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Narendra Damodardas Modi (born September 17, 1950, Gujarat, India) is the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat in India since October 7, 2001.

Modi is one of the most polarizing figures in Indian politics today - a forceful, Hindutva leader of principles to his admirers, and a fascist demagogue to his vocal enemies.

Early Life and Political Career

He was born in Vadnagar, a town in the northern Mehsana district of Gujarat, in a family belonging to a disadvantaged Hindu caste. As a young man, he joined the [[Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]], an organization committed to Hindu Nationalism and right-of-center economic and political outlook. Modi rose as a young prodigy within the RSS ranks.

Narendra Modi served as Pracharak, or a high-level regional organizer of the RSS. Joining the BJP in the mid-1980s, Modi worked to organize election campaigns in many states.

Rise in Gujarat

Known for his strategic skills, Modi masterminded the political dominance of Gujarat by the BJP in the mid-1990s, by building an agenda and political strategy sensitive to cultural nationalism and pro-business economic policies, as well as building on a core discontent with the Indian National Congress. He held the important office of BJP General Secretary twice.

He became Gujarat's Chief Minister in 2001, promoted to that office when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel resigned following the defeat of BJP in by-elections. His first months in office were focused on party efforts to get him officially elected to the state assembly within the six-month constitutional deadline for a non-elected person holding power. As a politician, his charisma helped him to build a mass base, both within the BJP and the public. He became especially well-supported in the state's urban areas, due to his push for rapid industrialization, urbanization and investment, policies welcomed in the traditional economic power.

The Background for Modi's Popularity (and Notoriety)

Modi would have been another BJP chief minister presiding over another BJP-run State administration, but for the cataclysmic events of early 2002.

On the morning of February 27, 2002, a train returning from Ayodhya, the site of a Hindu sacred place claimed also by Muslims, pulled out of the Gujarat town of Godhra. Minutes later, it came to a halt as a Muslim mob of 2000 strong surrrounded and attacked it stones and ion rods. Car 7 of the train, in which Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya were traveling, was specifically targeted. It was doused in gasoline brought in cans from a nearby gas station and set on fire. Nearly 60 pilgrims, mostly women, children and the infirm, were burnt to a gruesome death in the carnage.

In the best of times, Gujarat has not been a model for religoius harmony. The state was witness to numerous clashes between majority Hindus and minority Muslims over the years since the region was under British control as part of the Bombay Presidency. The state was perennially titting atop a powder keg of communal tension, with threat of any little confrontation between Hindus and Muslims spiraling out of control and blowing up into a major sectarian clash. However, the conflict started by the Godhra carnage marked a new low in the history of communal relations in the state. The news of burning of 60 Hindus in a train brought millions of raging Hindus outdoors, many of them middle and upper-class Hindus who never participated in a riot. They indulged in acts of arson, destruction, looting and killing, directed against Muslims and their properties. Soon enough, Muslims retaliated in neighborhoods where they enjoyed numerical strength, and effected atrocities of their own against Hindus. As both communities fought picthed battles, an overwhelmed and understaffed police force struggled to keep peace, often coming under the fire of the warring communities. As a consequence, army was called in to restore order.

These riots left 259 Hindus and 790 Muslims dead, with 200 more missing. The majority of the Hindu victims died in police firing, while the majority of Muslim victims died at the hands of Hindu rioters. Some human rights organizations, however, cite a highly disputed figure of 2000 dead, all Muslim.

For being the man in the saddle at a time when Gujarat witnessed violence on a large scale after many years, Narendra Modi instantly became the target both of his political opponents and of the Muslim community, which, on account of being numerically disadvantaged, took the brunt of riots.

