Wikipedia article on Jashodaben Narendrabhai Modi – a picture for reuse

When a topic is not well covered on Wikipedia, that is often an indication that a topic is not accessible or well covered in available sources on the Internet. When I was developing a draft for a Wikipedia article on Jashodaben I searched for all the information I could find. In November I set a Google alert for “Jashodaben” and got about 50 alerts between then and now. I went deep into Google searching for variations of terms. I searched Bing as well to see if there would be a difference. I checked Google Scholar, Amazon for books, and checked various discussion forums. The most comprehensive sources were easier to find and met all of Wikipedia’s inclusion criteria. Some of the minor sources gave insights which the major sources suggested, but did not explicitly state. An example of a surprise was Modi’s age at the time of his wedding. Practically all sources call the marriage a “child marriage”, which is true, but also Modi was 18 at the time of his wedding. In the context of Indian society an 18-year old is a child and gets zero respect from his parents or anyone else, but considering the international political narrative of Modi being forced into the marriage, the propaganda machines are conscious enough to not highlight that stating Modi’s age would sound strange when the emphasis from his camp is supposed to be on his innocence and ignorance and lack of personal agency. Anyway, the entire story is interesting and has not previously been told anywhere more fully than what I drafted on Wikipedia.

In the course of writing for Wikipedia I came to notice that almost every journalist wanted a picture to present of Jashodaben, but almost always they published low-quality images. Even some reputable news sources seemed to use pictures for which I doubt they had permission to publish. I am not sure how it works when publications use images from other sources, or maybe they got the images from a central authority. In any case, no one had particularly good pictures and most had bad images.

I wanted to make a good picture available online. Getting a photograph of Jashodaben would be difficult or impossible for me because she lived in a village where I would not be able to find an online photographer. Also I read that she has security which are limiting her access to media. I decided to collect all available online pictures and videos of her, take note of particular details of her appearance, and commission an artist to create a portrait of her.
I uploaded the result to Wikimedia Commons and I also listed some of the notes and sources used in the production of the work. I am pleased with the work.

I found an artist to create this through DeviantArt. On that site I searched for yaoi because that genre is familiar to me for gathering a community of artists who make nice portraits at a price point which matches my ability to pay. After seeing yaoi artists at comic conventions for so long, it came to my mind that if an artist in the sector wished to make a portrait for Wikipedia then it would turn out nicely. After checking some artists’ portfolios, I next had to consider who was likely to understand a copyright transfer, because I wanted to be the copyright holder so that I could upload the image to Wikimedia Commons and take responsibility and blame for it. I recommend Kodama Creative as an artist with great communication, an understanding of copyright, and lovely art.

Now the Internet has a picture of Jashodaben that anyone may reuse and republish for any purpose. I hope that other people similarly seek to create other pictures of Jashodaben and share them online and in Wikimedia Commons.