Jain couple to leave minor daughter, Rs 100-cr property for monkhood

Neemuch, Sept 17: A well-educated Jain couple from Madhya Pradesh has decided to leave behind their three-year-old daughter and property “worth Rs 100 crore” to embrace monkhood.

Sumit Rathore (35), who has worked in London before managing his family business in Neemuch, and his wife Anamika (34), an engineer who was employed with a mining major, decided to renounce the material world recently.

Earlier this year, a Jain teenage boy from Gujarat, who had scored 99.99 percentile in the class XII commerce examination, took the vow of monkhood. The couple will be initiated into Jain monasticism at a ceremony to be held in Surat on September 23.

Their family members said the couple has been married for four years and have a daughter. At present, they have taken a vow of silence till they take ‘deeksha’ (vow) next Saturday. As per the monkhood tradition, their heads will be shaved and they will put on white robes for their entire life.

Anamika’s father Ashok Chandaliya, a former Neemuch district president of the BJP, said he would take care of his granddaughter. “I am not against my daughter Anamika becoming a nun,” he said.

Sumit’s father Rajendra Singh, who runs a factory manufacturing gunny bags for packaging cement, also echoed a similar view. Sumit announced his decision to take ‘deeksha’ at a function in Surat last month.

“However, the pontiff asked him to seek Anamika’s permission. She not only gave her consent but also expressed a desire to become a nun. Their families asked them to rethink, but the couple stood their ground,” Sandip said.

He said Anamika was the first student in Neemuch district to win a gold medal in her Board examinations for class VIII. According to a family member, Anamika completed her BE from Modi Engineering College in Rajasthan. She had worked with Hindustan Zinc before her marriage.

Sandip said Sumit holds a diploma in import-export management from a college in London, where he worked for two years before returning to Neemuch to look after his family business.