Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi
Chief Minister of Gujarat
Constituency	Maninagar
Personal details
Born	(1950-09-17)September 17, 1950 Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Gujarat, India
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party
Residence(s)	Gandhinagar, Gujarat
As of June 18, 2006 Source: Government of Gujarat

Narendra Dāmodardās Modī (Gujarātī: નરેંદ્ર દામોદરદાસ મોદી, born September 17, 1950) has been the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Gujarat since October 7, 2001.

He participated in the rise to political dominance of the Bharatiya Janata Party in Gujarat as its elections organiser in the early 1990s, a period which led to its election in 1995. He became Gujarat's Chief Minister in October 2001, promoted to that office when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel resigned, following the defeat of the BJP in by-elections.

He won re-election in December 2002 as chief minister with 126 seats in the 182-member assembly; the elections were particularly scrutinised because of allegations of the government's 'comprehensive failure' and possible obstruction in the riots earlier that year.

He is also regarded as an excellent administrator, and a possible future leader of the national party.

Biography

Modi was born in Vadnagar, a town in the northern Mehsana district of Gujarat, to a middle-class Hindu family belonging to the "Ghanchi" OBC community. As a young man, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He became a full-time worker and organiser for it, and was later nominated by it to be a representative on the Bharatiya Janata Party. He joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the year 1974 and was involved in the anti-corruption New Beginning Movement. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in the early 1980s. He helped maintain the relations between the RSS and the BJP. In 1988 he became the General Secretary of the Gujarat State BJP unit. He is believed to be a protégé of Lal Krishna Advani, who is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party himself. Advani has praised Modi on numerous occasions, referring to him as "a leader who, after being subjected to a malicious and prolonged campaign of vilification, has been able to impress even his critics with his determination, single-minded focus, integrity and a wide array of achievements in a relatively short time"[1].

He was believed to be a back-room operator for the political party in the beginning, but during the elections he portrayed himself as a pro-Hindu leader and campaigned on a platform of Hindutva.

In 1995 he was made the National Secretary of the party, in charge of five major states in India.

In October 2001, he was asked by the party to head the government in Gujarat. In 2001, Gujarat was facing problems because of several natural calamities having struck in the preceding years, including the massive Gujarat Earthquake in January 2001. Modi re-organised the government's administrative structure and embarked upon a massive cost-cutting exercise in order to compensate for economic losses[2]. During his administration, Gujarat registered a GDP growth rate of over 10%, the highest growth rate among all the states in India[3]. However, opposition parties, notably the Congress have accused Modi's Government of failing to ensure that the quake-affected get timely relief and rehabilitation measures[4].

The Gujarat government credits Modi with reducing the fiscal deficit of the state exchequer by fifty percent and reducing the losses of the Gujarat State Electricity Board. He has increased the availability of electricity in many parts of rural Gujarat. One of the most significant achievements of his government has been successful raising of the height of the Narmada Dam from 95 to 110.64 metres, which resulted in increased irrigation, water supplies and hydroelectric power [5].

India Today has awarded him the best chief minister twice in three years. Apart from the controversy that he always generated due to his staunch support of Hindutva, he is also regarded as one an excellent administrator.

Modi is considered front-runner in party's leadership among the next generation of politicians. A section of society calls him "Chhotte Sardar" the next Sardar Patel who is most distinguished politician from Gujarat-State who is the architect of India with immeccable contribution to India's freedon movement.

Gujarat violence

Main article: 2002 Gujarat violence

In February 2002, when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, violence broke out across the state claiming around a thousand lives. While some consider the violence to have been sporadic communal riots, others allege that the violence was directed against Muslim communities. An official estimate states that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed, with 223 more missing. The riots followed the Godhra Train Burning incident, where 58 Hindus were burnt alive on a train carriage, which was set on fire by a Muslim mob. A panel set up two and a half years after the incident claimed that the train burning was an accident. However, the panel was declared illegal by the Gujarat High Court.

