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Meet a first lady who is clearly getting the second-class treatment
President Barack Obama’s recent trip to India raised questions about the wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi—a woman whose life is shrouded in mystery. While the U.S. president appeared at the extravagant Republic Day parade with First Lady Michelle Obama, the Indian first lady, if she can even be called that, was absent, to no-one’s surprise.
Mr. Modi lives as a single man though, technically, he isn’t. While filing his election nomination papers this past April, he admitted publicly for the first time that he was married.
Subsequently, it came to light that he and his wife, Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, had married when she was 17 and Modi 18. Three years into the marriage, he distanced himself from his wife, threw himself into his work as a campaigner for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organization, and then joined politics. Jashodaben became a schoolteacher and, like him, never remarried.
Now retired and in her sixties, Jashodaben lives with her brother and subsists on a pension of 14,000 rupees ($232) a month. She has said the last time she spoke to the prime minister was in 1987. Neither has sought a divorce.
In many ways, Jashodaben embodies the so-called “Sati-Savitri” ideal. In some traditional Indian circles, this is the highest praise a woman can receive. The term joins together two symbols of feminine virtue. Goddess Sati, the wife of the Hindu god Shiva, is celebrated for immolating herself after her husband was slighted by her father. Equally, Savitri, a character from Hindu epic the Mahabharata, is praised for dissuading the god of death, Yama, from taking her husband’s life by outwitting him.
Speaking of Jashodaben, Narendra Modi’s sister told the Times of India that: “Despite being abandoned, Jashoda never spoke ill of him. That is a true Indian woman for you.” Not only has she never spoken ill of him, she is said to have fasted and prayed for him to become prime minister. Her life seems to exemplify the self-effacement and sacrifice symbolized by Sati and Savitri.
However, this “true Indian woman” is showing some signs of being fed up with the trappings of her odd marriage. Making use of India’s “Right to Information” act, she recently sought information about the armed bodyguards who have been deployed by the government to protect her. She is said to be “afraid” of the personal security detail, not least because India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her own bodyguards.
“I am surrounded by five security guards all the time. Often my relatives or I have to cook for them, my sister-in-law has to make their beds. This is a bit annoying,” Jashodaben told Reuters.
This isn’t the first time she has found her freedom curtailed as a result of her connection to Modi.
In 2009, a journalist with the Indian magazine Open described going to meet Jashodaben at her school when Modi was still chief minister of the state of Gujarat. The journalist said Jashodaben was enthusiastic about being interviewed until the principal “admonished” her and ordered her back into the classroom.
According to the journalist, Haima Deshpande, the principal spoke to an unknown person on the phone before going to see her in her classroom. “After that, she became a different person. She smiled no more, her excitement was gone and she looked nervous. She kept wringing her hands. When I approached her again, she screamed, asking to be left alone.” Later cars full of unidentified men visited the school. “When the school day came to an end, Jashodaben almost ran out to a waiting auto-rickshaw. She pointed at me and told some villagers that I was harassing her.” In the incident, Jashodaben comes across as beleaguered, fearful and vulnerable.
Unlike other first ladies who live a life of luxury, the Indian first lady’s life has been largely untouched by comfort. Before she moved in with her brother, she lived in a one-room house in a village with no toilet. It is only natural that the immense imbalance of power between her and her estranged husband would lead to fear, embarrassment and insecurity on her part.
However, Jashodaben’s life is also a story of survival. Given how notoriously tough rural India can be for a single woman, Jashodaben’s self-reliance is certainly no small feat.
Yet, the most poignant aspect of her story is that she has repeatedly expressed the hope that Modi will invite her to live with him one day. Perhaps she can harbor such unrealistic expectations by virtue of living in a society where a woman’s worth is largely defined by her marriage. Unfortunately for her, the value of a man, especially one as powerful as Narendra Modi, does not rely on marriage.
In many ways, Jashodaben’s story is that of many Indian women. Even when she achieves financial independence, she is still bound by mental shackles to a social system that doesn’t care for her, that’s stacked against her. Perhaps it’s time for her to realize this and carve out a life accordingly.
