INDIA: The Mad Monk

India's eight million sadhus are mostly a wild and wacky bunch of fanatics who go about naked, claim divine powers, and live on alms. "Many of them simply exploit you and extort money from you," Prime Minister Nehru recently warned his people. "I want you not to have faith in such sadhus."

Last week the people of Cuttack, 220 miles southwest of Calcutta, got a chance to test the truth of Nehru's warning. For a long time there had been talk of strange goings-on at the Kaliaboda math near by. A math is a holy place, but the one at...

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