Off the Record 124: The loathsome Buddha Boy

Issue 124 • 12 January 2024

It’s January 12, 2024, and you’re reading Off the Record.

I’m Pranaya Rana and in this newsletter, we’ll stop, take a deep breath, and dive into one singular issue that defined the past week. 

You can read Off the Record for free by visiting this link and subscribing to receive this newsletter in your inbox every Friday.ﾠAll posts are free but you can pledge a subscription if you like my work.

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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu. This week started slow but picked up steam towards the middle. There’s quite a bit to talk about but before I begin, I’d like to talk a bit about the newsletter.

Help me grow

On Wednesday, I met with a friend and a big supporter of this newsletter, Roman Gautam, editor of Himal Southasian. Roman gave me some great advice on how to move forward with this newsletter and I’d like to thank him publicly for that. There are significant changes in store for the newsletter, but don’t worry, the content and structure will remain largely the same. I’d just like to take this opportunity to ask all of you constant readers to help me grow my readership. We are currently at 2,560 subscribers with 40 paid subscribers. I don’t ask that you pledge a subscription, that’s up to you, but I would like to ask that you share this newsletter with others in your friend, family, and social circles. Please forward this email or direct them to the Substack. Help me spread the word. My goal is to hit 3,000 subscribers in the next three months. That’s a very modest goal and I hope you all can help me get there.

So if you appreciate this newsletter, if I’ve ever helped you understand anything at all about Nepal and its myriad socio-politics, please like, share, and subscribe, as YouTubers say. I need all of your help!

Sandeep Lamichhane gets eight years

Now, let’s talk about the news. Sandeep Lamichhane, Nepal’s star cricketer once upon a time, has been handed an eight-year jail term and a Rs 500,000 fine for rape. As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, Lamichhane was found guilty by the Kathmandu District Court of rape last week but it was only on Wednesday that he was sentenced. Although the survivor, identified only as Gaushala-26, claimed that she was a minor at the time of the incident, the court decided that she was not under 18. This was important since the jail term and fine for rape is gradated on age. But it is unlikely that Lamichhane will spend any time in jail just yet as his lawyers have said that they will appeal the decision

Even as many commended the judiciary for finally hearing the case and deciding on the guilty verdict, many others have been very callous in their disregard for Gaushala-26 and their continued support for Lamichhane. Gaushala-26 has long suffered as a result of speaking out against Lamichhane, one of Nepal’s most beloved cricketers, and she continues to suffer even after the verdict. Although her identity had not been made public, many on social media discovered her name and social media profiles, plastering her photos across the internet with humiliating and demeaning captions. The Rastriya Swatantra Party removed a member of its Japan wing after he too shared Gaushala-26’s photos. Gaushala-26 had to file a police complaint, leading the police to announce that anyone sharing her photos would be prosecuted. Gaushala-26 continues to be victim-blamed, denigrated, and cast as a golddigger who had consensual relations with Lamichhane but only accused him of rape to take advantage of him, including by a prominent politician from the Nepali Congress. I find that particularly laughable since no amount of money can shield one from the kind of humiliation and degradation that Gaushala-26 has gone through.

Covid again

On Monday, the Health Ministry confirmed the presence of a new Covid-19 variant, JN.1, which the World Health Organization has termed a ‘variant of interest’. Despite the rising numbers, the risk to public health is said to be low. Still, the Health Ministry has asked the public to exercise caution, avoid large gatherings, wear masks while in public, and take proper sanitary measures. The government, however, seems to have stopped tracking Covid-19 cases. There are no current numbers on how many cases are currently active in Nepal and how many are related to JN.1. Even the Health Ministry’s Covid-19 portal seems to have gone defunct.

