In 2014, when a book titled Narendra Modi, a political biography, written by British writer Andy Marino, was published by HarperCollins Publishers ahead of the election that would make Narendra Modi the Prime Minister of India, it caused quite a stir. The reason it got so much attention was not only because it promised to give a glimpse into the life of Narendra Modi, who until then was an inaccessible political figure who wasn’t very open to doing many interviews, but also because Marino, a relatively unknown British writer, was selected as the biographer of a man who would soon become the country’s leading politicians.
The book chronicles Modi’s early years, his introduction to the RSS, his career in Gujarat politics, and his journey to India’s premiership. The author claims that he interviewed Modi for several hours while researching and writing this book. While most of the things related to Modi’s political career reported in this book are now well known, Marino’s writings also provide insight into the emotional turmoil and family issues Modi faced along the path of his political journey.
On his 70th birthday, let’s revisit the book that chronicles Modi’s early days of introduction to RSS, his desire to join a Sainik school, and how it affected his relationship with his father. In the book Narendra Modi, A Political Biography, Marino writes: “At the age of eight, the appeal of the RSS was clearly not political in the sense of adherence to any particular ideological position. Narendra joined the RSS at age six through contact with a congressman named Rasikbhai Dave, whose office was close to his father’s tea stall at the train station. It was a time of agitation for a separate state of Gujarat, which was then part of the state of Bombay. Gujarat would become a state in May 1960, a few months before Narendra’s tenth birthday. He (Narendra) collected pro-Gujarat lapel badges from Dave and then acted as his ‘agent’ and distributed them to his school friends.”
The book says:
Politics may seem distant and fuzzy to a six-year-old boy – this was 1956 – but helping to create your own state would be something he could understand. “I got a sense of participation,” Modi recalls. “But there was no deep political understanding.”
It was in the evening, after he had finished helping his father with the tea stall, that Narendra began attending the local youth gatherings of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh a few years later. That part of the RSS that is appropriate for an eight-year-old is best described as a Boy Scout group of sorts. Yet it is part of a larger organization that is right-wing, nationalistic and ideological.
The name literally means ‘National Volunteer Organization’. The RSS was banned in 1948 in the wake of Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination by one of its former members, Nathuram Godse, but was also praised for averting a coup against Nehru.
Cleared by the Supreme Court of involvement in Gandhi’s assassination, the ban on the RSS was lifted by the government in exchange for formalizing a constitution. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, then Home Secretary, advised the RSS to stay out of politics and remain a socio-cultural organization.
By the time Narendra began attending the local shakha most evenings, where he would have been one of the youngest participants, the RSS was quietly coming to be seen as a disciplined force. It was the kind of environment, of ideas and debate at RSS meetings, rather than rote learning in school, that stimulated him. There he could learn more about worldly matters and perhaps meet the adults who fascinated him.
It was during this stage of his life that he met his guide and mentor in RSS, Laxmanrao Inamdar or ‘Vakil Saheb’ as he was popularly known. Inamdar was instrumental in introducing the young Modi as a ‘balswayamsevak’, a junior cadet. In the book the author writes:
… At the age of thirteen, Narendra was about to leave Vadnagar Primary School No. 1 for the local high school, and at such a time, the idea of applying to a junior officer academy instead was not entirely strange. It was exactly the kind of idea that Narendra would have inspired by attending RSS shakha nights. But his father, Damodardas, forbade the move. The Sainik school was a long way away, in the Jamnagar district on the Gulf of Kutch, which meant that Narendra had to move to board there. The expense—there was no extra rupee in Modi’s household—or perhaps the realization of the social divide also calmed Damodardas.
Modi’s father’s refusal to send him to Sainik School coincided with news of Modi’s childhood engagement to a girl from a nearby village, about which he had not been informed in advance. The book says:
The tradition of childhood engagement between Gujarati Ghanchis still exists, but was more deeply rooted in the 1950s and 1960s than it is today. Narendra was “engaged” by his parents at the age of three to a girl from a nearby town. He was not made aware of it until many years later. The girl’s name, courtesy of a tabloid, was revealed in a 2009 “scoop” as Jashodaben. There would have been a ritual or symbolic formalization of the agreement between the two families as the children were on the cusp of their teenage years – an engagement, but not the same as a wedding between a bride and groom of legal age of marriage.
This was just when Narendra was told that Sainik’s military school was banned from him. Several years later, there would be a meeting, attended by many relatives, in which he would have the opportunity to observe his fiancée, but not necessarily speak to her. The last phase, indicated by Jashodaben turning eighteen, would be the beginning of a first period of cohabitation. Whatever actually happened, the chronology of events suggests that once Narendra fully understood the situation, he literally decided to get moving.
He abruptly left Vadnagar and his childhood home when he was seventeen and Jashodaben only fifteen years old. As one observer put it: ‘It was a child marriage, and it was not consummated, nor was there any cohabitation. Modi refused and left because he was never interested in getting married. A case of void.’ The tradition of leaving home at an early age to seek spiritual knowledge is part of both Hindu and Buddhist religions – as the examples of Lord Ram and the Buddha attest.
In the book, the author concludes:
…Timeline is the first element of deduction, and careful consideration suggests that the abandoned betrothal, within the close-knit and traditional Ganchi society in mid-twentieth century Vadnagar, was probably the breaking point. However, how healthy the relationship between father and son was before that is uncertain. Was there any lingering resentment on Narendra’s part over the decision to deny him entry to Sainik school? Did that disappointment come with the disagreement over Jashodaben? More importantly, Narendra’s increasing focus on the RSS and his growing friendship with Vakil Saheb were an additional source of friction?
Significantly or even symbolically, Modi still remembers how deeply disappointed his parents were when he missed a year of Diwali celebrations. It was the day that Vakil Saheb introduced Narendra in the RSS and repeated the vows with him. Damodardas might have only felt his son’s choice as a minor betrayal or disobedience, but as Narendra spent more and more time with the RSS shakha before starting his two-year residency, his father’s sense of rejection could have been heightened to the point where the relationship was seriously strained.
It is inevitable that fathers will see their sons grow up and slip away, escaping their influence, and sometimes a fierce love makes them hate it. Whenever it happens that a replacement father figure is involved, especially one as locally glamorous as Vakil Saheb, the pain can be significant and the paternal feelings of redundancy and emotional loss powerful. Yet the fulfillment of the son’s new direction can often lead to great things. The tragedy, however, lies only in prolonged alienation, especially when death intervenes.
The following excerpts are published with permission from Harpercollins, India.