Narendra Modi

Ch. 1 of 8

— CH. 1 · INTRODUCTION —

8 sections

Narendra Modi became prime minister of India in 2014, and he was the first person to hold that office who was born after independence from the British Empire in 1947. He was born on the 17th of September 1950. Today he is the longest-serving prime minister outside the Indian National Congress, and opinion polls have repeatedly shown him with high approval.
Yet biographers and scholars also call him one of contemporary India's most controversial and divisive politicians. Supporters point to his record at the ballot box and his promises of economic development. Critics read his Hindu nationalist beliefs as evidence of a majoritarian and exclusionary agenda.
This documentary asks how his early years in a volunteer organisation shaped his politics. It asks what happened in Gujarat in 2002, and why it still follows him. It asks whether his economic record matches his reputation, and what more than a decade at the centre has done to India's institutions, its neighbours and its standing abroad.
Vadnagar, in Mehsana district of what was then Bombay State, is where Modi grew up, the third of six children in a Gujarati family of Other Backward Class background. His father was Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his mother was Hiraben. By his own account, and his neighbours', he sometimes helped at his father's tea stall in the Vadnagar railway station, though not often.
He finished higher secondary school in 1967. His teachers remembered an average student who was also a keen and gifted debater with a love of theatre. He liked to play larger-than-life characters on stage, a taste that has been said to influence his political image.
At the age of eight he began attending the local training sessions, called shakhas, of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. There he met Lakshmanrao Inamdar, who enrolled him as a balswayamsevak, a junior cadet, and became his political mentor. Two other men from those years, Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, were Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who helped found the BJP's Gujarat unit in 1980. As a teenager he also joined the National Cadet Corps.
Following a custom of his caste, his family arranged a betrothal to Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi. They married when she was 17 and he was 18. The marriage was never consummated, and Modi soon left her and left home. The couple never divorced, yet for many decades he left the marriage out of his public statements.
In April 2014, shortly before the election that brought him to power, he affirmed that he was married and that Jashodaben was his spouse. One biographer argued that he kept it quiet because celibacy had once been required of an RSS pracharak, a full-time campaigner, and he wanted to become one.
Two years of wandering across northern and north-eastern India followed. In mid 1968 he reached Belur Math but was turned away. He passed through Calcutta, West Bengal and Assam, stopping at Siliguri and Guwahati. At the Ramakrishna Ashram in Almora he was rejected again.
He returned to Gujarat by way of Delhi and Rajasthan during 1968 and 1969. After a brief visit to Vadnagar in late 1969 or early 1970, he settled in Ahmedabad and worked in his uncle's canteen at the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation. The teachings of Swami Vivekananda have had a large influence on his life.
In 1971, Modi joined a Jana Sangh satyagraha in Delhi led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee. It demanded that Indians be allowed to enlist in the Bangladesh Liberation War. Indira Gandhi's government forbade open support for the Mukti Bahini, and by Modi's account he was briefly held in Tihar Jail.
After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, he left his uncle's employ and became a full-time pracharak under Inamdar. His degrees came later. He earned a BA in political science through Delhi University's School of Open Learning in 1978. In 1983 he earned an MA from Gujarat University, graduating with first class as an external student. The authenticity of both degrees is disputed.
In June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared the state of emergency that lasted until 1977. Opponents were jailed and opposition groups banned, and soon the RSS itself was outlawed. Modi was general secretary of the Gujarat Lok Sangharsh Samiti, an RSS committee coordinating resistance in the state, and he went underground.
He travelled in disguise, once as a monk and once as a Sikh. He helped print pamphlets, organise demonstrations, run a network of safe houses and raise money for activists and political refugees. He also wrote a Gujarati-language book on the period, Sangharsh Ma Gujarat, meaning In the Struggles of Gujarat. During those years he met the trade unionist and socialist George Fernandes, among other national figures.
In 1978 Modi became a regional organiser for the RSS, a sambhag pracharak, overseeing Surat and Vadodara. In 1979 he worked for the RSS in Delhi, researching and writing its history of the Emergency. In 1985 the RSS assigned him to the BJP.
His planning was credited with a comfortable BJP victory in the 1987 Ahmedabad municipal election. L. K. Advani had become BJP president in 1986, and the RSS wanted its members in important party posts. Modi's performance earned him one of them, and later in 1987 he became organising secretary of the Gujarat unit.
By 1990 he sat on the National Election Committee and helped organise Advani's Ram Rath Yatra. He did the same for Murli Manohar Joshi's Ekta Yatra, the Journey for Unity, of 1991-1992. In 1992 he stepped back to found a school in Ahmedabad, partly because of friction with Shankersinh Vaghela, a BJP MP from Gujarat.
