Newark was tricked into becoming sister cities with a Hindu nation. The catch: the country doesn't exist.

• The city of Newark says it was fooled into signing a sister cities agreement with a fake country.
• The so-called nation of Kailasa was fabricated by a Hindu guru who fled rape charges in India.
• The group has posted photos of meetings with UN ambassadors in a bid to legitimize itself.

The city of Newark, New Jersey, has admitted that it was duped into signing an official partnership with a supposed Hindu nation. The country, however, doesn't exist.

At a January 12 ceremony, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and several city officials signed an agreement to become sister cities with the "United States of Kailasa."

Two women representing Kailasa, garbed in what appears to be traditional clothing and jewelry, attended the ceremony. One of them gave an eight-minute speech before the city council, thanking Newark for the partnership and speaking of creating an "enlightened Hindu civilization."

But Kailasa is the fabrication of Swami Nithyananda, a Hindu guru who fled India in 2019 when he was charged with rape.

—philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 7, 2023

Nithyananda, a self-styled holy man who titles himself the "Supreme Pontiff of Hinduism," claims to have created Kailasa as a "revival" of a Hindu nation. The BBC reported that he also says he's purchased an island off the coast of Ecuador, though the Ecuadorian government told the outlet it has neither helped him nor given him asylum.

Newark's city council, realizing six days after the ceremony that the city was fooled, voted on January 18 to rescind its partnership with the faux nation, CBS first reported on March 8.

The city told CBS in a statement that the signing was a "regrettable incident," but that it "remains committed to partnering with people from diverse cultures in order to enrich each other with connectivity, support, and mutual respect."

It added that no money was involved in the signing of the ceremony, per CBS.

The Newark City Council did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Kailasa appears at United Nations meetings

Meanwhile, the same woman who spoke at the Newark signing appeared twice at United Nations meetings in Geneva in February, claiming to represent Kailasa. 

—Atul Khatri (@one_by_two) March 2, 2023

Calling herself Vijayapriya Nithyananda, she spoke at a discussion on how women are represented in decision-making systems on February 22, and at another meeting on sustainable development on February 24, per the BBC.

A UN spokesperson told the BBC that her contributions made at the meetings weren't relevant or would be scrapped from consideration.

A Twitter account for Kailasa has in the meantime posted multiple photos of its representatives meeting with various UN ambassadors. These include ambassadors for the United Arab Emirates, Gambia, Bangladesh, Equatorial Guinea, Montenegro, Lebanon, Lithuania, Egypt, and Burundi.

—KAILASA's SPH Nithyananda (@SriNithyananda) March 14, 2023

It's unclear if the ambassadors were aware of Kailasa being a fake country at the time. The UN ambassadors have also not clarified whether they met these women in an official capacity or during chance encounters. The UN missions for the above nations did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.

Kailasa is signing agreements with cities like Newark and trying to be seen with international officials in a bid to legitimize itself through disinformation, Mohan Dutta, the dean's chair of communication at Massey University in New Zealand, told Insider.

"What they are doing is taking something that is entirely a falsity, that is non-existent, and materializing it through these performances," said Dutta, who's tracked Kailasa since it was founded in 2019. "It's really powerful and shows how disinformation works."

Nithyananda, the organization's founder, has claimed that Kailasa is now issuing tourist visas, has a currency, and has established embassies around the world, though it has no internationally recognized territory, Dutta said.

The guru also claims to be able to disprove Einstein's theory of relativity and possess paranormal abilities, Dutta said.

—KAILASA's SPH Nithyananda (@SriNithyananda) March 15, 2023

Groups like Kailasa that center on a holy man who espouses pseudo-scientific claims are typically motivated either by the monetary gain from donations, or exploit followers through sexual and physical violence, Dutta added..

And Newark's failure to spot any warning signs before partnering with Kailasa is particularly worrying, he said.

"It is flabbergasting that you have bureaucrats and politicians at the local government in a democratic state having failed to do their duty of due diligence," Dutta said.

In a statement to Insider, a representative for Kailasa denied the rape accusations against Nithyananda. The representative also said the guru never claimed to own an island, and compared Nithyananda to the Dalai Lama.