| Baba Ramdev: Can a yogi turn Indian politics on its head? |
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Baba Ramdev is a Hindu yoga guru-turned-anticorruption campaigner. He's the latest incarnation of the spiritual political reformer, an archetype running throughout Indian history. By Rebecca Byerly, Correspondent / October 17, 2012 HARIDWAR, INDIA It’s not yet 5 a.m, but hundreds of Indians are quietly shuffling into a football-field-sized yoga hall. A sea of people in white and saffron organge-gangling aging men in loincloths, young agelic-looking women in pajamas, and wide-eyed children - sit cross-legged on yoga mats. On the stage before them sits their full-bearded and bare-chested guru, Baba Ramdev. Through the windows behind him the sun rises, a deep red. His followers wait for him to begin what will be a four-hour session: He’ll move through a series of acrobatic postures that range from walking upside down on his hands to blowing hard, hissing breaths out his nose. But Ramdev’s yoga is not just about the body, the breath, or the mind. It is also about politics.
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"I was pleased but not surprised. Not even when she dropped me e-mail messages or phoned from places like Kabul or Kashmir. I became accustomed to it. To her success, that is."
Bill Gentile on Rebecca Byerly