Politics of India, Page 4 Category

About Narendra Damodardas Modi

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Narendra Damodardas Modi (born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014.

He was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament for Varanasi. Modi is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation.

He is the first prime minister outside of the Indian National Congress to win two consecutive terms with a full majority and the second to complete five years in office after Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Born to a Gujarati family in Vadnagar, Modi helped his father sell tea as a child and has said he later ran his own stall.

He was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight, beginning a long association with the organisation. Modi left home after finishing high-school in part due to an arranged marriage to Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, which he abandoned and publicly acknowledged only many decades later.

Modi travelled around India for two years and visited a number of religious centres before returning to Gujarat. In 1971 he became a full-time worker for the RSS.

During the state of emergency imposed across the country in 1975, Modi was forced to go into hiding. The RSS assigned him to the BJP in 1985 and he held several positions within the party hierarchy until 2001, rising to the rank of general secretary.

Modi was appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001 due to Keshubhai Patel's failing health and poor public image following the earthquake in Bhuj. Modi was elected to the legislative assembly soon after.

His administration has been considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots, or otherwise criticized for its handling of it.

A Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against Modi personally.

His policies as chief minister, credited with encouraging economic growth, have received praise.

His administration has been criticized for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state.

Modi led the BJP in the 2014 general election which gave the party a majority in the Indian lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, the first time for any single party since 1984.

Modi's administration has tried to raise foreign direct investment in the Indian economy and reduced spending on healthcare and social welfare programmes.

Modi has attempted to improve efficiency in the bureaucracy; he has centralized power by abolishing the Planning Commission.

He began a high-profile sanitation campaign and weakened or abolished environmental and labor laws. He initiated a controversial demonetization of high-denomination banknotes.

Following his party's victory in the 2019 general election, his administration revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir.

His administration also introduced the Citizenship Amendment Act, which resulted in widespread protests across the country.

Described as engineering a political realignment towards right-wing politics, Modi remains a figure of controversy domestically and internationally over his Hindu nationalist beliefs and his role during the 2002 Gujarat riots, cited as evidence of an exclusionary social agenda.

 

Key Description:

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Full Name: Narendra Damodardas Modi

Height: 1.7 m

14th Prime Minister of India (From 26 May 2014)

14th Chief Minister: of Gujarat (7 October 2001 – 22 May 2014)

Member of Parliament: Lok Sabha (From 5 June 2014)

Preceded By: Murli Manohar Joshi

Constituency: Varanasi

Member: Gujarat Legislative Assembly (1 January 2002 – 16 May 2014)

Preceded By: Kamlesh Patel

Succeeded By Suresh Patel

Constituency: Maninagar

Born: Narendra Damodardas Modi (17 September 1950 (age 69)) Vadnagar, Bombay State, India
(present-day Gujarat)

Political Party: Bharatiya Janata Party

Affiliations: National Democratic Alliance

Spouse(s): Jashodaben Modi (m. 1968; estranged)

Residence: 7, Lok Kalyan Marg, New Delhi, Delhi, India

Alma Mater: University of Delhi (BA), Gujarat University (MA), School of Open Learning, University of Delhi

Net Worth: 2.5 Crore

Official: Website

Social Network: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube

 

Early Life And Education of Narendra Damodardas Modi:

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Narendra Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a Gujarati Hindu family of grocers in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat).

He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi (c. 1915–1989) and Hiraben Modi (born c. 1920).

Modi's family belonged to the Modh-Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, which is categorised as an Other Backward Class by the Indian government.

As a child, Modi helped his father sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station, and said that he later ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus.

Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967, where a teacher described him as an average student and a keen debater, with interest in theatre.

Modi had an early gift for rhetoric in debates, and his teachers and students noted this.

Modi preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

When eight years old, Modi discovered the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and began attending its local shakhas (training sessions).

There, Modi met Lakshmanrao Inamdar, popularly known as Vakil Saheb, who inducted him as a balswayamsevak (junior cadet) in the RSS and became his political mentor.

While Modi was training with the RSS, he also met Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who were founding members of the BJP's Gujarat unit in 1980.

Also in Narendra Modi's childhood, in a custom traditional to his caste, his family arranged a betrothal to a girl, Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, leading to their marriage when they were teenagers.

