Saying it has learned a lesson, the City of Victoria has rescinded a proclamation made at the request of the United States of Kailasa, which doesn’t actually exist.
Mayor Marianne Alto said once she determined there “was a certain amount of fiction associated with it,” she immediately rescinded the proclamation of July 3 as Guru Purnima Day.
She said she plans to look more closely in future at proclamation applications, which are now approved by the mayor’s office, but has no plans to end them altogether, saying “people love them.”
“Some communities I know have taken the decision to not offer proclamations anymore for a whole variety of reasons like this, but I’d like to not go there because I do know that the vast majority are well-intentioned individuals who want some type of acknowledgement or recognition for some very legitimate purpose.”
Victoria wasn’t the only city to end up rescinding it proclamation of Guru Purnima Day — Surrey and Nanaimo did the same thing when they were told the United States of Kailasa was a fictional place.
According to its website, Kailasa was founded in the U.S. and is spearheaded by members of the Hindu Adi Shaivite community. It claims to have been created as a safe haven for all the world’s practising, aspiring or persecuted Hindus, irrespective of race, gender, sect, caste, or creed.
Its figurehead and founder is Nithyananda Paramashivam, who according to several media reports fled India in 2019 facing rape and child-abduction charges.
In what looks like a bid to establish legitimacy, the “nation” has made a practice of getting recognition from cities around the world, many of them in North America.
Its website lists dozens of “certificates of recognition” and proclamations from cities like Texarkana, Texas, Issaquah, Washington and Buena Park, California.
Newark, New Jersey at one point was duped into accepting a sister-city relationship. It rescinded that a few days later.
This year, in an effort to streamline council meetings, council voted to allow the mayor to approve all future proclamation requests sent to the city.
Under the previous system, proclamations were considered by the whole council ahead of other council business during meetings.
While she plans to continue them, Alto said proclamations don’t indicate an endorsement by council “whatsoever.”
“Various community groups and people request and we essentially say ‘OK’ unless there’s something really obvious.”
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