Overnight, he was painted as a demon in India's largely left-wing media, as a "Chief Monster", a pun on his job title of "Chief Minister." Statements purportedly justifying the Hindu reaction to Godhra carnage were attributed to him, often with no evidence, and Modi strongly denies them. Communist and minority organizations went to work to manufacture a case of orchestrated pogrom against Muslims, made to fit the pattern of Nazi cleansing of Jews to the dot. In this projected redux of the Holocaust, Modi's BJP supporters play the role of Hitler's Brown Shirts, systematically identifying and targeting Gujarat's Jews, i.e, the Muslims, using contrivances such as municipal records and voters lists. If Hitler gassed the Jews, so would the alleged Muslim-killers of Modi, using the gas cylinders meant as cooking fuel in India. And like Hitler and his accomplices, Modi's men would plot and plan the 'pogrom' months and even years in advance, thoroughly and comprehensively, leaving nothing to chance. In this gigantic conspiracy -- which goes undetected till it actually culminates in the 'pogrom' just as it was meticulously planned to culminate -- the Godhra train carnage either becomes a mundane train accident that is best ignored or a devious trick played by Modi's Hindu nationalist supporters themselves. To top it all, there are even Gujarat school textbooks (predating Modi by several years, a fact that the conspiracy theorists conveniently overlook) that purportedly extol the Nazis.

Modi has never been a favorite with India's elite, leftwing English language media. An articulate speaker with strong ideological convictions, he had aced many a public debate with sundry editors and journalists. In the normal course, that track record of thus earning the extra antipathy of the media would have rendered him yet another right-of-center politician intensely disliked by the latter, but the riots presented an opprtunity to cut Modi down to size. The media set in motion a virulent oust-Modi campaign. Modi's most vocal critics were regularly featured and feted in oped columns and television debates. Many damaging statements about him were made, often with no one around to refute them. Bashing Modi has become the normal, expected journalistic practice, and any praise of him came to be looked at with a "how-can-you" kind of horror.

This polarizing campaign has left Gujarat's population with no choice but to be divided into pro-Modi and anti-Modi camps. The pro-Modi camp say that the riots were a reaction -- even if reprehensible -- to the Godhra train burning in the backdrop of a social dynamic dominated by decades of sectarian strife. They say that Modi had done better at riot control than any other chief minister who was placed in a similar situation. The anti-Modi camp, however, cite the afore-mentioned conspiracy theory, and allege that Modi had planned and perpetrated a pogrom, a genocide and a Holocaust, all rolled in one. Taking the Holocaust parallel to its logical conclusion, they even demand an intenational, Nuremberg-style trial of Modi.

It was in this atmosphere of heated charges and couter-charges that Gujarat went to the polls in late 2002. Modi was returned to the legislature with a handsome majority.

Criticism of Modi and the BJP

An inquiry committee speically constituted to investigate the Gujarat riots of 2002 is yet to come out with its findings. In the meanwhile, many Human Rights organizations sympathetic to the Left have pronounced Modi guilty, a conviction that does not carry any conviction with his admirers.

Praise for Modi's leadership

Modi and Gujarat have left the riots behind and moved on, though Modi's opponents have stayed put in the politics of 2002. His performance as Chief Minister since the elections of 2002 has been nothing short of spectacular. The state is clocking an all-time high economic growth rate of 15%, unmatched by any other state in the country. Agriculture, in a sluggish growth phase in the rest of India, has seen a phenomenal growth in Gujarat, aided partly by the waters made available by new check dam constructions. It attracts the largest share of foreign investment into India, most of it in the vital manufacturing sector. Infrastructure is witnessing major invsetment. It is the only state where the (previously state-owned) power company makes a handsome profit. In a country where theft of power is endemic, Modi has cracked down on his own supporters for indulging it it. Privatization of public entrprises has been effected on a large scale without the usual obstacles (eg: Trade Union opposition) that it meets with in rest of India. The state has won three international awards for its development-oriented policies. Modi's stringent stand against corruption has earned him dissidence even within his own party.

In village-level elections of late 2005, Modi has again scored emphatic victories, earning even substantial Muslim vote. In Godhra town, the place that started it all, Modi's party now runs the local municipal council with support from elected Muslim officials. The clock has turned a full circle.

See also

• • Hindu Nationalism, Hindutva
  • Bharatiya Janata Party, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

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External links

• Profile by Narendramodi.org
• Profile by GujaratIndia.com
• " Modi Stronger after Poll win in Oct/Nov 2005" - article dated October 30 2005

• 1950 births
• Indian politicians
• Incumbent Indian Chief Ministers
• People of Gujarat