Sometime thereafter, he abandoned the further marital obligations implicit in the custom, and left home, the couple going on to lead separate lives, neither marrying again, and the marriage itself remaining unmentioned in Modi's public pronouncements for many decades.

In April 2014, shortly before the national elections that swept him to power, Modi publicly affirmed that he was married and his spouse was Jashodaben; the couple has remained married, but estranged.

Modi spent the ensuing two years travelling across Northern and North-eastern India, though few details of where he went have emerged.

In interviews, Modi has described visiting Hindu ashrams founded by Swami Vivekananda: the Belur Math near Kolkata, followed by the Advaita Ashrama in Almora and the Ramakrishna Mission in Rajkot. Modi remained only a short time at each, since he lacked the required college education.

Vivekananda has been described as a large influence in Modi's life.

In the early summer of 1968, Modi reached the Belur Math but was turned away, after which Modi wandered through Calcutta, West Bengal and Assam, stopping in Siliguri and Guwahati.

Modi then went to the Ramakrishna Ashram in Almora, where he was again rejected, before travelling back to Gujarat via Delhi and Rajasthan in 1968–69. Sometime in late 1969 or early 1970, Modi returned to Vadnagar for a brief visit before leaving again for Ahmedabad.

There, Modi lived with his uncle, working in the latter's canteen at the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation.

In Ahmedabad, Modi renewed his acquaintance with Inamdar, who was based at the Hedgewar Bhavan (RSS headquarters) in the city.

After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, he stopped working for his uncle and became a full-time pracharak (campaigner) for the RSS,[46] working under Inamdar.

Shortly before the war, Modi took part in a non-violent protest against the Indian government in New Delhi, for which he was arrested; this has been cited as a reason for Inamdar electing to mentor him.

Many years later Modi would co-author a biography of Inamdar, published in 2001.

In 1978 Modi received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from School of Open Learning at University of Delhi, graduating with a third class.

Five years later, in 1983, he received a Master of Arts degree in political science from Gujarat University, graduating with a first class as an external distance learning student.

 

 

Personal Life of Narendra Damodardas Modi

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In accordance with Ghanchi tradition, Modi's marriage was arranged by his parents when he was a child. He was engaged at age 13 to Jashodaben, marrying her when he was 18.

They spent little time together and grew apart when Modi began two years of travel, including visits to Hindu ashrams.

Reportedly, their marriage was never consummated, and he kept it a secret because otherwise he could not have become a 'pracharak' in the puritan Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Modi kept his marriage secret for most of his career. He acknowledged his wife for the first time when he filed his nomination for the 2014 general elections. Modi maintains a close relationship with his mother, Hiraben.

A vegetarian and teetotaler, Modi has a frugal lifestyle and is a workaholic and introvert.

Modi's 31 August 2012 post on Google Hangouts made him the first Indian politician to interact with citizens on a live chat.

Modi has also been called a fashion-icon for his signature crisply ironed, half-sleeved kurta, as well as for a suit with his name embroidered repeatedly in the pinstripes that he wore during a state visit by US President Barack Obama, which drew public and media attention and criticism.

Modi's personality has been variously described by scholars and biographers as energetic, arrogant, and charismatic.

He had published a Gujarati book titled Jyotipunj in 2008, containing profiles of various RSS leaders.

The longest was of M. S. Golwalkar, under whose leadership the RSS expanded and whom Modi refers to as Pujniya Shri Guruji ("Guru worthy of worship").

According to The Economic Times, his intention was to explain the workings of the RSS to his readers and to reassure RSS members that he remained ideologically aligned with them. Modi authored eight other books, mostly containing short stories for children.

The nomination of Modi for the prime ministership drew attention to his reputation as "one of contemporary India's most controversial and divisive politicians."

During the 2014 election campaign the BJP projected an image of Modi as a strong, masculine leader, who would be able to take difficult decisions.

Campaigns in which he has participated have focused on Modi as an individual, in a manner unusual for the BJP and RSS.

Modi has relied upon his reputation as a politician able to bring about economic growth and "development". Nonetheless, his role in the 2002 Gujarat riots continues to attract criticism and controversy.

Modi's hardline Hindutva philosophy and the policies adopted by his government continue to draw criticism, and have been seen as evidence of a majoritarian and exclusionary social agenda.

 

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