He returned in 1994, partly at Advani's insistence, and his electoral strategy was seen as central to the BJP's 1995 state assembly victory. That November he became national secretary and moved to New Delhi, taking charge of party activities in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. The following year Vaghela defected to the Indian National Congress.
For the 1998 Gujarat assembly election, Modi sat on the selection committee. He favoured supporters of Keshubhai Patel over those of Vaghela, hoping to end the party's factional split. His strategy was credited with the BJP's majority, and in May 1998 he was promoted to general secretary (organisation). Patel, whose supporters he had favoured, would soon be the man he replaced.
On the 3rd of October 2001, Modi replaced Keshubhai Patel as Chief Minister of Gujarat, and he was sworn in on the 7th. Patel's health was failing and the BJP had lost seats in by-elections. His government faced allegations of corruption and poor administration, and its handling of the Bhuj earthquake that year had damaged his standing.
Modi had voiced misgivings about Patel's administration, and the national leadership chose him. Advani worried about his lack of experience in government. Modi turned down an offer to serve as Patel's deputy, telling Advani and Vajpayee he was "going to be fully responsible for Gujarat or not at all". His mission was to prepare the party for the December 2002 election. On the 24th of February 2002 he won a by-election in Rajkot II, defeating Ashwin Mehta of the Congress, and entered the legislature.
Three days later, on the 27th of February, a train burned near Godhra and approximately 60 people died. The train carried many Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya, from a ceremony at the site of the demolished Babri Masjid. Modi said in a public statement that local Muslims were responsible.
The next day the Vishwa Hindu Parishad called a statewide bandh, a general strike. Riots began during it, and anti-Muslim violence spread through Gujarat. The government's decision to carry the victims' bodies from Godhra to Ahmedabad inflamed matters further.
The state government later said 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus had been killed. Independent sources put the toll above 2,000, the vast majority of them Muslims. About 150,000 people were driven into refugee camps. Many victims were women and children, and the violence included mass rape and mutilation.
A curfew covered 26 major cities, shoot-at-sight orders were issued and the army was called to patrol. These measures did not stop the violence from escalating. Police officers often failed to intervene where they could have. The president of the BJP's state unit backed the bandh, even though such action was illegal at the time.
Later, officials prevented riot victims from leaving refugee camps that often could not meet residents' needs. The state announced that compensation for Muslim victims would be half that for Hindu victims. A court challenge led to that decision being reversed.
Scholars consider the Gujarat government complicit, and some explicitly blame Modi. Several describe the violence as a pogrom, and others as state terrorism. Martha Nussbaum wrote of a "broad consensus" that it was ethnic cleansing, in many ways premeditated and carried out with the complicity of the state government and law officers.
During the riots, Modi said, "What is happening is a chain of action and reaction". Later in 2002 he said that his handling of the media was his only regret about the episode.
The courts then took up the question of his own role. In March 2008 the Supreme Court of India reopened several riot cases, including the Gulbarg Society massacre, and set up a Special Investigation Team. In April 2009, responding to a petition from Zakia Jafri, widow of the Gulbarg victim Ehsan Jafri, the court asked the team to examine Modi's complicity.
The team questioned him in March 2010 and reported in May that it found no evidence against him. In July 2011 the court-appointed amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran disagreed, saying Modi could be prosecuted on the available evidence. The team's final report in March 2012 asked for the case to be closed. It caused widespread anger and disbelief among the country's Muslim communities.
In December 2013 a magistrate's court rejected Zakia Jafri's protest petition, accepting that there was no evidence against Modi. In 2022 the Supreme Court dismissed her further challenge and upheld the earlier rulings.
In 2002, calls for his resignation came from politicians in and outside the state. They included leaders of Janata Dal (United) and the Telugu Desam Party, partners in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. Opposition parties stalled Parliament. Modi offered his resignation at the April 2002 BJP national executive meeting in Goa, but it was not accepted.
The election commissioner objected that many voters were still displaced, but Modi succeeded in advancing the vote to December 2002. He used anti-Muslim rhetoric in the campaign and framed criticism of human rights violations as an attack on Gujarati pride. The BJP won 127 of 182 seats, a two-thirds majority. Modi won Maninagar, defeating the Congress candidate Yatin Oza, and was sworn in for a second term on the 22nd of December 2002.
The consequences abroad were lasting. The US State Department barred him from entering the country on the recommendation of its Commission on International Religious Freedom, making him the only person denied a US visa under that law. That denial came in 2005, during the presidency of George W. Bush.
The UK and the European Union also refused him entry because of what they saw as his role in the riots. They lifted their bans in October 2012 and March 2013, and the US lifted its own after his 2014 election.
