[Mr. Modi revised his official biography on
Wednesday, when he noted on an election registry that he is, in fact, married.
In four previous registrations, he has left the question of his marital status
blank, but scrutiny over the question steadily mounted as he became the
front-runner for the post of prime minister.]
By Ellen Barry
NEW DELHI — At a campaign rally this year, Narendra
Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, offered this curious qualification
for the post of India’s prime minister: He could not possibly be corrupt
because he is a bachelor.
“Why would I indulge in corruption? For whom?”
reasoned Mr. Modi, 63. “There is no one behind me or in front of me,” he
continued, using a Hindi phrase that means he has no family. “I surrender this
body. I surrender this heart.”
Mr. Modi revised his official biography on
Wednesday, when he noted on an election registry that he is, in fact, married.
In four previous registrations, he has left the question of his marital status
blank, but scrutiny over the question steadily mounted as he became the
front-runner for the post of prime minister.
It was his first official acknowledgment of an
arranged marriage he abandoned soon after the wedding about 45 years ago,
during a period when he was considering becoming a monk or a full-time activist
with a Hindu nationalist organization, which required a vow of celibacy.
Mr. Modi and the B.J.P. took pains to keep the
marriage quiet for many years, even when reporters managed to interview his
wife, a village schoolteacher. He was silent on Thursday, though his oldest
brother, Somabhai Damodardas Modi, released a statement saying that the
marriage “was left as a formality” and that his brother had left the woman,
Jashodaben Chimanlal, because he had chosen a life of service.
“Narendra’s whole life is a life of sacrifice, and
we have to accept it; the whole country knows his sacrifice, and the people of
the nation know it,” the statement said. “This event of 45 or 50 years back of
a poor family in those circumstances should be seen in that context.”
Journalists who rushed to Ms. Chimanlal’s village on
Thursday found that she was gone, and some said she had departed on a religious
pilgrimage. Her elder brother, Kamlesh Modi, whose last name indicates that he
and Narendra Modi are part of the same caste, told The Times of India that she
had renounced footwear for four months and ate only once a day, in hope that
Mr. Modi would become prime minister.
“Her prayers have been answered, as Narendra has
publicly accepted her as his wife,” he said. Mr. Modi’s sister, Vasanti, told
the newspaper that the family held Ms. Chimanlal in high regard. “Despite being
abandoned, Jashoda never spoke ill of him,” she said. “That is a true Indian
woman for you.”
Though leaders of the Congress Party accused Mr.
Modi of deceiving the public, it was unclear whether news of his marriage —
which was apparently not consummated — would damage Mr. Modi. Renunciation of
family life is a tradition in India’s public life, going back to Mohandas K.
Gandhi, who was married but took a vow of celibacy. This year’s general
election offered the unusual spectacle of a face-off between two men who
boasted of being single: Last year, Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of the
Congress Party, told supporters that he did not plan to marry because, as he
put it, “I will become status-quo-ist, and I will like my children to take my
place.”
Hinduism teaches reverence for intense self-control,
growing in strength as a man passes through four stages of life — the student,
the householder, the hermit and, finally, the wandering ascetic. The two
prime-ministerial hopefuls are invoking that tradition “instrumentally,” in
part because they sense rising public anger over corruption, said the historian
Ramachandra Guha, author of “India After Gandhi.”
“It is a religious, cultural tradition, and it is
also statecraft, because it means you are not going to loot the public
exchequer,” he said.
Mr. Modi was 17 when he decided to leave home and
abandon his marriage to Ms. Chimanlal in favor of a period of wandering in the
Himalayas, during which he apparently considered becoming a monk. A new
biography of Mr. Modi, distributed to journalists by the B.J.P., said the two
never cohabitated or consummated their marriage.
“Narendra refused to do something he did not want to
do, no matter what the cultural or family pressure,” said the biography, noting
that Ms. Chimanlal “was not compelled under Indian law to remain contracted to
Narendra, and could have asked her parents to find another suitor, or found one
herself.”
The journalists who have found Ms. Chimanlal have
painted a sad picture, though. Early this year, she told The Indian Express
that they had spent no more than three months together when he announced that
“I will be traveling across the country and will go as and where I please,” and
that she had not heard from him since then.
She said she had no ill will toward Mr. Modi, but
that she had not remarried, because “after this experience, I don’t think I
want to. My heart is not into it.” She told the newspaper she was living on a
monthly pension of 14,000 rupees, or about $233.
Among the first to find Ms. Chimanlal was Darshan
Desai, then a reporter for The Indian Express, who found her living in a
one-room apartment with no toilet or bath and a monthly rent of 100 rupees, now
worth about $1.66. Mr. Desai said he had to jump into a car to escape a village
mob angry that he was searching for Ms. Chimanlal. He said Mr. Modi called him
within minutes of his returning home and asked, “What is your agenda?”
In the ensuing years, Mr. Modi’s status as a
bachelor became an essential part of his political biography. Nilanjan
Mukhopadhyay, author of “Narendra Modi: The Man, the Times,” said Mr. Modi’s
solitary life had positioned him as a refreshing alternative after a raft of
corruption scandals hit the governing Congress Party.
“It goes to enhance this moral halo around Modi, as
a man who does nothing for himself,” Mr. Mukhopadhyay said.
Mr. Gandhi belongs to the most famous political clan
in India. His early life was shaped by the assassinations of his grandmother
and father, who both served as prime minister.
Mr. Gandhi often seemed ambivalent about taking his
place in the family business, criticizing the status quo as if his family did
not form its central pillar. Mr. Gandhi, 43, has had serious girlfriends, and
for years, the question of whether he would marry followed him everywhere, said
Aarthi Ramachandran, author of “Decoding Rahul Gandhi.” But speculation has
gradually receded, and last year’s “status quo-ist” comment seemed to put the
matter permanently to rest. Ms. Ramachandran said it could well be what he
suggested: a principled stand.
Many of India’s political heavyweights are single,
including the so-called three ladies whose loyalties could well determine the
shape of the next government: Tamil Nadu’s Jayalalitha Jayaram, who was
convulsed with grief at the death of her cinema co-star, M. G. Ramachandran,
and wrested control of his political party from his widow; West Bengal’s Mamata
Banerjee, who is said to have made a vow not to marry at the deathbed of her
father, when she was just 9 years old; and Uttar Pradesh’s Mayawati, who has
never said why she did not marry, but, when confronted, cast it as an
advantage.
When a rival suggested that, because she was
childless, she could not understand a mother’s pain, Mayawati called her critic
“a mother of one, while I take care of hundreds and understand the pain of
crores” — tens of millions — “of mothers.”
