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What makes a saint?

Indians use fancy titles to project their holiness. That is why Adityanath uses the prefix 'Yogi' and Das uses 'Acharya'

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Photo: iStock

Aakar Patel
There is only one real way that an Indian escapes caste. This is, of course, through asceticism. The sadhu, the monk and the nun are not seen through the lens of his or her caste. Their giving up the business of the world and its material possessions includes surrendering their caste identity. Other than this valve, there is no other release for an Indian on the matter of caste. I was thinking about this when I came across an unusual story reported a few days ago out of Ayodhya by the wire agency ANI. It said that “in order to