At home, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee distanced himself. After the BJP lost the 2004 general election, Vajpayee named the Gujarat violence as a reason and said leaving Modi in office had been a mistake. Modi nevertheless stayed on as chief minister until 2014.
By July 2007, Modi had served 2,063 consecutive days as chief minister, the longest run anyone had held that post. That year the BJP won 122 of the 182 assembly seats. In his second term the government's rhetoric moved from Hindutva toward economic development, and he trimmed the influence of Sangh Parivar organisations.
When the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh staged a farmers' demonstration, Modi ordered it evicted from state-provided houses. His decision to demolish 200 illegal temples in Gandhinagar deepened a rift with the Vishva Hindu Parishad. He still kept ties with some Hindu nationalists. In 2014 he wrote the foreword to a textbook by Dinanath Batra that made the unscientific claim that ancient India had technologies such as test-tube babies.
In 2007 he also wrote Karmayog, a 101-page booklet on manual scavenging. In it he called the work a "spiritual experience" for the Valmikis, a Dalit sub-caste. Election rules kept it from circulating at the time.
Modi favoured privatisation and small government, which clashed with the RSS, usually described as opposed to privatisation and globalisation. His second-term policies were credited with reducing corruption. Gujarat built financial and technology parks, and deals were signed at the 2007 Vibrant Gujarat summit.
Governments under Patel and Modi also backed NGOs and communities in large groundwater-conservation projects. Commentators credited them with helping about half of the tehsils with depleted groundwater refill their aquifers. Cotton boomed as a result, and Gujarat became India's largest producer of genetically modified cotton. Agriculture grew at an average of 9.6 per cent from 2001 to 2007.
Public irrigation was a weaker story. The Sardar Sarovar Dam project irrigated only 4-6% of the area it was meant to serve.
In 2008, popular agitation forced Tata Motors out of West Bengal, and Modi offered it land in Gujarat for the Nano car plant. Several other companies followed Tata. His government also finished bringing electricity to every village, work its predecessor had nearly completed.
Under the expanded Jyotigram Yojana scheme, agricultural electricity was separated from other rural supply and rationed to scheduled irrigation demand, which lowered its cost. Farmers who protested at first found their supply had stabilised. An assessment study concluded, however, that corporations and large farmers gained at the expense of small farmers and labourers.
Whether this amounted to a model is fiercely debated. Gujarat's GDP growth averaged 10% during his tenure, similar to other highly industrialised states and above the national rate. Some scholars say the state had strong growth before he took office and that it did not accelerate under him.
Gujarat did well on measures of ease of doing business. Tax breaks and land were easier to obtain than in other states, and Special Economic Zones greatly weakened labour laws. In his later years, the growth figures were frequently used to counter allegations of communalism.
The human development record was relatively poor. Gujarat ranked badly on education and had a weak record of child immunisation. It did not significantly change its rank on poverty, female literacy or infant mortality. The state spent less than the national average on education and healthcare.
The state's social policies generally did not benefit Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis and tended to widen inequality. Development stayed largely with the urban middle class, while rural and lower-caste citizens were increasingly marginalised.
Hindu nationalism did not vanish from his campaigns. In 2007 and 2012 he attended only Hindu religious ceremonies and had prominent associations with Hindu religious leaders. In 2012 he twice refused skullcaps gifted by Muslim leaders, though he kept good relations with the Dawoodi Bohra.
The BJP nominated no Muslim candidates in 2012, and his campaign touched polarising issues such as Afzal Guru and the death of Sohrabuddin Sheikh. He identified himself with Gujarat, as Indira Gandhi had done in the Emergency, and presented himself as protecting the state from persecution by the rest of India.
He also used holograms and other technology to reach large crowds, something he repeated in 2014. He won Maninagar again, defeating Shweta Bhatt of the Congress, and the BJP took 115 of 182 seats. After his election as prime minister he resigned as chief minister and as MLA for Maninagar, and Anandiben Patel succeeded him.
On the 12th of September 2013, the BJP named Modi its candidate for prime minister ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election. Several leaders objected. Advani, a founding member of the party, cited concern with leaders "concerned with their personal agendas". Rajnath Singh persuaded many leaders to accept the choice.
The campaign was described as a referendum on Modi himself, which was unusual for the BJP. He attacked corruption scandals under the Congress government and pointed to the high GDP growth he claimed for Gujarat. He promised "development" without naming specific policies, and the message appealed to young and middle-class voters.
Previously his media image had centred on the 2002 riots. Now the party stressed his neoliberal outlook and the Gujarat model of development. Hindutva rhetoric still appeared in several states, and communal tensions were played upon in Uttar Pradesh and Northeast India. The manifesto included a proposal for a Uniform Civil Code.
The BJP had wide influence in the media and extensive corporate funding. Modi made heavy use of social media and addressed more than 1,000 rallies by hologram. The party won 31 per cent of the vote and more than doubled its seats in the Lok Sabha to 282. It was the first party to win a majority alone since 1984.
