[e] 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.

[19] In its second term, his administration revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir,[20][21] 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.

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.

[h] Narendra Damodardas Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a Gujarati Hindu family of Other Backward Class (OBC) background[45][46] in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat).

[55] While Modi was training with the RSS, he also met Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who in 1980 helped found the BJP's Gujarat unit.

[64] In interviews, he has described visiting Hindu ashrams founded by Swami Vivekananda: the Belur Math near Kolkata, the Advaita Ashrama in Almora and the Ramakrishna Mission in Rajkot.

[70][71][72] Modi's first-known political activity as an adult was in 1971 when he joined a Jana Sangh Satyagraha in Delhi led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee to enlist to fight in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

[102][103] After L. K. Advani became president of the BJP in 1986, the RSS decided to place its members in important positions within the party; Modi's work during the Ahmedabad election led to his selection for this role.

[109] The following year, Shankersinh Vaghela, a prominent BJP leader from Gujarat, defected to the Indian National Congress after losing his parliamentary seat in the Lok Sabha election.

[9][131][132] The Modi government imposed a curfew in 26 major cities, issued shoot-at-sight orders and called for the army to patrol the streets; these measures failed to prevent the violence from escalating.

[136][137][138] According to Martha Nussbaum, "There is by now a broad consensus that the Gujarat violence was a form of ethnic cleansing, that in many ways it was premeditated, and that it was carried out with the complicity of the state government and officers of the law".

[139] In March 2008, the Supreme Court of India reopened several cases related to the riots, including that of the Gulbarg Society massacre, and established a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the issue.

[145] In 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition by Zakia Jafri in which she challenged the clean chit given to Modi in the riots by the SIT, and upheld previous rulings that no evidence against him was found.

[146][147][148] Following the violence, calls for Modi to resign as chief minister were made from politicians within and outside the state, including leaders of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Telugu Desam Party—partners in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance coalition—and opposition parties stalled Parliament over the issue.

[151] Modi framed the criticism of his government for human rights violations as an attack upon Gujarati pride,[8][153] a strategy that led to the BJP winning 127 of the 182[152] seats—a two-thirds majority—in the state assembly.

[182] In 2008, Modi offered land in Gujarat to Tata Motors to set up a plant manufacturing the Nano car after popular agitation had forced the company to move out of West Bengal.

[200][201] In November 2016, advocate Prashant Bhushan had filed a plea in the Supreme Court of India asking for investigation of the alleged bribe payments made to some senior public servants including Modi.

[189] During the campaign, Modi focused on corruption scandals under the previous Congress government, and played on his image as a politician who had created a high rate of GDP growth in Gujarat.

[214] The BJP sought to identify itself with political leaders who publicly opposed Hindu nationalism, including B. R. Ambedkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Ram Manohar Lohia.

[246] After the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a landslide in the 2014 Lok Sabha election, Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister of India on 26 May 2014, becoming the first Indian PM to be born after the country's independence from the British Empire in 1947.

[162][249] Modi, who initially lacked a majority in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of Indian Parliament, passed a number of ordinances to enact his policies, leading to further centralisation of power.

[291][292][293] This was first time religion had been overtly used as a criterion for citizenship under Indian law; it attracted global criticism and prompted widespread protests that were halted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

[253] Modi's administration passed a land-reform bill that allowed it to acquire private agricultural land without conducting a social impact assessment, and without the consent of the farmers who owned it.

[333] The move led to severe cash shortages,[334][335][336] and a steep decline in the Indian stock indices BSE SENSEX and NIFTY 50,[337] and sparked widespread protests throughout the country.

This represented a shift away from the policy of the previous Congress government, which had supported programmes to assist public health goals, including a reduction in child and maternal mortality rates.

[368][372][373] A second wave of the pandemic that began in March 2021 was significantly more devastating than the first; some parts of India experienced shortages of vaccines, hospital beds, oxygen cylinders and other medical supplies.

[395][396][397] Modi's government faced scrutiny in the lead-up to the G20 meeting as multiple news sources reported that Indian authorities demolished slum neighbourhoods in New Delhi, displacing marginalised residents.

[417] In February 2019, India carried out airstrikes against a supposed terrorist camp in Pakistan; open source satellite imagery suggested no targets of significance were hit.

[457][458] Modi has been called a fashion icon for his signature crisply ironed, half-sleeved kurta, and for a suit with his name repeatedly embroidered in the pinstripes, which he wore during a state visit by US President Barack Obama, which drew public and media attention, and criticism.

The event was attended by over 50,000 people and several American politicians, including President Donald Trump, making it the largest gathering for an invited foreign leader visiting the United States other than the Pope.