nithyananda, pictured here in 2012, fled India in 2019 while facing charges of child abduction and rape of a follower.
Hindu guru Nithyananda, pictured here in 2012, fled India in 2019 while facing charges of child abduction and rape of a follower. Photograph: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

Followers of a fugitive Indian Hindu guru on a mission to establish his own state are popping up across Latin America, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy land in Ecuador, Paraguay and now Bolivia.

At the end of last year, a representative of the Baure Indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon signed a “perpetual” contract leasing 60,000 hectares (148,260 acres) of their vast rainforest for $108,000 (£81,910) a year.

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