Voter dissatisfaction with the Congress and with regional parties in North India helped, as did RSS support. The BJP did especially well where Hindus and Muslims had recently fought. Many commentators saw a political realignment away from progressive parties toward the right.
Modi stood in both Varanasi and Vadodara and won both. He beat Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party in Varanasi by 371,784 votes, and Madhusudan Mistry of the Congress in Vadodara by 570,128. The law forbids MPs from representing two constituencies, so he vacated Vadodara.
On the 13th of October 2018, the BJP named him its candidate for the 2019 election, with party president Amit Shah as chief campaigner. Modi launched the Main Bhi Chowkidar campaign, meaning "I too am a watchman", against the Congress slogan Chowkidar Chor Hai, "The watchman is a thief".
The opposition attacked him over allegations of corruption in the Rafale deal with France. His own campaign focused on defence and national security, counting the retaliatory Balakot airstrike after the Pulwama attack as an achievement. He won Varanasi by 479,505 votes over Shalini Yadav of the Samajwadi Party. The NDA won 353 seats, with 303 for the BJP alone.
In November 2023 he was named the candidate for 2024, and he launched the "Modi Ki Guarantee" campaign, meaning "Modi's assurance". He won Varanasi for the third time running, defeating Ajay Rai of the Congress by 152,513 votes. That was the second-lowest percentage margin for a sitting prime minister, after Chandra Sekhar.
The NDA won 292 seats, 20 above a simple majority, but the BJP alone took only 240. Afterwards Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, claimed widespread electoral fraud and accused the Election Commission of collusion with the BJP.
On the 31st of August 2012, Modi became the first Indian politician to chat live with citizens on Google Hangouts. He is considered a vegetarian and a teetotaller, and he regularly wears an ironed, half-sleeved kurta. A suit with his name embroidered repeatedly in the pinstripes, worn during a state visit by US president Barack Obama, drew public attention and criticism.
Scholars and biographers have described his personality as energetic, eccentric, arrogant and charismatic. The BJP's 2014 campaign projected a strong, masculine leader able to take difficult decisions.
The approval numbers are striking. After his first year, a Pew Research poll gave him 87%, with 68% rating him "very favourably" and 93% approving of his government. After the second year Pew recorded 81%, and after the third, 88%, his highest. In May 2017, a Times of India poll found 77% rating him "very good" or "good". Morning Consult's tracker showed the highest net approval of leaders in 13 countries as of the 22nd of December 2020.
In July 2019 he appeared on Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, filmed in Jim Corbett National Park, Uttarakhand. He was the second world leader after Obama to do so, and the episode was broadcast in India and 180 other countries. He also hosts Mann Ki Baat, a monthly programme on All India Radio, and Pariksha Pe Charcha, discussions for students about exam pressure.
Time magazine put him on its cover in June 2015, after two covers of its Asian edition. It named him among its 100 most influential people in 2014, 2015, 2017-2020 and 2021. In 2021 it called him the third "pivotal leader" of independent India, after Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Screen portrayals have been mixed. PM Narendra Modi, a 2019 Hindi film starring Vivek Oberoi, is described as a propaganda film. In 2023 the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question examined his role in the 2002 violence and his record as prime minister. The Indian government banned it, drawing widespread criticism.
On the 9th of November 2016, the government demonetised the ₹500 and ₹1000 banknotes to curb corruption, black money, terrorism and counterfeit currency. Severe cash shortages followed, and the BSE SENSEX and NIFTY 50 indices fell steeply. Protests spread across the country, and several deaths were linked to the rush to exchange cash.
It is estimated that 1.5 million jobs were lost and one per cent of GDP was wiped out. In the following year, individual income tax returns rose by 25 per cent and digital transactions increased sharply. On the 1st of July 2017 came the Goods and Services Tax, the biggest tax reform since independence, which subsumed around 17 taxes.
The broader approach was liberalising and neoliberal. His first cabinet decision set up a team to investigate black money. In September 2014 he introduced Make in India to attract foreign manufacturers, and foreign investment rules were loosened in defence and railways. Supporters of liberalisation welcomed the policy, while critics said foreign corporations would capture more of the Indian market.
Proposals to make unions harder to form and dismissals easier drew fierce opposition. On the 2nd of September 2015, eleven of the country's largest unions struck, including one tied to the BJP. Some proposals were dropped after protests. A land-reform bill let the state acquire farmland without social impact assessment or farmers' consent. It was pushed through by executive order and eventually allowed to lapse.
Social spending fell from 14.6 per cent of GDP under the previous Congress government to 12.6 per cent in Modi's first year, and health and family welfare spending dropped by 15 per cent. The government lowered corporate taxes, abolished the wealth tax and raised sales taxes. Education fell from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent over five years. Spending on children's nutrition, education and health was almost halved between 2014 and 2022. Transport capital spending rose from under 0.4 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 1.7 per cent in 2023.
