Hello! This blog is a response to a Sunday reading task assigned by Yesha Bhatt ma'am. This blog deals with the review on a web series named 'My Daughter joined Cult ' as part of the thinking activity in reference to 'The Wretched of the Earth ' by Frantz Fanon. Here, we will see how a man flaunts himself as a powerful person and traps everyone and its real life incident.
MY DAUGHTER JOINED A CULT
The three-part series, produced by VICE Studios, follows the story of the self-styled godman whilst giving a voice to individuals who were at the epicenter of it all. Directed by Naman Saraiya, the show captures the exposure of the godman, who allegedly deceived his believers by luring them into joining his ashram and gurukul trust ‘Nityananda Dhyanapeetam’, and then later allegedly abused them.
We had the screening of this Docu- series at our Department. We watched this documentary for a better understanding of Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth.
India is a country of religion, spirituality and mysticism but with the increasing time, the fraud in the religion is also increasing. In recent times, we have seen so many people who fake themselves as a spiritual person or a sadhu baba and brain- wash hundreds of people and do fraud with them, financially, physically, mentally or psychologically. Here is the list of some fake Indian sadhus. In this blog we will discuss in brief about Nityananda Swami, a self-styled godman who has run away and formed his own new country named Kailash with an individual flag and currency. In August 2020, Nityananda launched the Reserve Bank of Kailasam and released its official gold currency, Kailashian dollar. He said the design of the coins was inspired by the currency of "the ancient 56 Hindu nations"
The documentary on Nityananda Swami, My daughter Joined a Cult begins in 2019, as a desperate Janardan Sharma and his wife arrive at Nithyananda's ashram in Ahmedabad – desperate to find their two daughters who were brought here from Bengaluru without their knowledge.
"Please ask them. Ask them where my daughters are!" cries the wife to journalists there, who have just begun to unravel the devious schemes underway in this nondescript ashram.
To this family, ahead of the 'abduction,' Nityananda was a guide, philosopher, and spiritual guru.
BRAINWASHING
Swami Nityananda is an educated person and has a degree of Engineering. We all know that everyone has some minor or major issues in real life and common issues have common solutions like having a control over nature, changing the behavior, living with family and time management. Guru like Nityananda start playing mental games with the devotees by giving this basic answers to solve their problems.
Sarah, who was a well- recognized devotee of Nityananda, explains how followers at the ashram did 'mental gymnastics' to actually disbelieve allegations against their guru, despite evidence staring them in the face.
‘If We Don’t Do as He Tells Us, We Are Made To Seem Like a Raakshas'
The former head of Nithyananda's social media team, Sarah Landry, and another core member, Jordan Loazada, add depth to the documentary as they clearly demarcate when they went from thinking that they had chosen an alternate way of living to realizing they had joined a cult.
Nityananda used to keep everyone with love and care. When they became blind devotees, slowly and steadily he started taking advantage whether he is a female or a male. He used to say that having a physical relationship with him is a Prasad of a God. He used to call himself Avatar of Lord Shiva.
BHAKTA
When the series started at that time Nandita's parents tried to find her but when she got she refused to come back home as she is happy with Nityananda. So people who follow Nityananda can see the truth but they're not able to accept it as it was about baba. For them, Nityananda is 'ADHINAM'.
His narcissism, arrogance, and overconfidence is well captured through footage from his own social media channels, but while they mention that he has powerful benefactors and supporters, they do not go beyond the surface of this story line.
Bhaktas, devotees of Nityanand were blind. They were not ready to accept the truth of Nityananda. There were many less devotees who stood up for themselves and came forward and brought out the truth of the fraud. people were blind behind him, they used to get hypnotized by him, they were not even ready to listen to their family members and their parents, they were ready to leave their social life to be a devotee of Nityananda.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
As we all know, the English language is a Universal language. outside India people might not know Hindi, Gujarati but they can easily understand English and the English language had a lot to do with Nityanadswami to increase his fame. Due to the help of the English language he became an internet sensation overnight. Sarah Landry who helped him to make his YouTube videos and his funny videos, a lot of memes got viral based on Nityananda Swami. he got viral over the social media which help him to attract more devotees towards him which increased his fame in the society. he didn't only had an Indian devotees there were large number of foreigner devotees who were subdued to Nityananda not. only the common man but we also find a Tamil actress who was his devotee and their MMS also went viral.
Why do people believe him even after the CD incident?
People believe in himbecause when media interviewed him he claims that this video is morphed by some one he has given witty reply on this incident even his devotee also believe that video is morphed Immediately after the scandal broke out on March 2, Nityananda had claimed that some of his senior devotees had sent a copy of the video for analysis to London - a step which was never taken. They don't want to know about the reality or dark side of Nityananda because of their blind faith.
Of course we can see the clear connection between the wretchedness of the earth and Nityananda 's way of attracting his devotees after watching the docu- series based on him, my daughter joined a cult. The first topic if we see is of colonization- how White people came into India and this slowly and steadily started showing us that they are superior and we are barbarians. And so they have come to our country to civilize us and teach us how to live. by torturing and brainwashing they started colonizing us as we so in the docuseries. if the devotes is after the time wanted to leave the Ashram or discontinue to be the devotee of Nityanand they were not allowed and if they went against it and they were beaten physically tortured.
The bourgeoisie class of the society, the celebrities and upper class people politicians helped from the people who were finding them. As we see that when he was to be jailed, the media was getting a chance to talk with him. They had an interview with him but police were not able to catch Nityananda. The question arises how it's possible that the media is able to contact Nityananda and have an interview but this is not which completely shows that an upper class society was helping him and that was letting him to do all the frauds.
Is the Decolonization of this possible? Does it lie in atheism?
Yes, decolonization is possible. But for that devotees need to have the power of acceptance. They need to accept the truth of Nityananda and remove the blindfold of his fake power. As the third world countries could decolonize themselves from the 200 years rule/ colony of Britishers.
To come out this fraud doesn't mean to distrust everyone. But to keep your eyes open and accept when someone tries to bring you out of the trap you are in. Being a devotee doesn't mean to be blind. Fanon maintains that colonialism divides the world into light and dark—or in this case, black and white—in a process he refers to as Manichaeism. In the series baba divided people into believers of non-believers.
This documentary aptly shows a journey of GODMAN to CONMAN
Nityananda, who faces charges of illegal confinement of children and has been charge-sheeted in a rape case, fled the country in 2019. There were reports later that year stating that he had created a Hindu nation, Kailasam, with its own flag and political setup on an island near Ecuador.
I hope this bog is useful. Thanks for visiting.
[words- 1500]
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