Narendra Modi

Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers belonging to the backward Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, inVadnagar in Mehsana district of what was then Bombay State (present-day Gujarat), India.^{[13][14][15][16][17]} He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife, Heeraben. He helped his father sell tea at Vadnagar railway station. As a child and as a teenager, he ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus.^[18][19] He completed his schooling in Vadnagar, where a teacher described him as being an average student, but a keen debater who had an interest in theatre.^[18]That interest has influenced how he now projects himself in politics.^[20]

Modi's parents arranged his marriage as a child, in keeping with the traditions of the Ghanchi caste. He was engaged at the age of 13 to Jashodaben Chimanlal and the couple were married by the time he was 18. They spent very little time together and were soon estranged because Modi decided to pursue an itinerant life.^[18][21] However as per Modi's biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, the marriage was never consummated.^[22] Having remained silent on his marital status, during declarations related to candidature during four state elections since 2002 and having claimed that his status as a single person meant that he had no reason to be corrupt, Modi acknowledged Jashodaben as his legal spouse when filling in his nomination form for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.^[23][24]

Little is known of the two years that Modi spent travelling, probably in the Himalayas, and he resumed selling tea upon his return. He then worked in the staff canteen of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation until he became a full–time pracharak(propagandist) of the RSS in 1970. He had been involved with the RSS as a volunteer from the age of eight and had come into contact with Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, leaders of the Jan Sangh who later founded the BJP's Gujarat state unit.^[18][25] After Modi had received some RSS training in Nagpur, which was a prerequisite for taking up an official position in the Sangh Parivar, he was given charge of Sangh's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in Gujarat. Modi organised agitations and covert distribution of Sangh's pamphlets during the Emergency.^[18] Modi graduated with an extramural degree through Distance Education in political science from Delhi University.^{[Books 1][22]} Modi remained a pracharak in the RSS while he completed his Master's degree in political science from Gujarat University.^[26]

Personality and image

Modi is a vegetarian.^[167] He has a frugal lifestyle with a personal staff of three. He is a workaholic and an introvert.^[168] He writes poems in Gujarati.^[169] As a speaker, he is known as a crowd-puller.^[170] In the critical opinion of Somini Sengupta, writing for the New York Timesin a 2009 article on the Supreme Court's ordering of an investigation into Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots, "Mr. Modi has assiduously sought to reinvent himself from a scruffy mascot of Hindu nationalism to a decisive corporate-style administrator"^[42]

Modi has been labelled by the media and some articles in peer-reviewed journals as a controversial, polarising, and divisive figure,^{[171][172][173]} but British economist Jim O'Neill, author of the BRIC report, wrote on his blog that Modi is "good on economics", one of the things that "India desperately needs in a leader".^[174] In August 2013, financial analyst Chris Wood, chief strategist of CLSA, wrote in his weekly Greed & Fear that "the Indian stock market's greatest hope is the emergence of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate".^[174]

Awards and recognitions

• Gujarat Ratna by Shri Poona Gujarati Bandhu Samaj at Ganesh Kala Krida Manch on celebration of centenary year.^[175]
• e-Ratna award by the Computer Society of India^[176]
• Best Chief Minister – In a nationwide survey conducted in 2007 by India Today magazine, Narendra Modi was declared the Best Chief Minister in the country.^[177]
• Asian Winner of the fDi Personality of the Year Award for 2009 by FDi magazine.^[178]
• In March 2012, Modi appeared on the cover of the Asian edition of Time, one of India's few politicians to have done so.^[179]
• Modi was featured in Time's 2014 Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.^[180]