During the first eight years of his premiership, GDP grew at an average of 5.5 per cent, against 7.03 per cent under the previous government. An internal government report said unemployment in 2017 hit its highest level in 45 years. Growth was 6.12 per cent in 2018-19 and slowed to 4.18 per cent in 2019-20. The economy shrank by 6.6 per cent in 2020-21 and was estimated to grow 8.2 per cent the next year.
Health policy shifted in January 2015 with the New Health Policy, which kept spending flat and stressed the role of private providers. The National Health Mission received nearly 20 per cent less funding in 2015 than the year before, and the healthcare budget was cut a further 15% the year after. It rose by 19%, then by 11.5% in 2018. Public health experts criticised the emphasis on private providers.
Sanitation was his preferred route to better health. On the 2nd of October 2014 he launched Swachh Bharat Mission, or Clean India, aiming to end open defecation and manual scavenging within five years. The government planned 60 million toilets by 2019. Sanitation cover rose from 38.7% in October 2014 to 84.1% in May 2018, although use of the new toilets fell short of targets and corruption was alleged. In 2018 the World Health Organization said at least 180,000 diarrhoeal deaths in rural India had been averted.
In 2016 the Ujjwala scheme began offering free LPG connections to rural households, and by 2019 an additional 24% of households had access compared with 2014. In 2022 the government ended LPG subsidies for everyone except Ujjwala households.
In March 2020, the government invoked the Epidemic Diseases Act of 1897 and the Disaster Management Act of 2005 against COVID-19. All commercial flights were suspended. Modi announced a 14-hour curfew on the 22nd of March and a three-week total lockdown two days later. Restrictions eased from April and were fully lifted in November 2020.
A far worse second wave began in March 2021, with shortages of vaccines, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and other supplies. In late April India became the first country to report over 400,000 cases in a single day. Vaccination had begun in January 2021, and by January 2022 about 1.7 billion doses had been given and more than 720 million people were fully vaccinated. In May 2022 the World Health Organization estimated that 4.7 million Indians had died, almost ten times the government's figure. The government rejected the estimate.
When naming his cabinet, Modi renamed the environment ministry the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change. He cut its budget by more than half in the first budget. The ministry removed or diluted a number of environmental protections. It also ended the requirement for tribal council approval for projects in forested areas and lifted a moratorium on new industry in the most polluted areas. The Supreme Court blocked an attempt to remove NGO representatives from the National Board for Wildlife.
In 2014 he told Assamese students, "Climate has not changed. We have changed." Later he called for climate action and in 2015 proposed the International Solar Alliance. At COP26 he announced a target of carbon neutrality by 2070. India reached 10 per cent ethanol blending five months ahead of schedule.
In December 2014, Modi abolished the Planning Commission and replaced it with the National Institution for Transforming India, or NITI Aayog. Power that had sat with the commission now rested in the person of the prime minister. Since the economic liberalisation of the 1990s, the commission had been the major body for measures related to social justice.
In his first year, lacking a majority in the Rajya Sabha, Modi passed many policies by ordinance. His administration also enacted a bill giving it more control over the appointment of judges and the judiciary less. The Intelligence Bureau investigated civil society groups, including Medecins Sans Frontieres, the Sierra Club and Avaaz, on grounds that they slowed growth. Critics called it a witch hunt.
Sedition and terrorism laws were used against people who criticised the government, prompting comparisons with Indira Gandhi's style. Modi repealed 1,200 obsolete laws in three years, against 1,301 repealed by earlier governments in 64 years. He launched Digital India to bring government services online and high-speed internet to rural areas. In 2019 a law reserved 10 per cent of educational admissions and government jobs for economically disadvantaged people.
In 2023 his administration formed a committee on One Nation, One Election, which proposes holding all elections on one day or within a set period. The Cabinet approved the bill in September 2024.
The activity of Hindu nationalist organisations grew after he took office, sometimes with government support. It included a religious conversion programme, a campaign around "Love Jihad", an Islamophobic conspiracy theory, and attempts by Hindu Mahasabha members to celebrate Nathuram Godse, the assassin of Mahatma Gandhi. Officials, including the home minister, defended the conversion programmes.
The BJP's links to the RSS strengthened. In 2014 Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, previously linked to the RSS, became chairperson of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Historians, some sympathetic to the BJP, questioned his credentials. Other RSS members were appointed to lead universities and research institutions. Textbooks were changed to downplay Jawaharlal Nehru, praise Modi and portray Indian society as harmonious.
In 2019 a citizenship law offered a route to citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, but not Muslims. It was the first time religion had been openly used as a criterion for Indian citizenship. It prompted widespread protests that the COVID-19 pandemic halted.
