There were widespread protests in Tamil Nadu after a news channel on Wednesday aired clippings of a 32-year-old popular spiritual guru in a compromising position with an unidentified actress. Protests rocked the state after the channel exposed Swami Paramahamsa Nithyananda’s alleged sex romp with the actress whose face was blurred on television. The godman, accused of cheating people and drugging women in the garb of providing herbal medicines, has gone into hiding following the expose.
Protesters attacked Nithyananda’s ashrams and brought down his portraits in several areas of the state. They also burnt his effigies in Kumbakkonam, Coimbatore, Vellore, Thiruvannamalai, Cuddalore, Chidambaram, Rajapalayam, Kanyakumari and Banrutti. Puducherry also witnessed similar protests. “We will renounce Nithyananda the way Muslim countries have announced a fatwa against Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen,” a protestersaid. Nithyananda, who is well-known in the south for his lucid philosophical talks, was born on January 1, 1978 as Rajasekaran in the temple town of Thiruvannamalai. He is reported to have come under the influence of yoga practitioner Raghupati Maharaj early in his life and experimented with yoga, tantra, vedanta and other metaphysical sciences from a very young age. He became a popular yoga and meditation guru, and attracted a large number of devotees. He has spiritual centres in Thiruvannamalai and Bidadi.
In 2007, Nithyananda was elected chairperson of the Hindu University of America, also known as the International Vedic Hindu University, based in Florida. Nithyananda established the Life Bliss Foundation as his worldwide movement for meditation and transformation in 2003. The foundation is reported to span over 1,000 centres in 33 countries.
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