Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi
Official portrait, 2022
14th Prime Minister of India
Assumed office
26 May 2014
President
Vice-President
Preceded byManmohan Singh
Additional ministries
Assumed office
26 May 2014
Ministry and DepartmentsPersonnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Department of Space; Department of Atomic Energy
Preceded byManmohan Singh
Leader of the House, Lok Sabha
Assumed office
26 May 2014
DeputySushma Swaraj Rajnath Singh
Speaker
Preceded bySushilkumar Shinde
Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha
Assumed office
5 June 2014
Preceded byMurli Manohar Joshi
ConstituencyVaranasi
14th Chief Minister of Gujarat
In office
7 October 2001 – 22 May 2014
Governor
Preceded byKeshubhai Patel
Succeeded byAnandiben Patel
Member of Gujarat Legislative Assembly
In office
15 December 2002 – 16 May 2014
Preceded byKamlesh Patel
Succeeded bySuresh Patel
ConstituencyManinagar
In office
24 February 2002 – 19 July 2002
Preceded byVajubhai Vala
Succeeded byVajubhai Vala
ConstituencyRajkot II
General Secretary (Organisation) of the Bharatiya Janata Party
In office
5 January 1998[1] – 7 October 2001
Preceded byKushabhau Thakre
Succeeded bySanjay Joshi
Personal details
Born
Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi

(1950-09-17) 17 September 1950 (age 73)
Vadnagar, Bombay State, India (present-day Gujarat)
Political partyBharatiya Janata Party
Spouse
(m. 1968; sep. 1971)
[2]
Residence(s)7, Lok Kalyan Marg, New Delhi, Delhi, India[a]
Alma materDelhi University (BA)
Gujarat University (MA)
AwardsList of state honours
Signature
Website

Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: [ˈnəɾendɾə dɑmodəɾˈdɑs ˈmodiː] ; born 17 September 1950)[b] is an Indian politician who has served as the 14th prime minister of India since May 2014. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Varanasi. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right wing Hindu nationalist paramilitary volunteer organisation. He is the longest-serving prime minister from outside the Indian National Congress.

Modi was born and raised in Vadnagar in northeastern Gujarat, where he completed his secondary education. He was introduced to the RSS at the age of eight. His account of helping his father sell tea at the Vadnagar railway station has not been reliably corroborated. At age 18, he was married to Jashodaben Modi, whom he abandoned soon after, only publicly acknowledging her four decades later when legally required to do so. Modi became a full-time worker for the RSS in Gujarat in 1971. 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.[c]

In 2001, Modi was appointed Chief Minister of Gujarat and elected to the legislative assembly soon after. His administration is considered complicit in the 2002 Gujarat riots,[d] and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. A little over 1,000 people were killed, according to official records, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim.[11] A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him.[e] While his policies as chief minister, which were credited for encouraging economic growth, were praised, Modi's administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state.[f] In the 2014 Indian general election, Modi led the BJP to a parliamentary majority, the first for a party since 1984. His administration increased direct foreign investment, and it reduced spending on healthcare, education, and social-welfare programmes. Modi began a high-profile sanitation campaign, controversially initiated the 2016 demonetisation of high-denomination banknotes and introduced the Goods and Services Tax, and weakened or abolished environmental and labour laws.

Modi's administration launched the 2019 Balakot airstrike against an alleged terrorist training camp in Pakistan. The airstrike failed,[14][15] and the deaths of six Indian personnel to friendly fire was later revealed: but the action had nationalist appeal.[16] Modi's party won the 2019 general election which followed.[17] In its second term, his administration revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, an Indian-administered portion of the disputed Kashmir region,[18][19] and introduced the Citizenship Amendment Act, prompting widespread protests, and spurring the 2020 Delhi riots in which Muslims were brutalised and killed by Hindu mobs,[20][21][22] sometimes with the complicity of police forces controlled by the Modi administration.[23][24] Three controversial farm laws led to sit-ins by farmers across the country, eventually causing their formal repeal. Modi oversaw India's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which 4.7 million out of 1.4 billion Indians died, according to the World Health Organization's estimates.[25][26]

Under Modi's tenure, India has experienced democratic backsliding, or the weakening of democratic institutions, individual rights, and freedom of expression.[27][28][g] As prime minister, he has received consistently high approval ratings.[34][35][36] Modi has been described as engineering a political realignment towards right-wing politics. He remains a controversial figure domestically and internationally, over his Hindu nationalist beliefs and handling of the Gujarat riots, which have been cited as evidence of a majoritarian and exclusionary social agenda.[h]