Counter-demonstrations became the 2020 Delhi riots, caused chiefly by Hindu mobs attacking Muslims. Fifty-three people were killed, two-thirds of them Muslim. On the 5th of August 2020 Modi visited Ayodhya, after the Supreme Court in 2019 ordered the disputed land handed to a trust to build a Hindu temple and gave the Sunni Waqf Board 5 acres elsewhere for a mosque. He was the first prime minister to visit the temples at Ram Janmabhoomi and Hanuman Garhi.
Once back in power in 2019, he took three steps the RSS had long wanted. Triple Talaq became a punishable offence from the 1st of August 2019. Article 370, which gave autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir, was repealed, and the region's statehood was abolished. It was reorganised into the union territories of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The region was locked down, with internet services suspended until February 2021. Thousands of people were detained, including hundreds of political leaders. The Supreme Court did not hear constitutional challenges to the reorganisation or to the citizenship law. Scholars Nandini Sundar and Kiran Bhatty see this as an example of major institutions being filled with BJP-favouring appointees.
During the 2024 campaign, Modi referred to Muslims as infiltrators with many children who would take India's wealth. Later he said he had named neither Muslims nor Hindus. Factcheckers refuted this and found many instances in which he had targeted Muslims.
One study said the BJP government attacked nearly all mechanisms holding the executive to account, either making them subservient or having them captured by party loyalists. It describes the erosion of civil rights and press freedom as especially marked in his second and third terms.
In Manipur, ethnic violence broke out in May 2023. After one month nearly 100 people had been killed and more than 36,000 displaced. Modi was criticised for his lack of reaction.
One of Modi's first visits as prime minister was to Nepal, where he promised one billion US dollars in aid. Foreign policy had played little part in his campaign. He continued Manmohan Singh's policy of multi-alignment, courting investment from East Asia in particular under slogans like Make in India and Digital India.
He also sought better relations with Bahrain, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Observers had doubted what he would do about the United States. Nancy Powell, the US ambassador, reached out to him before the election, and after it President Obama telephoned to congratulate him and invited him to visit. Relations stayed warm under Obama and Donald Trump.
He attended the BRICS, ASEAN and G20 summits. In 2015 India's parliament ratified a land-exchange deal over the enclaves with Bangladesh, which Manmohan Singh's government had begun. The Look East Policy, instituted in 1991, was renamed the Act East Policy. Agreements to improve land links with Myanmar through Manipur broke with a tradition of prioritising border security over trade.
He pledged 900 million dollars to Afghanistan, visited twice, and received its highest civilian honour in 2016. In December 2021 he signed an agreement with Vladimir Putin extending military technical cooperation, and India bought the S-400 missile system. India stayed neutral on the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and refused to condemn it. Its Operation Ganga evacuated more than 19,000 Indian nationals.
India hosted the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023, where the African Union joined as a permanent member. Modi spoke of a human-centric approach reflecting the concerns of the Global South. News reports said authorities demolished slum neighbourhoods in New Delhi beforehand, displacing marginalised residents.
In May 2020, Chinese and Indian troops clashed near Pangong Lake in Ladakh, and in Sikkim, along the Line of Actual Control. Relations between the two countries rapidly deteriorated. The first border clash of 2021 came on the 20th of January in Sikkim. From late 2022, Modi was criticised for silence over the loss of about 2,000 km2 of land to China since June 2020.
Nominal military spending rose steadily, though the budget shrank as a fraction of GDP and after inflation. Much of it went to personnel costs. Commentators said this constrained modernisation. The Aatmanirbhar Bharat campaign promoted domestic defence manufacturing, the government adopted several Shekatkar Committee recommendations on procurement, and it pursued Integrated Theatre Commands.
Modi had promised to be "tough on Pakistan" and repeatedly called it an exporter of terrorism. On the 29th of September 2016, his administration said the Army had struck terror launch pads in Azad Kashmir. Indian media reported up to 50 militants and Pakistani soldiers killed. Independent analysts judged the claims exaggerated, and Pakistan denied any strike took place.
In February 2019, India bombed a supposed terrorist camp in Pakistan. Open-source satellite imagery suggested no significant targets were hit. Further skirmishes followed, including cross-border shelling and the loss of an Indian aircraft. Eight months later, the administration admitted that six Indian military personnel had been killed by friendly fire.
In April 2025 came the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, by The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. The government accused Pakistan of backing cross-border terrorism and suspended the Indus Waters Treaty and all bilateral trade. Pakistan rejected the accusation and suspended the Simla Agreement and all trade with India.
On the 7th of May, India launched Operation Sindoor against launch pads used by Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, in Azad Kashmir and Pakistani Punjab. Pakistan retaliated on the 10th of May by targeting Indian military sites along the border. After a further rise in hostilities, the two countries agreed to a ceasefire the same day.

