Modi’s right to privacy

Critics of BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi are expected to analyse and criticise his policies, politics and ideology, and bare these for the electorate to see and judge. But getting after 

 

Mr Modi’s marital status, as the Congress has done — with the CPM also taking a swipe from the side — is regrettable.

As individuals, we are entitled to privacy. Privacy is indeed a basic right in all democratic societies — and this has been upheld by the Supreme Court — unless a case of violation of law is made out in pursuit of privacy. 

 

Mr Modi was married as a teenager as per custom about half a century ago to another teenager but did not stay with his wife for long. He left home to be a full-time worker and follower of the RSS, the fountainhead of the Hindu Right, a life-long association that endures.

 

Mr Modi revealed his married status for the first time, and acknowledged that he had a wife, when he filed his nomination on Thursday to contest the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat. He broke no law. He had left blank the marital status column in past elections. If he was in breach of the law, his opponents said nothing then. 

 

Creating a hullabaloo now in a bid to cause public embarrassment to the BJP leader is unlikely to make any impression. Getting even with Mr Modi for the unbecoming tenor of his criticism of top Congress leaders is fine, but not by getting into the personal domain.