Who is India PM Narendra Modi and why is he so popular?

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have ruled India ever since 2014, when he thundered to victory in the country's most resounding election success in three decades.

The bearded 69-year-old rode another tsunami of support to a second five-year term in 2019 - surprising many observers who had thought the election would be much closer than it was. His success has hobbled the long-dominant Congress party and made Modi, by far, the most powerful politician in India for a generation

Who is Narendra Modi?

Narendra Damodardas Modi was born in Vadnagar - a town of around 30,000 people with links to the ancient Indian Anarta kingdom - in the present-day state of Gujarat on September 17, 1950. As a youth he worked on his poor Hindu family's tea stall, according to his biography, and was a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) from an early age. The RSS, with its heavy emphasis on paramilitary drills, Hindu prayers and personal sacrifice, has been described as the ideological fountainhead of the BJP.

Modi wore a suit rumoured to cost more than US$13,000 during a meeting with then-US President Barack Obama on a visit to India in 2015. Photo: EPA

Modi talks proudly of his humble beginnings, growing up without running water or electric lights - yet he now has more than US$335,000 in assets, according to a mandatory filing before contesting last year's parliamentary polls.

He is said to be very particular about his clothes and appearance and is known for often switching outfits multiple times a day. In a meeting with then US President Barack Obama in 2015, Modi wore a suit rumoured to cost more than US$13,000, with his own name written in the pinstripes.

According to a biography by writer and journalist Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, he has a weakness for expensive fountain pens, luxury watches and designer spectacles.

But unlike many Indian politicians, Modi has no circle of relatives hovering around him in search of powerful contacts or lucrative government contracts. He has been separated from his wife, to whom he was engaged as a child in an arranged marriage, for decades. He has no children.

When did he enter politics?

While he was associated with the RSS from an early age, Modi entered electoral politics by joining the fledgling BJP in 1987 - as the party was tapping into the growth of Hindu nationalism across India. He quickly rose through the ranks, getting his big break in 2001 when Keshubhai Patel stepped down as chief minister of Gujarat in the wake of a devastating earthquake that killed thousands. Modi was selected as Patel's successor and was to remain in power until his election as prime minister - becoming the state's longest-serving chief minister in the process.

What did he do while chief minister of Gujarat?

One of the most notorious incidents during Modi's almost 13 years in charge of India's ninth-most populous state came shortly after he took office, when riots broke out after 59 passengers - mostly Hindu pilgrims - died in a train fire in the town of Godhra in February 2002. At least 1,000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed in the ensuing violence. Modi, as chief minister, was accused by critics of not doing enough to stem the riots and even quietly encouraging them - allegations he has strongly denied and which have never been proved. One of his former ministers was sentenced in 2012, alongside 30 others, to 28 years in prison for his role in the riots. In 2005, Modi was denied a travel visa by the United States for religious intolerance.

Hindus brandishing swords confront Muslims in Ahmedabad, Gujarat's largest city, during 2002's riots. Photo: AFP

Despite the international condemnation, which included a 10-year diplomatic boycott by Britain after three of its citizens were killed in the riots, Modi and his policies proved popular in Gujarat, where he won re-election no fewer than three times.

It was also while the state's chief minister that he proved his mettle as a social media-savvy politician, holding a live-streamed question and answer session that drew viewers from across India and around the world. As early as July 2013, he had more than 1.86 million followers on Twitter. He now has more than 61 million.

How did he become PM?

Modi has long cultivated a strongman persona, earning notoriety for his vitriolic language in 1999 during a conflict with Pakistan over Kashmir when he remarked Chicken biryani nahi, bullet ka jawab bomb se diya jayega (we won't give them chicken biryani, we will respond to a bullet with a bomb).

The riots of 2002 also served to burnish his image as a "protector" of Hindus, with him reportedly later calling for relief camps housing Muslim survivors of the riots to be shut down because they had become "factories for producing babies".

Modi pictured in BJP colours while still chief minister of Gujarat in 2014. Photo: AFP

Yet his campaign for the 2014 general elections focused on the highly publicised "Gujarat model" of economic growth and infrastructure, rather than his Hindu-nationalist politics.

His resounding victory issued in a seismic political shift that effectively ended the dominance of Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi family, which had governed independent India for most of the preceding 67 years.

The desire for change was so strong that voters put aside any concerns they might have had about Modi's Hindu-centric politics and perhaps even believed it when he promised a sea of supporters dressed in the BJP's official orange colours after winning the election that "the age of divisive politics has ended".

Why did he get re-elected?

In his first term as prime minister, Modi alternated between pursuing economic development programmes and pushing his Hndu-nationalist agenda. As the 2019 elections neared, his bid for re-election appeared to be struggling amid rising unemployment and rural anger at the impact of a slump in crop prices on farm incomes.

But after a suicide bomber killed 40 Indian paramilitary policemen in Kashmir in February of that year, and a Pakistan-based Islamist militant group claimed responsibility, the election focus immediately swung to national security from economic issues.