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Updated November 3, 2026

Common questions

When was Narendra Modi born and where did he grow up?

He was born on the 17th of September 1950 in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State, in present-day Gujarat. He was the third of six children.

How long was Modi chief minister of Gujarat?

He held the post from 2001 to 2014, when he resigned after being elected prime minister. By July 2007 he had served 2,063 consecutive days, the longest run in that post.

What did the Special Investigation Team conclude about Modi and the 2002 riots?

The Supreme Court-appointed team reported in 2010 and 2012 that it found no evidence to prosecute him. Courts upheld that finding, including the Supreme Court in 2022, although the court-appointed amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran disagreed in 2011.

How did the BJP perform in the 2014, 2019 and 2024 general elections?

In 2014 it won 282 seats, the first single-party majority since 1984. In 2019 it won 303 seats, with 353 for the NDA. In 2024 it won 240, and the NDA's 292 seats formed the government.

What was the 2016 demonetisation?

On the 9th of November 2016 the government demonetised the 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes. It caused severe cash shortages and an estimated 1.5 million job losses, while tax returns and digital transactions rose the following year.

What happened in the May 2025 conflict with Pakistan?

After the April 2025 Pahalgam attack, India launched Operation Sindoor on the 7th of May. Pakistan retaliated on the 10th of May, and the two countries agreed to a ceasefire the same day.

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Narendra Modi

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Shakha to Safe Houses

3. Gujarat 2002

4. The Gujarat Model

5. Campaigns and Image

6. Economy, Health and Environment

7. Hindutva and Institutions

8. Borders and Abroad

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