This could mean that the numbers are negligible and there’s nothing to worry about but it would be great if the government could still provide some numbers so that we can assess the potential threat. Testing centers across the country reportedly lack testing kits too so that should also be a priority. Still, the government has asked Covax for 2.5 million vaccine doses so that’s something. At least it shows that the government is thinking ahead and planning for any potential rise in cases or threat. The numbers aren’t very high even across the border in India — just 827 from 12 states — so it seems like this variant is not something to worry about too much.

That’s all for this week. I know there’s much more I could’ve talked about, especially the National Assembly elections but I’ll keep that aside for next week as this newsletter is long enough on its own. I hope you enjoy this week’s long read. It’s quite a doozy.

Don’t forget to share this newsletter!

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The deep dive: The loathsome Buddha Boy

Photo: Reuters

On Wednesday, Ram Bahadur Bomjan, once known as the ‘Buddha Boy’, was finally arrested on rape charges filed nearly four years ago. Bomjan had evaded arrest multiple times, often tipped off by his followers. This time, the Nepal Police quietly raided his home in Kathmandu. Even then, he attempted to escape by leaping from a second-story window but was caught and arrested. From his palatial home in Budhanilkantha to the north of Kathmandu, police seized Rs 33 million in cash, 15 mobile phones, and currency from 17 countries totaling over Rs 3 million. He was also in possession of a Toyota Fortuner, a Toyota Hilux, and a Toyota Landcruiser, all cars that cost millions of rupees.

Bomjan is accused of raping a 15-year-old minor who had joined his Sarlahi ashram as a nun. The alleged rape happened in 2016 while the police complaint was filed in 2020 when the victim turned 18. The complaint also names two of Bomjan’s aides, Gyan Kumar Bomjan and Jit Bahadur Tamang. But this is not the only accusation Bomjan is facing. He was also being sought in connection with the disappearance of four of his followers and he and his aides have been accused of everything from kidnapping and torture to rape and murder. For someone who was once considered the second coming of the Buddha, this has been a precipitous fall from grace. But how exactly did we get here? Allow me to explain.

Bomjan first appeared in 2005, meditating under a banyan tree in the Ratnapuri jungle in Bara district. He was 14 years old and had been meditating without food or water for weeks, some said months. People began to come in droves to see him meditating, calling him a reincarnation of Gautam Buddha. Businesses sprung up alongside him, selling flowers, garlands, food, and tea. People called him the ‘Buddha Boy’ and watched this teenager meditate. They weren’t allowed to touch him or even come near him. He was attended to by his family, including his elder brother and uncles. They all testified that Bomjan had neither moved nor eaten food or drank water for 10 months. People believed but there were skeptics as Bomjan appeared fit and healthy for someone who hadn’t eaten for months. A team of doctors asked that they be allowed to conduct tests on him to see if he was truly not eating or drinking, an impossible feat for any living being. Bomjan’s team refused to allow the doctors to draw blood stating it would disturb his meditation.

Eventually, Bomjan moved from Ratnapuri to the nearby Halkhoriya forest where his family members created a barrier to keep out followers. Now, the Buddha Boy could only be glimpsed from a distance, little more than a statue nestled in the crook of a banyan tree. News spread not just nationally but internationally. The BBC sent a team of reporters while the Discovery Channel filmed a documentary. They claimed to have filmed Bomjan for 72 hours, during which time he neither moved nor ate. GQ dispatched the celebrated writer George Saunders to Nepal to write about Bomjan. Saunders came and wrote a slightly orientalist piece about Nepal, seemingly aghast at the country’s poverty. He too concluded that Bomjan was probably legitimate, although no one could explain how that could be. The title for this deep dive is a play on Saunders’ title — The Incredible Buddha Boy.

Photo: Jeff Riedel/GQ

All of these documentaries and articles legitimized the Buddha Boy. Since they weren’t able to detect any fraud, many across the world began to believe that Bomjan really did possess some kind of divine power. Maybe he was the Buddha reincarnated, they thought. Buddhists, hippies, new-age practitioners, and the spiritually lost all began to flock to Halkhoriya. With them came ready foreign cash, which Bomjan’s handlers were more than happy to accept as donations on his behalf. An ashram for his followers and a gumba for his meditation were both constructed from the donations received. Bomjan continued his meditation within the gumba.

