The Mysterious Life Of India's First Lady

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

President Obama's high-profile visit to India has highlighted an absence. While First Lady Michelle Obama attended formal events and a banquet, the wife of Prime Minister Modi did not. In fact, Jashodaben Modi has never been seen by her husband's side. Her very existence was only acknowledged by the prime minister last year. The Washington Post's Annie Gowen has been writing about this and she joins us from New Delhi. Welcome to the program.

ANNIE GOWEN: Thank you for having me.

BLOCK: And, Annie, this was a teenage, arranged marriage. How did this secret first come to light?

GOWEN: Reporters and journalists in India have been writing about the fact that Modi may have a wife for the past several years. But it was only confirmed by him last year when he was filing his formal application to become a candidate for Parliament. The Indian Supreme Court had ruled that all of the spaces on the application had to be filled in. One of them was - are you married? Do you have a wife? And so he was essentially forced to admit the fact that yes, he did have this wife, who he married more than 40 years ago.

BLOCK: Yeah, so she was 17, he was 18 when they were married. How long were they actually together?

GOWEN: It's not clear and the principals aren't really talking. But, essentially, what Modi's biographers say is that both of them were from this lower caste that called Ghanchi. And in the traditions of that cast, that social community, there was a three-step process. The children would have been promised to each other when they were 13. And then there was more of a formal ritual ceremony when they were 17 and 18, and then they would've cohabitated. In this case, they did not cohabitate.

BLOCK: And, Annie, according to your story, very soon after their marriage, Modi went off to the Himalayas to contemplate a religious life. Then he became involved in a Hindu nationalist group, which, apparently, frowned upon the marriage, and then made his political ascent. He never moved to divorce his wife or annul the marriage, right?

GOWEN: Yeah, that's the big question - that's a big lingering question - is why have they not divorced? And really the only two people that can answer that are Jashodaben herself and the prime minister.

BLOCK: You actually interviewed Jashodaben Modi by phone. What did she tell you? What'd you learn about her?

GOWEN: Well, she is a very unassuming woman. She's 64, which is the same age as the prime minister. She lives a very, very quiet life in his home state of Gujarat. And she lives with her brother sort of scraping by on a pension salary from her career as a public school teacher.

BLOCK: She did, though, as you report, file an official request last year asking about her safety, asking also about benefits. What does she want?

GOWEN: Well, so after Narendra Modi became prime minister in May of 2014, she was given a security detail as befits, you know, the wife of the prime minister. She had asked for some information about why this security detail was assigned to her and what were they to do? And she said she was actually scared of them. So it's been a difficult experience having these men trail her all the time. She takes, a lot, a rickshaw, or a bus, and they're following her in an air-conditioned car. And it turns out that when she visits friends and family then the friends and family feel compelled to cook for these guards, so it's been quite a difficult experience for her adjusting to having this security detail.

BLOCK: You know, you had me, Annie Gowen, from the first line of your story, which is this - she's waiting for him as she has been all her life. Did you get the sense that she wants to be acknowledged as the prime mister's wife, as the first lady of India?

GOWEN: She's said many times, and said again to me, that if he called her she would come to Delhi, and I think she would like to see him. And she keeps a picture of him in her prayer book. And she's still waiting for him to call her.

BLOCK: Do you think she realistically expects that to happen?

GOWEN: I think she still has hope because we spoke to her brother as well and he was saying that she gets depressed sometimes because she's still waiting and hoping that he'll call all these long year.

BLOCK: Annie Gowen, thanks so much.

GOWEN: Thank you for having me.

BLOCK: Annie Gowen with the Washington Post in New Delhi. We were talking about the wife of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from an arranged, teenage marriage. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.