Is God’s Own Country turning into Godmen’s Own Country? If the recent events involving fraud godmen are any indication, it is time Kerala’s most famous catchline was rewritten. Day after day, several scandals linked to self-styled godmen are surfacing in the most-literate state in the country.
The recent arrest in Kochi of Santosh Madhavan, who is facing charges of raping minor girls, cheating and financial fraud took the lid off flourishing spiritual rackets.
The first saffron-robed man to hit the headlines was Santhosh Madhavan alias Swami Amritachaithanya, arrested May 13 and charged with the rape of a teenage girl and possession of ‘ganja’ (marijuana). A tiger skin and a large number of pornographic films were also recovered from his house in Kochi.

The second godman, whose threats to shoot himself inside a police station in Aluva were beamed across television sets Saturday, is Himaval Maheswara Bhadranandaji, popularly known as ‘Ernakulam Swami’.

He was taken to the police station after he threatened suicide. And in full view of the media, Bhadranandaji, with a pistol at his forehead, hurled abuses at the media for alleged negative publicity.

When police officials tried to stop him, the gun went off and a bullet whizzed past a reporter. In the ensuing melee, another shot was fired, injuring Bhadranandaji. He is now cooling his heels in the police custody.

Preliminary inquires by the intelligence officials revealed that these godmen have considerable wealth without any proper records or accounts.

It’s pathetic how anyone can dress up as holy men and claim to be a hindu god man and cheat people. It just shows how blind people are about their faith. They want to believe in something but they don’t have anything solid to have faith on. It’s just superstition and myth and without proper truth, they easily get cheated by the hindu ‘holy men’.

It’s time people are educated about what is truth, what is reality, what is myth and what is superstition. Even many educated people need some enlightening on this subject.
It is very disheartening to note that we are just bringing down our country to new lows with such activities.