Yogi Adityanath and Indians' love for leaders perceived as 'renouncers'

Rise of Vajpayee, Modi, Mamata shows Indians idolise people seen as having given up personal lives

Soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Uttar Pradesh legislators on March 18 elected Yogi Adityanath, the chief priest of Gorakhpur’s Gorakhnath mutt, as their leader, social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp were abuzz with posts hailing the new chief minister as a ‘great renouncer’. While BJP’s choice of a hardliner with a history raised some eyebrows, the dissenting voices were drowned by the supporters’ eulogy of a “selfless saint who sacrificed for the larger good of people and religion”.

Even as the high-pitched hero-worship of Yogi Adityanath gave many a sense of déjà vu – there had been