'Bachelor' Modi Admits he is Married

[JI7]

Source: samaa

Election frontrunner Narendra Modi has acknowledged for the first time that he is married, solving one of the biggest mysteries about the private life of the man tipped to be India's next prime minister.

Media reports have described how he walked away from a marriage arranged by his parents when he was a child, but this has never been confirmed by the man himself who has portrayed his single status as a virtue while campaigning.

Reports have consistently stated that he was betrothed to a 62-year-old now-retired school teacher called Jashodaben, who gave an interview in February in which she said she didn't "feel bad" about not being part of Modi's life.

The relationship is believed to have never been consummated.

Read more: http://www.samaa.tv/international/10-Apr-2014/bachelor-modi-admits-he-is-married

[benh57]

1. India.

Since there was no clue in the headline or summary...

[JI7]

2. it's in the first sentence in the summary

[Suich]

3. That's funny,

'cuz my first thought was that TV show, which I don't watch!

[Renew Deal]

5. Mine too

[Nye Bevan]

7. Yeah I was just working up an outrage over a guy in "The Bachelor" TV show being married,

but then had to dial it down again all of a sudden.

[7962]

4. How long would he have been able to pull that off here? Not long.

[mopinko]

6. is this the guy who was promising celibacy?

was listening to a world news story about the elections in india. sounds just like elections in alabama.

[Xithras]

8. By all accounts, he is celibate.

It was a forced marriage when he was a child, and both he and the woman claim that it wasn't consummated. Apparently they haven't been around each other in nearly 50 years.

Divorces can be hard to get in India, and there's a huge social stigma to them. Best case scenario: Both spouses agree to the divorce, it will be final in a year or two, and you're both treated like pariahs by society. Worst case, one of the spouses contests the divorce and it can take up to 20 years to finalize (no joke, look it up). You're still both treated like pariahs afterward.

In many cases where the decision to divorce is mutual, the people just walk away from the marriage like these two did. It avoids the social stigma and the drawn out court process. You're still legally married, even though you may have little or no contact. It's generally only a problem if you want to remarry.

FWIW, I worked with a Hindu a few years back who had a wife back in India. He was in the process of naturalizing to the U.S., so I asked him whether he was going to bring her over. He said that he'd only met her twice in his life, that they'd both agreed that they didn't like each other so he had no intention of bringing her over. At the time, he was actually getting ready to propose to another Indian-immigrant here in the U.S. (who I'd presume he's now married to). Once he got his U.S. residency, his wife in India could get the marriage easily terminated on the basis of abandonment, which was apparently the quickest way to end the marriage.

[mopinko]

9. i would like to have a good thread about the indian elections.

i had the great luck to go there several years ago. the bbc had another report today.

but what was said about this guy the other day was that he had overseen great violence, but then claimed to be a devout hindu because he was celibate, and was very observant of the rituals.

the parallels were just, gag gag gag gag.

just like so many places, religion bleeds the poorest, and the pharisees own the temples.