Narendra Modi

Narendra Damodardas Modi

 Narendra Damodardas Modi ; born 17 September 1950) is the current chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat.

 BACKGROUND

          Narendra Damodardas Modi was born in an other backward class (OBC) middle-class family at Vadnagar, he was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife Heeraben.He has been a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since childhood, having an interest in politics since adolescence. He holds a master's degree in political science. In 1998, he was chosen by L. K. Advani, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to direct the election campaign in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

          He became the chief minister of Gujarat in October 2001, promoted to the office at a time when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel had resigned, following the defeat of BJP in the by-elections. His tenure as chief minister began on 7 October 2001. In July 2007, he became the longest serving Chief Minister in Gujarat's history when he had been in power for 2063 days continuously. He was elected again for a third term on 23 December 2007 in the state elections, which he had cast as a "referendum on his rule".Under his leadership Bhartiya Janata Party won 2012 State Assembly Elections and he was chosen to serve for this full term as Chief Minister of Gujarat.

         Modi is a controversial figure both within India and internationally. His administration received heated criticism surrounding the 2002 Gujarat violence. However, he enjoys considerable support in his home state and is credited with the high economic growth in Gujarat under his government.

Personal life

       Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a middle-class family in Vadnagar in Mehsana district of what was then Bombay State, India. Modi is a vegetarian. During the Indo-Pak war in the mid sixties, even as a young boy, he volunteered to serve the soldiers in transit at railway stations. As a young man, he joined the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student organisation and was involved in the anti-corruption Nav Nirman Movement. After working as a full-time organiser for the organisation, he was later nominated as its representative in the Bharatiya Janata Party. As a teenager Modi used to run a tea stall with his brother. Modi completed his schooling in Vadnagar. He earned a masters degree in political science from Gujarat University.His opponents allege that he is married to Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, however Modi denies this. He has no children.

Personality

         Modi is known for leading a frugal lifestyle. He has a personal staff of three. He is known to be a workaholic and an introvert. He ordered the demolition of many illegal Hindu temples that were built without proper government sanction which earned him the ire of VHP. He is a crowd puller as a speaker. Modi sometimes wears business suits.

Early activism and politics

          Modi was a pracharak (full-timer) in the RSS during his university years. He took up the challenging task of energising the party cadres in right earnest. In partnership with Shankersinh Vaghela, Modi set about creating a strong cadre base in Gujarat. In the initial period, Vaghela was seen as a mass leader, while Modi was recognised as a master strategist.

The party started gaining political mileage and formed a coalition government at the centre in April 1990. This partnership fell apart within a few months, but the BJP came to power with a two-thirds majority on its own in Gujarat in 1995. During this period, Modi was entrusted with the responsibility of organising two crucial national events, the Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra (a political rally through India on a converted Toyota van) of L.K. Advani and a similar march from Kanyakumari (the southernmost part of mainland India, southernmost point of India being Indira point of Andaman and Nicobar islands) to Kashmir in the North. After the exit of Shankarsingh Vaghela from the BJP, Keshubhai Patel was made Chief Minister while Narendra Modi was sent to New Delhi as a General Secretary of the Party.

          In 1995, Modi was appointed the National Secretary of the party and given the charge of five major states in India. In 1998, he was promoted as the General Secretary (Organization), a post he held until October 2001.

Tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat

In 2001, Narendra Modi was chosen by the party to be the Chief Minister of Gujarat to succeed Keshubhai Patel.

 

2002 Elections

As an aftermath of the riots, there were calls for Modi to resign from his position as chief minister of Gujarat. The opposition parties stalled the national parliament over the issue and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and Telugu Desam Party (TDP), allies of the BJP, also asked for Modi's resignation. Modi submitted his resignation and the state Assembly was dissolved. In the resultant elections the BJP, led by Modi, won 127 seats in the 182-member assembly.

2007 Elections

Modi made a speech at Mangrol in which he justified the encounter of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, during the election campaign in response to Sonia Gandhi's speech calling him a "merchant of death", and referred to Sohrabuddin's killing. For this speech the Election Commission of India, a constitutional body governing election proceedings in India, cautioned Modi as it considered it as indulging in an activity which may aggravate existing differences between different communities. Modi won the election and continued his post as the Chief Minister Of Gujarat, he won with majority of votes of 122 seats out of 182 total assembly seats.

Sadbhavna Mission

In the late 2011-early 2012 Narandra Modi underwent a series of fasts as part of the Sadbhavna Mission. The mission started on 17 September 2011 in Ahmedabad with 3 day fast with a view to strengthen the atmosphere of peace, unity and harmony in the state. He observed total 36 fasts in 26 districts, 8 cities including Ahmedabad.

2012 Elections

The BJP secured a majority in these elections. Narendra Modi won in his constituency Maninagar by a margin of 86,373 votes against Shweta Bhatt (wife of Sanjiv Bhatt) of the Indian National Congress. The BJP has been the ruling party in Gujarat since 1995.