President Barack Obama’s recent trip to India raised questions about the wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi—a woman whose life is shrouded in mystery. While the U.S. president appeared at the extravagant Republic Day parade with First Lady Michelle Obama, the Indian first lady, if she can even be called that, was absent, to no-one’s surprise.
Mr. Modi lives as a single man though, technically, he isn’t. While filing his election nomination papers this past April, he admitted publicly for the first time that he was married.
Subsequently, it came to light that he and his wife, Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, had married when she was 17 and Modi 18. Three years into the marriage, he distanced himself from his wife, threw himself into his work as a campaigner for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organization, and then joined politics. Jashodaben became a schoolteacher and, like him, never remarried.
Now retired and in her sixties, Jashodaben lives with her brother and subsists on a pension of 14,000 rupees ($232) a month. She has said the last time she spoke to the prime minister was in 1987. Neither has sought a divorce.
In many ways, Jashodaben embodies the so-called “Sati-Savitri” ideal. In some traditional Indian circles, this is the highest praise a woman can receive. The term joins together two symbols of feminine virtue. Goddess Sati, the wife of the Hindu god Shiva, is celebrated for immolating herself after her husband was slighted by her father. Equally, Savitri, a character from Hindu epic the Mahabharata, is praised for dissuading the god of death, Yama, from taking her husband’s life by outwitting him.
Speaking of Jashodaben, Narendra Modi’s sister told the Times of India that: “Despite being abandoned, Jashoda never spoke ill of him. That is a true Indian woman for you.” Not only has she never spoken ill of him, she is said to have fasted and prayed for him to become prime minister. Her life seems to exemplify the self-effacement and sacrifice symbolized by Sati and Savitri.
However, this “true Indian woman” is showing some signs of being fed up with the trappings of her odd marriage. Making use of India’s “Right to Information” act, she recently sought information about the armed bodyguards who have been deployed by the government to protect her. She is said to be “afraid” of the personal security detail, not least because India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was killed by her own bodyguards.
“I am surrounded by five security guards all the time. Often my relatives or I have to cook for them, my sister-in-law has to make their beds. This is a bit annoying,” Jashodaben told Reuters.
This isn’t the first time she has found her freedom curtailed as a result of her connection to Modi.
In 2009, a journalist with the Indian magazine Open described going to meet Jashodaben at her school when Modi was still chief minister of the state of Gujarat. The journalist said Jashodaben was enthusiastic about being interviewed until the principal “admonished” her and ordered her back into the classroom.
According to the journalist, Haima Deshpande, the principal spoke to an unknown person on the phone before going to see her in her classroom. “After that, she became a different person. She smiled no more, her excitement was gone and she looked nervous. She kept wringing her hands. When I approached her again, she screamed, asking to be left alone.” Later cars full of unidentified men visited the school. “When the school day came to an end, Jashodaben almost ran out to a waiting auto-rickshaw. She pointed at me and told some villagers that I was harassing her.” In the incident, Jashodaben comes across as beleaguered, fearful and vulnerable.
Unlike other first ladies who live a life of luxury, the Indian first lady’s life has been largely untouched by comfort. Before she moved in with her brother, she lived in a one-room house in a village with no toilet. It is only natural that the immense imbalance of power between her and her estranged husband would lead to fear, embarrassment and insecurity on her part.
However, Jashodaben’s life is also a story of survival. Given how notoriously tough rural India can be for a single woman, Jashodaben’s self-reliance is certainly no small feat.
Yet, the most poignant aspect of her story is that she has repeatedly expressed the hope that Modi will invite her to live with him one day. Perhaps she can harbor such unrealistic expectations by virtue of living in a society where a woman’s worth is largely defined by her marriage. Unfortunately for her, the value of a man, especially one as powerful as Narendra Modi, does not rely on marriage.
In many ways, Jashodaben’s story is that of many Indian women. Even when she achieves financial independence, she is still bound by mental shackles to a social system that doesn’t care for her, that’s stacked against her. Perhaps it’s time for her to realize this and carve out a life accordingly.
