‘What defines cults is not their label, but the methods they use to control, manipulate, and isolate people’
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Priyamvada Mehra’s memoir, The Cost of a Promised Afterlife, has been published by Simon & Schuster India. At the age of nine, she 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 from a brain tumour soon became something far more sinister—a world where faith became a cage, obedience a virtue and control, absolute. By 13, 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, and violent sermons.
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. In India, godmen are everywhere. They exist. 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. 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’.
While reading it, I had to put it down many times and take a break. When an individual narrates a traumatic incident, a self-defence mechanism automatically kicks in, and the person recounts the incident(s) in the third person. It is delivered in a deadpan style. It is a self-preservation act to prevent themselves from any further harm while recollecting. This is evident in oral and written narratives. So, to read this memoir that is written in the first person but in a manner that hammers the reader’s head with a nonstop single dull beat is quite unusual. Read the memoir for yourself and judge. In Sept 2025, Rampal was granted bail, but remains in Tihar Jail as he is considered a “risk to public order” by the Hissar district court.
Content retrieved from: https://www.moneycontrol.com/books/what-defines-cults-is-not-their-label-but-the-methods-they-use-to-control-manipulate-and-isolate-people-article-13629342.html/amp.