Use of social networking technologies

          Modi interacted with netizens on Google+ on 31 August 2012. The chat session was also live broadcast on YouTube, and Modi took part in it through Ahmedabad. The chat was schedule to start at 20:00 IST, but began 45 minutes late because of the reported crash of Google+ due to the response. The questions were to be submitted before the chat, and were mostly based on issues about education, youth empowerment, rural development and causes of urbanisation.

          Modi became the first Indian politician to interact with netizens through live chat on Internet after the hangout. Google+'s Hangout feature allows ten people to group chat at a single time.The same day the hangout was organized, the Gujarat High Court gave its statement on the Naroda Patiya massacre.Hashtag #ModiHangout became the most trending term in India at Twitter on the day of the session, whereas #VoteOutModi, used by Modi's opponents, became the third most trending term in the country. A day before the session, Modi tweeted, "Friends, I am looking forward to exchanging ideas with you on G+ Hangout tomorrow on 'Realising Swami Vivekananda's vision of Strong India'!" The chat session was also shown on Modi's YouTube channel in real time. The chat was hosted by Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn, who was shooting for his upcoming film Himmatwala in Hyderabad.

Modi answered 18 questions in two sessions. The session didn't include many Gujarati people, with more people from other states and NRIs. Modi received one lakh questions. When asked about his definition of the word secular, he said, "Think that our nation must be on top in all respects. That is secularism, according to me," adding,"The word secular has been used and abused for votebank politics. Take the example of the microminority of Parsis who are a happy community living in Gujarat today."

Views and opinions

          On 18 July 2006 Modi delivered a speech criticising Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "for his reluctance to revive anti-terror legislations" like the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He asked the Centre to empower states to invoke tougher laws in the wake of the blasts in Mumbai. Quoting Modi:

"Terrorism is worse than a war. A terrorist has no rules. A terrorist decides when, how, where and whom to kill. India has lost more people in terror attacks than in its wars."

Narendra Modi has frequently commented that if the BJP came to power at the Centre, they will honour the 2004 Supreme Court judgement to hang Afzal Guru. Afzal was convicted of terrorism in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack in 2004 by the Supreme Court of India and is in Tihar Jail.

On account of the November 2008 Mumbai attacks, on Thursday 27 November, Narendra Modi held a meeting to discuss waterfront security along the coastline. The meeting decided to ask the Central government to urgently sanction the following:

• Increase the number of police stations along the coast to 50 (from 10).
• Increase the number of police to 1500 from 250.
• 30 modern high-speed surveillance boats.

The 30 coastal boats, under construction at Goa's shipbuilding yard, will have the capacity to run at the speed of 25 nautical miles per hour. These are being manufactured under the Centre's Rs 58-crore grant for coastal security.

Views on criticism of Modi's governance

         

In 2003, when Narendra Modi was asked about the conflict of his dreams for Gujarat's future with international criticism of his past activities, Modi said,

"Yet, no one has asked this question to the USA after 9/11. Delhi is developing fast – no one has asked this question to Delhi after 1984. If it does not matter to Delhi and USA, why should it matter to Gujarat?"

Modi's decision to link Gujarat's violence with the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US drew criticism from some^[ observers, who contrasted it with the then Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani's unpleasant apology for Gujarat in London a year ago. Modi responded to this criticism by The Guardian, saying "I have not read and I would not like to read. But thank you people for spending time on me."

Gutka ban in Gujarat

          Narendra Modi announced a comprehensive ban on gutka, which causes cancer, from 11 September 2012. He said in his Independence Day speech that "I have to save the youths of Gujarat from the dreaded evil of cancer and that's why a decision to impose a complete ban on gutka has been taken."

Congress ban of TV channel         

Gujarat state Congress banned a television channel TV 9 from covering its events, and prohibited access to its press conferences and other events. A communication in this regard was sent to all district units of the party. Narendra Modi criticised this muzzling of the freedom of press by saying,

Journalists on Twitter who spoke against Congress, were blocked. Here they banned a TV channel. Their crime is that they exposed cracks in the ghar nu ghar (own your home) scheme of the Congress. Yet this party talks about democracy.

