NEW DELHI — On a recent evening I was watching the video of a news feature a Hindi language television network broadcast about Yogi Adityanath, who was elected chief minister of India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, last month. The frame shows a man with a shaved head cloaked in saffron, the color of Hindu monasticism, sitting on a saffron-backed armchair. A voiceover described the scene: “Whoever comes before him sits at his feet, but he makes sure every supplicant goes away satisfied; he does not discriminate.”

Until he became chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Adityanath, 45, was primarily known as a firebrand Hindu leader who had created a volunteer force, the Hindu Yuva Vahini, or Vehicle for Hindu Youth, a group repeatedly accused of stoking and participating in religious violence. The best chronicled of such incidents took place in 2007 in Gorakhpur, Mr. Adityanath’s hometown, in eastern Uttar Pradesh. After the death of a Hindu youth in clashes between Hindus and Muslims on the day of the Shia festival of Moharram, Mr. Adityanath publicly addressed his men: “In times to come, if one Hindu is killed, we won’t go to the police. Instead we will make sure we will kill 10 Muslims.” He was arrested and kept in custody for 15 days after his men destroyed a roadside Sufi shrine and violated prohibitory orders.

Some rather craven sections of the Indian press have been at work to build a softer public persona for Mr. Adityanath since he assumed office. A report in one of India’s largest-selling English language newspapers spoke of his pets: the calves Gauri, Ganga, Narmada and Yamuna, and the dog Raja. The paper described how Mr. Adityanath’s pets have become restive in his absence as they await a move to his official residence. A journalist working for a major television network, who claims to specialize in reporting conflict, tweeted Mr. Adityanath’s visit to his cowshed: “Several calves ran to Yogi Adityanath as he reached and gave them Gur (jaggery) and their feed.” Photo essays of Mr. Adityanath and his calves were published by numerous newspapers.

Mr. Adityanath rose to power because of his association with the Gorakhnath sect, a 1,000-year-old Hindu sect with its headquarters in Gorakhpur. Mr. Adityanath is the current head of the sect. In 1998, when Mr. Adityanath was 26, he was designated as the religious and political successor to Mahant Avaidyanath, the previous head of the sect. Mr. Avaidynath joined the Bharatiya Janata Party and was elected to the Indian Parliament three times as its candidate from Gorakhpur from 1989 to 1998. He had already been elected to the Parliament once in the 1970s from another Hindu party. Mr. Adityanath succeeded him to the Indian Parliament in 1998 and became head of the sect after Mr. Avaidyanath’s death in 2014.