The Cost of a Promised Afterlife

In India, godmen are everywhere. Their photos hang on walls, their voices fill television screens and their names are spoken in both prayers and scandals. But the word ‘cult’ is rarely used. It stays unspoken until another scandal breaks out, only to be buried under silence again. This silence allows blind faith to thrive and logic to crumble.

At nine, Priyamvada Mehra was led into the fold of Rampal, a self-proclaimed godman who promised miracle cures and salvation in exchange for submission. What began as her parents' desperate attempt to save her mother’s life soon became something far more sinister—a world where faith became a cage, obedience a virtue and control, absolute.

By thirteen, Priyamvada was a devoted follower. In 2006, she was inside his ashram, used as a human shield during a deadly clash between Rampal’s followers and a rival sect. Questioning was forbidden, loyalty was everything and defiance came at a cost. She endured heartbreaking losses and grew up with a twisted logic of miracles, bans on medical treatment, violent sermons and state-crushing riots.

She witnessed her family fall to pieces under the weight of indoctrination and diseases. For two decades, she stumbled between two treacherous worlds, one ruled by cultic control, and both shaped by patriarchy, caste and class, and the systemic violence they breed.

In The Cost of a Promised Afterlife, Priyamvada Mehra finally tells her story. The memoir exposes how cults take root in a nation of 1.4 billion, and how godmen wield unchecked power. Deeply intersectional in its lens, it lays bare the psychological and physical toll of being led into blind faith as a girl and the long journey of dissenting as a woman in a ‘man’s world’.

This is her truth and her rebellion.