Criticisms and controversies

Gujarat violence

On 27 February 2002, a train burning in the town of Godhra lead to 59 deaths, most of them Hindu pilgrims and religious workers returning from the holy city of Ayodhya. Local Muslim leaders have been found guilty of burning the train Riots broke out in the state as the act was caused by Muslims in which 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were ultimately killed. The Modi administration was accused of insufficient action over the riots and suspected of encouraging them. However, Narendra Modi had promptly issued shoot at sight orders and called for Army to prevent the riots from worsening, but given the massive reaction to Godhra carnage, the combined strength of Indian army and State Police too proved insufficient, as confirmed by the media reports on 1 March. Modi administration promptly imposed an indefinite curfew in 26 sensitive cities to ensure that riots do not spread, as reported by The Hindu on 1 March. Years later, a sting operation by an investigative journalist showed videos of many prominent Hindu leaders and politicians boasting of their involvement in the killings and the complicity of Narenda Modi in the riots. However there were several inaccuracies in the statements that questioned the sting operation. Babu Bajrani and Suresh Richard in the statements said that Narendra Modi visited Naroda Patiya one day after the massacre to thank them while official record showed that Naredra Modi didn't visit Naroda Patiya. VHP activist, Ramesh Dave told Tehelka reporter that S.K.Gadhvi, one of the divisional superintendents of Police killed five Muslims in Dariapur area as promised to him. But the official records show that Gadhvi was only posted in Dariapur one month after the riots. During his tenure no such incident took place in Dariapur. On 29 August 2012, an Indian court found the legislature guilty of the crime. On the eve of this decision, Modi refused to apologize and rejected renewed calls for his resignation.

          In April 2009, the Supreme Court of India appointed a special team of investigators to look into the role Modi had played in the alleged anti-Muslim conspiracy. The team was appointed in response to the complaint of Zakia Jafri, the widow of ex-Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was murdered in the riots. In December 2010, a Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) in its report to the Supreme Court seeking answers pertaining to the Ehsan Jafri case, submitted that they had found no evidence against Narendra Modi.

          However in February 2011, the Times of India reported that a confidential report from the SIT indicted Modi on several counts of alleged complicity in the Gujarat riots of 2002. Most other sources have noted that the SIT report does not indict Modi for the riots due to lack of evidence. The Indian Express too said the report did not find any Modi involvement in the violence, though it did accuse him of watering down the seriousness of the situation. According to The Hindu, the report not only found that Modi tried to water down the seriousness of the situation, but Modi also implicitly justified the killings of Muslims, and failed to condemn the attacks on them.

          The Bharatiya Janata Party demanded an investigation into the publication of the report, claiming the leak was politically motivated.

The apex court refused to pass any order on the case and referred it to the Ahmedabad magistrate for a decision. In April 2012, a Special Investigation Team absolved Modi of any involvement in the Gulberg massacre, arguably the worst episode of the riots. On 7 May 2012, the Supreme Court-appointed amicus curiae, Raju Ramachandran observed that Modi can be prosecuted under sections 153 A (1) (a) & (b), 153 B (1), 166 and 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code for promoting enmity among different groups during the 2002 Gujarat riots. His main contention was that the evidence be judged by a court of law and not the SIT, the SIT was required to investigate and not judge However the amicus report has been criticised by the Special Investigation Team for relying heavily on the testimony of Sanjiv Bhatt.

In an interview on 26 July 2012 to Shahid Siddiqui, editor of an Urdu weekly, Nai Duniya and an MP of Samajwadi Party told that if he is found guilty of collusion in the 2002 riots, should be hanged, other-wise insinuations against him should cease.

Conflicts with Governor Kamla Beniwal

          On 25 August 2011 Gujarat Governor Kamla Beniwal appointed Justice R A Mehta to the post of Lokyukta of Gujarat, a critical anti-corruption post that had been lying vacant since 2003. Justice R A Mehta was recommended for the post by the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court in June. Governor Beniwal had made this decision without consulting and getting the approval of the chief minister and his council of ministers.

          This marked the beginning of a strained relationship between Modi and the Governor. On 25 September 2011, Narendra Modi accused the Governor of running a parallel government in the state supported by the Congress party. He demanded that she be recalled. He also later accused her of delaying the progress of bills by not passing them.

           The decision of the governor in the appointment of R A Mehta was challenged in the high court by the Modi government. The two member high court bench gave a split verdict on 10 October 2011. Later, a third member upheld the governor's decision in January 2012.

Foreign visits

          As the Chief Minister of the Gujarat State, to attract foreign investment in the state, Narendra Modi has made visits to foreign countries, including China, Singapore and Japan.

          Narendra Modi made his first China visit in 2007 to invite investors Vibrant Gujarat Global Investor Summit, and second visit in November 2011. One month after the second visit to China, the Chinese Government released 13 diamond traders from India jailed by the Shenzhen Customs, which the Chief Minister described as the consequence of his diplomatic efforts and statesmanship.

          In 2005 Narendra Modi was denied diplomatic visa to the United States, in addition to this visa denial, his already granted B-1/B-2 visa was also revoked, under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act which makes any foreign government official who was responsible or "directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom" ineligible for the visa.

           For ten years after the 2002 riots, the United Kingdom refused to deal with Narendra Modi, but the UK changed this policy in October 2012.

Awards and recognitions

• Gujarat Ratna by Shri Poona Gujarati Bandhu Samaj at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch on celebration of centenary year.
• e-Ratna award by the Computer Society of India
• Best Chief Minister – In a nationwide survey conducted in 2006 by India Today magazine, Narendra Modi was declared the Best Chief Minister in the country.
• Asian Winner of the fDi Personality of the Year Award for 2009 by fDi Magazine.

 

References

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