AA Edit | Modi’s Jubilee in Power a Feat
From Gujarat CM to three-term PM, Modi’s long political journey reaches a milestone
To complete 25 years in public service as a top elected official as chief minister of a state and then Prime Minister of the country is a phenomenal achievement, especially in modern times which make for a fractious era in a nation of very loud politics obsessed with elections as a means to power.
Mr Narendra Modi is the longest-serving elected PM according to people who pay attention to such records. Three terms as PM are no mean achievement either, particularly as India moved into the coalition era around 1989. Not until the BJP’s success in 2014 was any Central government ruled by a party with a majority of its own. That changed somewhat in 2024 and yet Mr Modi has ruled on with an enviable grip on the nation.
His completion of 25 years in public service since being sworn in as CM of Gujarat on October 7, 2001, was an occasion to recapture the highlights of his time in office as well as reaffirm a commitment to build India as a developed, self-reliant nation with much more to achieve in manufacturing, space and sports.
Elected successively by a majority of people residing mostly in the Hindi belt while his popularity was overshadowed in the south by the charisma of regional chieftains, Mr Modi has long moved out of the shadow of the Gujarat riots of 2002, an issue that afflicted his political career as much as the killing of Sikhs in 1984 was to stalk one of his predecessors, Rajiv Gandhi.
There is no escaping the fact that Mr Modi is a divisive figure with sections of people not sure they have his ear and attention. But, as a political strategist of the RSS who, along with his chief political aide Amit Shah, astutely used the Hindutva and anti-Congress cards, he has few equals.
In shades of authoritarianism that he may have displayed, he tended to lean more towards the reign of Mrs Indira Gandhi than any other PM. But, to his credit, he kept a nation together in difficult, even trying times while also delivering a strong message in responding aggressively to Pakistan’s use of cross-border terror as a state policy.
Strong nationalism was another message that Mr Modi conveyed, even as he takes credit for suppressing terrorism and nationalism and finding a unique solution for the fissiparous woes of Jammu & Kashmir.
Huge challenges are building, particularly regarding what is seen as the degradation of institutions that safeguard democracy. How he responds in the remainder of his third term to the political encounters may define what his political legacy will be.