  1. ^ "Narendra Modi Fast Facts". CNN. 6 September 2023. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
  2. ^ "Jashodaben, named by Narendra Modi as his wife, prays for him to become PM". NDTV. Press Trust of India. 11 April 2014. Archived from the original on 17 July 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  3. ^ Asrar, Nadim (26 February 2014). "Narendra Modi's political journey from RSS worker to BJP's PM candidate". NDTV. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
  4. ^ "PM Modi turns 69: A timeline of his political career". Deccan Herald. 17 September 2019. Archived from the original on 15 January 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  5. ^ Tiwari, Ravish (27 November 2014). "The low-profile RSS apparatchik is the newface of power in the NDA". India Today. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bobbio was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference The Clash Within was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Shani was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b c Buncombe, Andrew (19 September 2011). "A rebirth dogged by controversy". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 25 December 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
  10. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Jaffrelot2013 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ * Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, translated by Schoch, Cynthia, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, pp. 40–41, ISBN 978-0-691-20680-6
  12. ^ "India Gujarat Chief Minister Modi cleared in riots case". BBC News. BBC. 10 April 2012. Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  13. ^ Dasgupta, Manas (10 April 2012). "SIT finds no proof against Modi, says court". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 21 December 2016. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  14. ^ Lalwani, Sameer; Tallo, Emily (17 April 2019), "Did India shoot down a Pakistani F-16 in February? This just became a big deal: There are broader implications for India — and the United States", Washington Post
  15. ^ Hall, Ian (2019), "India's 2019 General Election: National Security and the Rise of the Watchmen", The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, 108 (5): 507–519, 510, doi:10.1080/00358533.2019.1658360, S2CID 203266692
  16. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-22309-4
  17. ^ Cite error: The named reference BS Book review was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  18. ^ Akhtar, Rais; Kirk, William, Jammu and Kashmir, State, India, Encyclopaedia Britannica, retrieved 7 August 2019 (subscription required)
  19. ^ Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003), Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: G to M, Taylor & Francis, pp. 1191–, ISBN 978-0-415-93922-5
  20. ^ Ellis-Peterson, Hannah; Azizur Rahman, Shaikh (6 March 2020), "'I cannot find my father's body': Delhi's fearful Muslims mourn riot dead", The Guardian, Delhi, retrieved 7 March 2020
  21. ^ Wamsley, Laurel; Frayer, Lauren (26 February 2020), In New Delhi, Days Of Deadly Violence And Riots, NPR, retrieved 25 March 2020
  22. ^ Abi-Habib, Maria (5 March 2020), "Violence in India Threatens Its Global Ambitions", The New York Times, retrieved 6 March 2020
  23. ^ Ellis-Peterson, Hannah; Azizur Rahman, Shaikh (16 March 2020), "Delhi's Muslims despair of justice after police implicated in riots", The Guardian, Delhi, retrieved 17 March 2020
  24. ^ Gettleman, Jeffrey; Abi-Habib, Maria (1 March 2020), "In India, Modi's Policies Have Lit a Fuse", The New York Times, retrieved 1 March 2020
  25. ^ Grimley, Naomi; Cornish, Jack; Stylianou, Nassos (5 May 2022). "Covid: World's true pandemic death toll nearly 15 million, says WHO". BBC News.
  26. ^ Biswas, Soutik (5 May 2022). "Why India's real Covid toll may never be known". BBC.
  27. ^ Welzel, Christian; Inglehart, Ronald; Bernhangen, Patrick; Haerpfer, Christian W. (2019), "Introduction", in Welzel, Christian; Inglehart, Ronald; Bernhangen, Patrick; Haerpfer, Christian W. (eds.), Democratization, Oxford University Press, pp. 4, 7, ISBN 978-0-19-873228-0
  28. ^ Chidambaram, Soundarya (2022), "India's Inexorable Path to Autocratization: Looking beyond Modi and the populist lens", in Widmalm, Sten (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Autocratization in South Asia, Routledge, pp. 130–148, doi:10.4324/9781003042211-11, S2CID 245210210
  29. ^ Brunkert, Lennart; Kruse, Stefan; Welzel, Christian (3 April 2019). "A tale of culture-bound regime evolution: the centennial democratic trend and its recent reversal". Democratization. 26 (3): 422–443. doi:10.1080/13510347.2018.1542430. ISSN 1351-0347. S2CID 148625260.
  30. ^ Khaitan, Tarunabh (26 May 2020). "Killing a Constitution with a Thousand Cuts: Executive Aggrandizement and Party-state Fusion in India". Law & Ethics of Human Rights. 14 (1): 49–95. doi:10.1515/lehr-2020-2009. hdl:11343/241852. ISSN 2194-6531. S2CID 221083830.
  31. ^ Ganguly, Sumit (18 September 2020). "India's Democracy Is Under Threat". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  32. ^ "India: Freedom in the World 2021 Country Report". Freedom House. 2021.
  33. ^ Goel, Vindu; Gettleman, Jeffrey (2 April 2020). "Under Modi, India's Press Is Not So Free Anymore". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 2 April 2020. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  34. ^ Kaul, Volker; Vajpeyi, Ananya (2020). Minorities and Populism – Critical Perspectives from South Asia and Europe. Springer Publishing. p. 22. ISBN 978-3-030-34098-8.
  35. ^ "Global Leader Approval Ratings". Morning Consult. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  36. ^ "PM Narendra Modi continues to be most popular global leader with approval rating of 74%: Survey". The Times of India. 12 August 2022. Retrieved 9 September 2022.
  37. ^ Visweswaran, Kamala (April 2011). Visweswaran, Kamala (ed.). Perspectives on Modern South Asia: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-4051-0062-5. OCLC 682895189. Retrieved 30 August 2021.
  38. ^ Stepan, Alfred (7 January 2015). "India, Sri Lanka, and the Majoritarian Danger". Journal of Democracy. 26: 128–140. doi:10.1353/jod.2015.0006. S2CID 153861198.
  39. ^ Cite error: The named reference Ganguly 2014 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  40. ^ "Indian PM Narendra Modi still mired in controversy, says expert". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 16 April 2015. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2017.
  41. ^ Robinson, Simon (11 December 2007). "India's Voters Torn Over Politician". Time. Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
  42. ^ Burke, Jason (28 March 2010). "Gujarat leader Narendra Modi grilled for 10 hours at massacre inquiry". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 9 September 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2012.


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