The Untold Story Of Yogi Adityanath

Kanphata Yogi, the one with ripped ears. His earrings mark him thus. The Bishts wept when Ajay donned saffron. Shashi has seen her darling brother only thrice since then.Walk with Yogi Adityanath’s story through Uttarakhand’s Sal forests,to Kotdwar, on to Gorakhpur. Meet the man behind the Mahant.

- Pratul Sharma /Pauri Garhwal 

Shashi Singh’s promotion to Class five came with a pleasant responsibility: she would escort her brother Ajay to the government school, a kilometre from their Panchur village in Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand. He was five years her junior, and they happily meandered through the Sal forests on the way, and she would often drop into his class to see that no one bullied him. In the evenings, five siblings—two more would join years later—sat around a wick lamp and read aloud, while their mother cooked dinner after spending the day in the fields and tending cows.

Electricity came to their village—a cluster of just a few houses—in 1982 when Ajay was 10. His father, Anand Singh Bisht, who worked in the forest department, was the first in the area to buy a TV, a Philips Black-and-white set. People from nearby villages thronged his house to watch Ramayan, the epic telecast every Sunday at 9.30am in 1987-88.

On Diwali, father would gather all children to take pictures. “Ajay was precocious, and focused on studies,” said Shashi. “He changed different schools and went to college in Kotdwar and later in Rishikesh. He was very fond of children. On his way back from college, he would drop into my house to meet my daughter, his pocket full of toffees.” She now stays with her husband and children in Kothar village, 30km from Panchur.

Ajay was closest to Shashi, as two other sisters—Pushpa and Kaushalya—were older than him by 16 and 9 years. One of his brothers, Manendra Singh, was two years his senior, and two other brothers were born almost a decade after him.

Yet, since 1994, the favourite sister has met Ajay only thrice, and they have not spoken a word to each other. Though she sends him rakhi every year, she does not know whether he ties it on his wrist.