The Rajneesh Chronicles: A look inside the criminal world of Rajneeshpuram

Right after the release of Wild Wild Country, the Netflix Original documentary on the life and cult of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, there was an explosion of debate on the numerous WhatsApp groups of which I am part. Expectedly, older women on the family groups giggled about the nudity in the documentary and some of the middle-aged men and women raged against what they saw as an attempt to malign the self-styled guru. But the real surprise was that younger men and women in their 20s fiercely defended the events described in the documentary and the reviled documentary itself as a conspiracy to tear down the world of Osho.

This took me back several years to the time India Today published an investigative report on Sathya Sai Baba, the popular spiritual leader from Bengaluru, and the sexual misconduct at his centres. My mother forbade me from even looking at the magazine cover, let alone read the article. When I read it almost 10 years later, I knew why. A guru my family so zealously followed was not only toppled from his superhuman pedestal, there were also serious crimes that made them question their own naiveté. Of course, the report was furiously dismissed by those in the family who read it, possibly because it shone a light on their own blind faith. 

But throughout history, this story repeats itself. Cult after cult and guru after guru rises to fame and sets up formidable empires, before his or her sexual and criminal misdemeanours are unravelled. Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan are more recent examples of this universe. Rajneesh, perhaps, has the distinction in terms of the scale on which he committed fraud against the US government and the financial outlay of his audacious schemes. Rajneeshpuram in Oregon was a product of Rajneesh’s gumption, his middle finger to the people of Antelope and Wasco Counties, the church, and the local and state governments. 

Photo: Samvado Gunnar Kossatz / Wikimedia Commons

Journalist Win McCormack’s The Rajneesh Chronicles, is a formidable tome of ground-level reportage from the 1980s to late 2000s, which was re-released as part of a tie-in for the Netflix documentary on which it is based, is essential reading for anyone who is exposed to ridiculous conspiracy theories that seek to paint Rajneesh as a victim of a brutal state machinery. If anything, Rajneesh, who would later return to India and call himself Osho, was let off easy and with minimal jail term for his cohorts. Compared with any post-9/11 conviction and the stories from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, the treatment meted out to Ma Anand Sheela, Rajneesh’s closest aide, seems like a mere slap on the wrist. But, as McCormack details in his book, the wilful actions of the members of the Rajneesh could have led to a massive, perhaps even global, catastrophe had they not been checked in time. The fact that the cult’s various labs were tinkering with the idea of developing the AIDS virus and contaminating food with it would have outlawed the cult in no time in today’s hyper-litigious context.

Although the Netflix Original covers almost all angles of this book, there’s still value in reading about the events that unfolded in Rajneeshpuram, especially through McCormack’s crisp reports and opinion pieces. The biggest reward for a reader is the meticulously detailed chronology at the start of the book, which lays solid ground for the extent of Rajneesh’s criminal schemes and the physical and psychological terror his followers unleashed on the people of Oregon. Far from the mild-mannered meditation guru that Osho claims to be, the Rajneeshes of Rajneeshpuram were a militant group, armed with heavy weapons and not afraid to use them.

McCormack draws fascinating parallels with other similar cults at the time, including that of Shoko Asahara in Japan — and it may be no coincidence that Rajneesh’s assumed name has a Japanese derivation, although he never cared to explain how he came by it. Keen admirers of Hitler, these gurus prophesised great calamities and went to greater lengths to make them come true. Asahara, for instance, used the deadly sarin gas in 1995 on commuters in Tokyo’s subways, killing 11 people and injuring thousands. The ideological similarities between Rajneesh’s teachings and German philosopher Nietzsche’s writings are disturbingly eye-opening. To be free of church, government, family and culture is often an ideal Osho followers chase. One’s family gatherings often include one or the other “Osho-type” relative, who conforms neither to prescribed morality nor to social mores. But McCormack’s book goes beyond the question of morality and into the realm of the dark plot to overturn governments and gain total control. 

The Osho organisation in India denounced Wild Wild Country as an inaccurate account of what they saw as an attack on their guru because he was becoming too powerful. McCormack’s book is an excellent tool to use during these laughable debates. Because, as another wise philosopher once said, “Knowledge is power.”

The Rajneesh Chronicles: The true story of the cult that unleashed the first act of bioterrorism on us soil

Author: Win McCormack 

Publisher: Hachette India

Pages: 384

Price: Rs 450