It also presented Modi with a chance to show he was a strong leader - sending warplanes across the border to bomb what were described as terrorist camps.

During the campaign, he presented himself as the nation's chowkidar (security guard), a message that was amplified by a well-funded BJP that got it out with brutal efficiency through various media, rallies and at other events.

His re-election mirrored a trend of right-wing populists sweeping to victory elsewhere in the world, often by promoting a tough security stance and protectionist trade policies.

How has he changed India?

Since Modi led the BJP to power in 2014, Hindu mobs have lynched dozens of Muslims and lower-caste Dalits for consuming or slaughtering cows, which Hindus consider sacred.

He has largely shown complacency toward violence and discrimination against minorities, and to rhetoric like that of his Home Minister Amit Shah, who called mainly Muslim Bangladeshi migrants to India "termites", or one of BJP's candidates for parliament, who described peace activist Mahatma Gandhi's assassin as a "patriot". Activists, lawyers, journalists and academics have been harassed and even prosecuted under anti-terrorism and anti-sedition laws that Human Rights Watch calls draconian.

A law offering citizenship to immigrants from non-Muslim minorities who have fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan saw hundred of thousands take to the streets in protest, with outrage fanned by resentment against the government for following a majoritarian agenda instead of addressing an economic slowdown and loss of jobs.

Armed police stand guard at a roadblock in Indian-administered Kashmir in August 2019, after the region was stripped of its special status. Photo: AFP

Modi's government stripped the country's only Muslim-majority state, Jammu & Kashmir, of its special status and semi-autonomy in August 2019 before imposing an unprecedented communications blackout and lockdown, and placing its political leaders under house arrest.

He has not addressed even a single press conference during his six years as prime minister and does not give interviews to known critics, with his government shutting down television channels and serving warnings to outlets for coverage deemed too critical.

Modi's government also appointed a committee of scholars to prove that Hindus are descended from India's first inhabitants, challenging a more multicultural narrative that has dominated since independence - that modern-day India is a tapestry born of migrations, invasions and conversions - a view rooted in demographic fact. While the majority of Indians are Hindus, Muslims and people of other faiths account for some 240 million, or one-fifth, of the populace.

Where does he stand on China, Pakistan and the US?

Modi was 12 years old when war broke out between India and China over their disputed border in 1962 - a catalyst for him joining the RSS, according to Mukhopadhyay's biography.

He was critical of the Congress government's approach to Beijing during a subsequent border stand-off in 2013, but visited China seeking trade and investment at least four times while chief minister of Gujarat, and has championed better ties and economic cooperation since becoming prime minister in 2014.

He initiated the informal summits he and Chinese President Xi Jinping had in Wuhan in 2018 and in Chennai in 2019, and has visited China more times while in office than any other Indian prime minister.

Modi with Chinese President Xi Jinping during an informal summit in 2019. Photo: DPA

On Pakistan, after early attempts at engagement - including inviting the country's then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif to his swearing-in ceremony and making an unscheduled stopover in Islamabad in 2015 - Modi soon switched to enmity following a January 2016 attack on an Indian air force base in Pathankot that his government blamed on Pakistan-backed terrorists.

Under Modi, India's armed forces have entered Pakistani-administered territory at least twice to launch what his government has described as retributive military actions against terror cells supported by Islamabad, earning him praise from domestic audiences.

Modi's policies towards both countries have failed, according to Brahma Chellaney, a New Delhi-based author and geopolitical strategy analyst, as if anything, Beijing and Islamabad are now much closer and "have become more hostile towards India".

At least some of the reason for this is a closer US-India relationship. Ties between the latter two have been strengthened during Modi's tenure, with the US in 2016 recognising India as a "major defence partner" - opening the doors for the sale of hi-tech weaponry and defence equipment.

India has also backed the US' so-called Indo-Pacific strategy - described as an attempt to contain and counter China - while both countries are members of the recently revived informal maritime strategic forum known as the Quad, alongside Japan and Australia.

Will he win again in 2024?

They say a week is a long time in politics and that is perhaps even more true in India. So while it might seem premature to try to predict the outcome of the next general election in 2024, as thing stand Modi remains a front-runner.

One reason for this is the state of India's opposition parties. The main opposition Congress is in disarray, still without a full-time leader some 14 months after Rahul Gandhi resigned following last year's electoral defeat. Other parties have been unable to unite around key issues and currently offer Modi's government little resistance in the parliament as a result.

Modi supporters cheer and shout slogans at an election rally in Meerut in March 2019. Photo: AP

Modi also remains stubbornly popular - a recent survey by an Indian media outlet found that 66 per cent of respondents continued to believe he was the best choice for the top job.

Yet as Mukhopadhyay - the biographer - points out, while Modi may seem at the height of his powers at the moment with "no one who can challenge him effectively", four years is a long time.

"A lot will depend on how his government handles the after-effects of the pandemic, especially on the issue of providing jobs," Mukhopadhyay said.

Additional reporting by Kunal Purohit, Reuters, Associated Press

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.