Slowly, Bomjan began to emerge from his meditation. He would walk around and talk to his followers and his handlers. Once, according to a Setopati series on Bomjan, he attacked an interloper with a sword, slicing off skin from his head. The interlopers had reportedly intruded on Bomjan’s gumba. More rumors began to emerge. Bomjan was accused of having sexual relations with the nuns who came to stay in his ashram and his gumba. He was reportedly caught in the act by both his brother and his sister. When they protested, they were quietly removed from his inner circle. He began a long-term affair with an Indian woman named Deepshikha, who would later become his wife.

After some time, Bomjan disappeared again. For nearly four months, his followers looked for him and eventually found him in Mirik, in India’s Darjeeling. He had been living with a woman named Rita. His followers entreated him to return to Nepal and he promised he would. One night, Rita and Bomjan left the house together without informing anyone. Sometime later, Rita returned alone. She told her family that she had been beaten by Bomjan and his family. Yet, when Bomjan called a few days later, Rita left to be with him. She never returned. No one knows what happened to her, only that after her disappearance Bomjan visited the family and threatened them not to file a police complaint, reports Setopati. Years later, in 2019, Rita’s family would finally file a complaint with the police.

Despite Bomjan’s erratic behavior, his followers continued to grow. Devotees came from as far away as Slovakia, Spain, New Zealand, the United States, and Australia. One of his most high-profile followers, politician and former minister Mani Lama, established the Bodhi Shrawan Dharma Sangh with Bomjan as its leader. The Sangh now has chapters in the US, Canada, and New Zealand. According to Setopati, the Sangh now included several high-profile individuals, including businessman Ichhya Raj Tamang, former Inspector General DB Lama, Maoist politician Bhuminand Devkota and advocate Lalit Bahadur Thapa. Bomjan also began to take up new names. First, he was Palden Dorje, his monastic name. Then, he became Tulku Rinpoche to the Tamang people. At various times, he called himself Om Namo Buddha Gyani, Dharma Sangha, and Maitreya. That last name, Maitreya, is the name given to the Buddha that will follow the last true Buddha, Siddhartha Gautam. His full title eventually became Maitreya Guru Maha Sambodhi Dharma Sangha.

Over the years, his power and influence grew but his behavior grew more erratic. In 2010, he and his followers got into an altercation with locals who were reportedly looking for wild fruits and vegetables in the jungle. While Bomjan claimed that they had entered his premises without permission and mocked him, the villagers denied this and said they were only foraging. Bomjan said that he only slapped them a few times but the villagers, 17 of them, alleged that he and his followers had beaten them with axe handles.

In 2012, police raided Bomjan’s ashram after receiving complaints that Bomjan was holding two women hostage. They rescued a 35-year-old Slovak woman named Marīci and a Nepali woman who were found chained to trees and beaten. Bomjan told the media and the police that he had taken them into custody after they tried to disrupt his meditation through ‘witchcraft’. Marīci says that she was beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and held against her will, chained to a tree. Her possessions including her phone, laptop, and European ID card, were also taken from her. Marīci claims that she is one of at least 40 of Bomjan’s victims, most of them women whom he tortured similarly. She has documented all of Bomjan’s doings in a blog called The Halkhoriya Times. She’s even put up a video addressing Bomjan’s claims that she was a ‘witch’. What is even more horrific is that after she was rescued, she says that she was treated as a criminal by the police since her visa had expired. She had no money to pay the fine and was thus facing a prison term of four years. She had to beg her friends in Europe to pay her fine and only then was she released.

