Prime Minister of India since 2014
Narendra Modi
Official portrait, 2023
Assumed office 26 May 2014President Pranab Mukherjee Ram Nath Kovind Droupadi Murmu Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari Venkaiah Naidu Jagdeep Dhankhar Preceded by Manmohan Singh
Additional ministries
Assumed office 26 May 2014Ministry and Departments Preceded by Manmohan Singh
Assumed office 26 May 2014Deputy Gopinath Munde Sushma Swaraj Rajnath Singh Speaker Sumitra Mahajan Om Birla Preceded by Sushilkumar Shinde Assumed office 5 June 2014Preceded by Murli Manohar Joshi Constituency Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh Majority 1,52,513 (54.24%) In office 7 October 2001 – 22 May 2014Governor Preceded by Keshubhai Patel Succeeded by Anandiben Patel In office 15 December 2002 – 16 May 2014Preceded by Kamlesh Patel Succeeded by Suresh Patel Constituency Maninagar In office 24 February 2002 – 19 July 2002Preceded by Vajubhai Vala Succeeded by Vajubhai Vala Constituency Rajkot II In office 5 January 1998[ 1] – 7 October 2001Preceded by Kushabhau Thakre Succeeded by Sanjay Joshi
Born Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi
(1950-09-17 ) 17 September 1950 (age 73) Vadnagar , Bombay State , India (present-day Gujarat )Political party Bharatiya Janata Party Spouse
[ 2] Residence(s) 7, Lok Kalyan Marg , New Delhi , Delhi, IndiaAlma mater Awards List of state honours Signature Website
Narendra Modi on the COVID-19 pandemic Recorded 19 March 2020
Narendra Damodardas Modi (Gujarati: [ˈnəɾendɾə dɑmodəɾˈdɑs ˈmodiː] ⓘ ; born 17 September 1950)[ a] is an Indian politician serving as the current Prime Minister of India since 26 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 outside the Indian National Congress .[ 3]
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. At the age of 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 rose through the party hierarchy, becoming general secretary in 1998.[ b] 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 ,[ c] and has been criticised for its management of the crisis. According to official records, a little over 1,000 people were killed, three-quarters of whom were Muslim; independent sources estimated 2,000 deaths, mostly Muslim.[ 12] A Special Investigation Team appointed by the Supreme Court of India in 2012 found no evidence to initiate prosecution proceedings against him.[ d] While his policies as chief minister were credited for encouraging economic growth, his administration was criticised for failing to significantly improve health, poverty and education indices in the state.[ e]
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 a demonetisation of 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,[ 15] [ 16] but the action had nationalist appeal.[ 17] Modi's party won the 2019 general election which followed.[ 18] In its second term, his administration revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir ,[ 19] [ 20] 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.[ 21] [ 22] [ 23] 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, according to the World Health Organization 's estimates, 4.7 million Indians died.[ 24] [ 25] In the 2024 general election , Modi's party lost its majority in the lower house of Parliament and formed a government leading the National Democratic Alliance coalition.[ 26] [ 27]
Under Modi's tenure, India has experienced democratic backsliding , or the weakening of democratic institutions, individual rights , and freedom of expression .[ 28] [ 29] [ f] As prime minister, he has received consistently high approval ratings .[ 35] [ 36] [ 37] 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.[ g]
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^ "The rise and journey of Narendra Modi as the leader reshaping India: timeline" . The Hindu . 6 June 2024. ISSN 0971-751X . Archived from the original on 28 June 2024. Retrieved 25 June 2024 .
^ 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 .
^ "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 .
^ Tiwari, Ravish (27 November 2014). "The low-profile RSS apparatchik is the newface of power in the NDA" . India Today . Retrieved 13 January 2021 .
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^ 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 .
^ a b Jaffrelot, Christophe (June 2013). "Gujarat Elections: The Sub-Text of Modi's 'Hattrick'—High Tech Populism and the 'Neo-middle Class' " . Studies in Indian Politics . 1 (1): 79–95. doi :10.1177/2321023013482789 . S2CID 154404089 . Retrieved 29 August 2021 .
^ * 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 , archived from the original on 22 June 2023, retrieved 22 June 2023
Shahani, Nishant (2021), Pink Revolutions: Globalization, Hindutva, and Queer Triangles in Contemporary India , Critical Ethnic Studies Association series, Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, ISBN 978-0-8101-4363-0 , archived from the original on 22 June 2023, retrieved 22 June 2023
Dhattiwala, Raheel (2019), Keeping the Peace: Spatial Differences in Hindu-Muslim Violence in Gujarat in 2002 , Cambridge University Press, p. 73, ISBN 978-1-108-49759-6 , archived from the original on 22 June 2023, retrieved 22 June 2023
Kinnvall, Catarina (2019), "Populism, ontological insecurity and Hindutva: Modi and the masculinization of Indian politics", Cambridge Review of International Affairs , 32 (3): 238–302, 295, doi :10.1080/09557571.2019.1588851 , ISSN 0955-7571 , S2CID 164991567
^ "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 .
^ 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 .
^ 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 , archived from the original on 30 November 2020, retrieved 27 January 2023
^ 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
^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (2021), Modi's India: Hindu Nationalism and the Rise of Ethnic Democracy , Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0-691-22309-4
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^ Akhtar, Rais; Kirk, William, Jammu and Kashmir, State, India , Encyclopaedia Britannica, archived from the original on 19 June 2015, retrieved 7 August 2019 (subscription required)
^ 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 , archived from the original on 17 January 2023, retrieved 8 June 2023
^ 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, archived from the original on 6 March 2020, retrieved 7 March 2020
^ Wamsley, Laurel; Frayer, Lauren (26 February 2020), In New Delhi, Days Of Deadly Violence And Riots , NPR, archived from the original on 4 March 2020, retrieved 25 March 2020
^ Abi-Habib, Maria (5 March 2020), "Violence in India Threatens Its Global Ambitions" , The New York Times , archived from the original on 5 March 2020, retrieved 6 March 2020
^ Grimley, Naomi; Cornish, Jack; Stylianou, Nassos (5 May 2022). "Covid: World's true pandemic death toll nearly 15 million, says WHO" . BBC News . Archived from the original on 13 May 2022. Retrieved 22 August 2022 .
^ Biswas, Soutik (5 May 2022). "Why India's real Covid toll may never be known" . BBC . Archived from the original on 21 August 2022. Retrieved 22 August 2022 .
^ Aggarwai, Mithil; Frayer, Janis Mackey (4 June 2024). "India hands PM Modi a surprise setback, with his majority in doubt in the world's largest election" . NBC News. Archived from the original on 4 June 2024. Retrieved 4 June 2024 .
^ Poharel, Krishna; Lahiri, Tripti (3 June 2024). "India's Narendra Modi Struggles to Hold On to Majority, Early Election Results Show" . Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 4 June 2024. Retrieved 4 June 2024 .
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^ 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
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^ 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 .
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^ 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 .
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^ "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 .
^ Robinson, Simon (11 December 2007). "India's Voters Torn Over Politician" . Time . Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2012 .
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