Subsequent reports from several human rights organisations and political opponents have claimed that Modi and his ministers instructed Gujarat's police officers not to obstruct the attacking Hindu right wing mobs. The National Human Rights Commission criticised the government, pointing to "a comprehensive failure on the part of the State Government of Gujarat to control persistent violations of rights". In turn, several of these human rights groups have been criticized for biased reporting against Hindus and overt generalizations by the right wing Hindu BJP. These claims have thus been rejected by Modi, and the BJP and its supporters have attacked the reports as being politically motivated, due to the fact they came out at the time of an election. A judicial commission constituted to examine allegations of Gujarat state administration's involvement in the riots of 2002 has twice so far said that there was no evidence "as yet" to implicate either Modi or his administration in the riots. However, recently the widow of ex-Congress MP Ahsan Jaafri filed a court case against Modi and his government As an aftermath to the riots, there were calls for Modi to resign as chief minister of Gujarat.The opposition parties stalled the national parliament over the issue. Even allies of the BJP like DMK and TDP were asking for Modi's resignation. Modi submitted his resignation to the Governor, Mr. Sundar Singh Bhandari, only after three months and recommended the dissolution of the 10th Gujarat Legislative Assembly. In the subsequent elections, the BJP, led by Modi, won the elections by a huge margin.

Visa controversy

Narendra Modi applied for a diplomatic visa to visit the United States of America, to attend meetings organised by the Asian-American Hotel Owner's Association (AAHOA) on March 20, 2005. The visit was not official, but a private one at the request of the association. The majority of the Members of AAHOA are from Modi's home state of Gujarat. Following a House resolution introduced by Congressmen John Conyers and Joe Pitts criticizing Modi's actions as Chief Minister, the Bush administration revoked Modi's tourist visa, citing the provisions of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act and the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 that forbid foreign government officials who are "responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious freedom" from being eligible for a visa. Modi was also denied a diplomatic visa, on the grounds that the purpose of his visit did not qualify for one. Modi said that the US had "insulted" India by revoking his visa, and asked the Indian government to take up the matter with the US authorities. The matter brought a protest to the United States from the Indian government in Delhi who condemned the decision. The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, who represents the political opposition to the National Democratic Alliance of which Modi is a member, endorsed the protest,unequivocally expressing India's concern at the denial of a visa by the United States to the Gujarat Chief Minister. BJP party member L.K. Advani expressed his protests, saying "the U.S., by denying him a visa on a baseless ground, had linked him with India's self-respect and pride".

In addition,B. Raman, the Director of the Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, Distinguished Fellow and Convenor, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), and regulat contributor to the India-based think tank South Asia Analysis Group has published that the denial of Modi's visa was covertly spearheaded by several evangelical Christian groups, such as the Dalit Freedom Network and the "Institute on Religion and Democracy" (a alliance of evangelicals campaigning against socialism, feminism, pacifism, multiculturalism and other liberal ideas). However Modi participated in the event hosted by AAHOA via satellite.

Controversy

Gujarat Fake Encounter Controversy

Main article: 2007 Gujarat Fake Encounter Controversy

On June 15,2004, Gujarat Police said they engaged four alleged members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist outfit in armed confrontation, shooting them down in the process. The dead included a 19 year old college girl Ishrat Jahan. Top Gujarat officials said that "the terrorists had come to assassinate the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi". This claim was disputed by the family members of Ishrat Jahan who maintained that she was innocent and the incident was a fake enconter.[6]. Gujarat police later produced a diary, allegedly recovered from Ishrat's bag, showing her links with Lashkar-e-Toiba.[7] This claim is also disputed by many human rights groups and activists.[8]. The Gujarat opposition was of the view that the incident was staged in order to create public sympathy for Narendra Modi.[9]

Following the Gujarat government's admission on April 30, 2007, that Sohrabuddin's missing wife had also been murdered by the police, the Lok Sabha was disrupted by claims that the encounters had been 'organised' by the Modi government, with the Leader of the Opposition in Gujarat calling for Modi to take a lie-detector test.

However the BJP criticized "double-standards" in this fora, with party leader Venkaiah Naidu noting:

Lalu (Prasad Yadav), the railway minister who is on bail in the fodder scam, says that he would send (Gujarat Chief Minister) Narendra Modi to jail for the fake encounter. Did Modi do the encounter?

Position on terrorism

On July 18,2006, Modi delivered a speech criticizing Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "for his reluctance to revive anti-terror legislations" such as 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.

He was criticized by Communist Party leaders after making the speech.

External links

• His personal website
• Orders passed by the Commission of Gujarat
• Bharatiya Janata Party Gujarat: Narendra Modi
• Speech delivered by Modi "Interactive Meet on Resurgent Gujarat"
• Narendra Modi's speeches in Audio mp3 and Video