Narendra Modi Born: India's Transformative Leader

Narendra Modi rose from selling tea at a railway station platform in Vadnagar, Gujarat, to becoming India's longest-serving non-Congress prime minister and one of the most polarizing leaders in the country's democratic history. He has served as Prime Minister since 2014, winning three consecutive general elections with commanding majorities. Born on September 17, 1950, in Vadnagar, a small town in northern Gujarat, Modi was the third of six children in a lower-middle-class family. His father sold tea from a stall near the local railway station, and the young Modi helped him. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist volunteer organization, as a child and became a full-time pracharak (organizer) in his twenties, traveling through Gujarat building the organization's grassroots network. He rose through the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ranks and became Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2001. His tenure was defined by the 2002 Gujarat riots, in which over a thousand people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Modi was accused of failing to stop the violence and was denied a U.S. visa for years under the International Religious Freedom Act. A Supreme Court investigation cleared him of direct responsibility, but the controversy has never fully subsided. As Chief Minister, he also oversaw rapid economic growth in Gujarat, attracting industrial investment and building infrastructure at a pace that became a national model. He won the 2014 general election on a platform of development, promising to replicate Gujarat's growth nationally. His government's signature initiatives include demonetization of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in 2016, the implementation of a national Goods and Services Tax, the construction of millions of toilets under the Swachh Bharat campaign, and massive expansion of digital payment infrastructure. His assertive brand of Hindu nationalist politics has included the revocation of Kashmir's special status, a citizenship law critics say discriminates against Muslims, and the construction of the Ram Mandir temple in Ayodhya on the site of a demolished mosque. He remains enormously popular with his base and intensely controversial with his critics.