Although The Doctor kept reiterating, unsolicited, that, he, like his wife, Tanuja, was not “fanatically religious”—didn’t pray every day, celebrated festivals as part of culture, reverted to being vegetarian for animal cruelty and not religious reasons—there was tacit and insidious support for Modi’s Hindu-nationalist ideology. As someone incognizant of his privilege, who proudly called himself a “self-made man”, he was the poster child for upper-caste victimhood, those who feel their privilege is being snatched from them. He was against reservations on caste lines and criticized the secular
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