Despite all of this, Bomjan’s influence only continued to grow. He regularly received government officials and police chiefs at his ashram and blessed them. In 2014, he even met then prime minister Sushil Koirala, who promised him land to build an ashram and a red diplomatic passport so that he could travel the world and spread his teachings. That same year, Bomjan got into another skirmish with locals in Bara. Bomjan reportedly attacked a few locals with a stick, claiming that they were drunk and shouting offensive slurs. He and his followers took two of the men under control, prompting around 100 local villagers to storm Bomjan’s compound. In the ensuing clash between the locals and Bomjan’s followers, four people were injured but the two being held were released. Again, in 2014, five journalists were beaten up and their cameras smashed by Bomjan and his followers for taping his sermon. Among the people doing the beating was Tomasz Henryk Tarnawski, a Pole who had come to be known as ‘Tom Dorje’. He was known to be one of Bomjan’s ‘enforcers’ and reportedly took part in Marici’s physical torture.

In the meantime, numerous families had begun to come to the police and reach out to Bomjan asking about their daughters who had gone missing from Bomjan’s ashram. When their families approached Bomjan’s team, they were told that the women had either never joined their ashram or that they had already left. The police refused to register any case against Bomjan, given how much political clout he had accumulated. Setopati interviewed nuns at the ashram who reported that two women — Karma Tamang and Fulmaya Rumba — had been accused of witchcraft and brutally beaten. Bomjan first beat them himself and then directed his followers to beat them with sticks. The two women were then taken and locked inside a room. The next morning, they had disappeared.

According to Ganga Maya Tamang, who would later go on to file a rape case against Bomjan, one of the two women had taken a video of Bomjan sexually abusing someone. Bomjan had even directed Ganga Maya to get that video but when she was unable to, Bomjan concocted the story of them being witches and then beaten them. The two women were likely murdered. Setopati reported a similar story about two men who were also accused of witchcraft and putting hexes on Bomjan’s followers. They too were beaten by Bomjan and his followers. During the beating, one of the men reportedly died. Even Bomjan’s own sister, Manumaya Tamang, is reported to have died under mysterious circumstances, allegedly due to ‘brain problems’.

In September 2018, Ganga Maya Tamang, who had escaped from Bomjan’s ashram, held a press conference and publicly accused him of rape. Two months later, the families of three individuals filed a missing persons case with the police alleging that they had last been seen at Bomjan’s ashram. The three individuals are the two women and the one man reported to have been beaten mercilessly by Bomjan and his followers, perhaps resulting in their deaths. Setopati too published a four-part series on Bomjan, bringing widespread media attention to this fraud. Bomjan’s issue was raised in Parliament and it was only then that the police began to take action.

By then, Bomjan had four massive ashrams around the country. He traveled in convoys with dozens of cars, surrounded by followers. He even took helicopters when traveling between ashrams. He went abroad, preaching and collecting more donations. But whenever the police attempted to raid his ashram and take him into custody, Bomjan would be warned off. Since 2019, police made numerous attempts to arrest Bomjan, only to be thwarted. It is only now, over a decade since allegations of abuse were first levied against Bomjan, that he has finally been arrested and will hopefully be brought to justice.

There are many other frauds and conmen like Bomjan out there. They prey on the troubled, the weak, and the dispossessed. (Many believe that education has a lot to do with this but I disagree. Even the highly educated are often just as superstitious.) They claim to provide spiritual guidance and religiosity, only to turn on their followers to use and abuse them. The sad fact is that they are often protected by political actors, many of whom are either gullible enough to believe in these frauds or are attempting to use their clout for political support. It doesn’t hurt that godmen in our part of the world are often fabulously wealthy, having leeched off the donations of their unassuming followers. Superstition continues to run deep in Nepal where people are almost always looking for someone to follow, someone to guide them and tell them that this is how they should live their lives. We are a people without purpose, always searching for role models, heroes, gurus, gods. As long we look towards others for guidance in our own spiritual and existential awakenings, criminals like Bomjan will only continue to feed off of us.

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That’s all for this week. I will be back next Friday, in your emails, for the next edition of Off the Record.

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