Modi’s marital status becomes contentious issue in Indian election

At a campaign rally this year, Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), 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 steadily mounted as he became the frontrunner for the post of prime minister.

It was his first official acknowledgment of an arranged marriage he abandoned soon after the wedding some 45 years ago, during a period when he was considering becoming a monk or a full-time activist with a Hindu nationalist organisation, which required celibacy.

Life of service
Mr Modi and the BJP took pains to keep the marriage quiet for many years, even when reporters managed to interview his wife, a village schoolteacher. His eldest 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 40 or 50 years back of a poor family in those circumstances should be seen in that context.”

Though leaders of the Congress Party accused Mr Modi of deceiving the public, it was unclear the news would damage him. 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. Gandhi spoke of being “God’s eunuch” and a “eunuch for the nation”.

This year's general election offered the spectacle of a face-off between two men who boasted of being single: last year, Congress's Rahul Gandhi told supporters he did not plan to get married 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.

Unconsummated marriage
"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 Chimanlal for 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 BJP, said the two never cohabited or consummated their marriage.

The journalists who have found Ms Chimanlal have painted a sad picture. 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 travelling across the country and will go as and where I please," and that she had not heard from him since.

She said she had no ill-will toward Mr Modi, but 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 €168.

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.

Desai said he had to jump into a moving car to escape a village mob angry that he was searching for Ms Chimanlal. He said Mr Modi called him and asked, “What is your agenda?”

Political biography
In the ensuing years, Mr Modi's status as a bachelor became an essential part of his political biography.

Nilanjan Mukhopadyay, author of Narendra Modi: the Man, the Times , said his solitary life had positioned Modi as a refreshing alternative after corruption scandals hit the ruling Congress Party.

“Here is a man who lives a spartan life, who does not even keep his mother with him,” Mukhopadyay said.

Mr Gandhi (43), Mr Modi's main rival, belongs to the most famous political clan in India. He has had serious girlfriends, and for years, the question of whether he would marry followed him everywhere. But speculation has receded, and last year's "status quo-ist" comment seemed to put the matter permanently to rest.
– ( New York Times service)