To anybody unfamiliar with Indian politics and Hindu culture. the RSS can be hard to relate to, but it is impossible to comprehend Modi without first getting to grips with the organisation. Its own website is not much help. Describing the •Sangh Parivar', as its nu•nbers prefer to call it, it says that, A unique phenomenon in the history of Bharat [India] in the twentieth century is the birth and unceasing growth of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The Sangh's sphere of influence has been spreading far and wide like the radiance of a many splendored diamond.' In 2014 it spread to the prime minister's office in Delhi, although just how much Modi is still guided by its leaders today remains a contentious question and one that he is apparently happy to leave unresolved. Many Of his ministers and closest supporters, who allegiance to the RSS themselves, see no reason to fear its influence. Others who view the organisation from the outside are considerably less sanguine. The literal translation of its name is the 'National Volunteer Organisation'. and the RSS calls itself a movement for those want to make social work their life's mission'. The epithets it attracts from those outside its ranks range from 'extreme Hindu nationalist' to fascist'. One thing they all agree on is that the RSS isn't kidding when it talks about its 'unceasing growth'. Although it doesn't publish figures and there is no formal registration process, estimates for its membership range from between
two and six million people. Even at the lowest end, that makes it the second largest political movement in the world after the Chinese Communist party The word 'political' is not inappropriate, despite the fact that most of its supporters are far more comfortable helping out in their communities than engaging in ideological debate. They perform countless good deeds and do a vast amount of work helping the poorest in society, Often ignorant Of the Organisation's history and heedless of the fact that its leadership is so closely entwined in BJP politics. The RSS was founded in 1925 with the aim Of uniting Hindus and opposing British imperialism. Many Of its early leaders were impatient with the passive resistance espoused by Mahatma Gandhi and, not long after Independence was finally won, the RSS was banned for a year as a direct consequence of Gandhi's assassination by one of its former adherents, Nathuram Godse. The organisation was acquitted of any involvement in the murder and Godse had left because he thought it wasn't militant enough. The 'fascist' tag made more sense in the mid- twentieth century than it does today. While it is purely coincidental that the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol (it is a familiar emblem in Buddhist and Jain culture, too, and was used by the ancient Greeks and Celts), during the Second World War some of the RSS's leading lights expressed open admiration for Hitler and his dreams Of racial purity.
Even today, the uniform worn when RSS members corne together every at a shakha, or to perform exercises and recite nationalist slogans, Often while wielding a long stick. is closely on that worn by Mussolini's Blackshirts. In more recent times, however. the RSS leadership has involved itself in democratic politics and bitterly resents any attempt to tarnish the organisation by associating it with fascism. In 1980 it played a key role in establishing the BJP as a vehicle for translating its beliefs into action, and it continues to think of itself as the guardian of Hindu nationalist belief and the ideological conscience of the party. Officially the BJP is independent of the RSS and open to all Indians. but the importance Of the Sangh's vast network Of members cannot be overestimated. It provided many thousands Of the foot soldiers who worked tirelessly at the grassroots level to secure the election Of Modi and his government (see Chapter Twelve). Perhaps the most useful. though incomplete. comparison is the trade union movement in many western democracies.While the unions can cause embarrassment to leaders of the Labour Party in Britain or the Democrats in the United States, for example, especially when they are perceived to be influencing policy, their support is still vital at election time. And, just as with the unions, many outside the ranks of the RSS view it as being a bit of a dinosaur, rather old-fashioned and even irrelevant in the modern world. Worse than that, it is often portrayed as not merely supporting Hindu values. but as being anti-Muslim and anti-Christian. Indeed anti anybody who doesn't believe that all of India should be Hindu. Its defenders, like the journalist Swaminathan Gurumurthy, take a very different view. He believes the RSS has been subjected to endless ignorant abuse and needs to be more objectively assessed. He put it for me like this: 'The RSS is at best an effort to protect Hinduism', In his opinion, Hindu civilisation would be at risk of extinction without it. 'In the world of organised religions and peoples, no unorganised culture or civilisation, or even religion, will survive', he said.
The question as to what degree Narendra Modi still subscribes to the philosophy Of the organisation he grew up vhth took on a new significance when he became prime minister. But the question was not a new one. Another reason why his life story is so important is in order to shed some light on whether India is now governed by a man still committed to an ideology that many of his non-Hindu citizens feel excludes them, or whether he has put it aside in his pursuit of economic development. At the age Of 51, Modi assumed the highest office in his home state, and he soon showed the first signs that he might be ready to distance himself from the ideological dictates Of the Sangh. He presented himself as a thrusting chief minister trying to modernise Gujarat's economy and his own image. But conserving traditional values rather than modernity was the raison d'étre of the RSS and during this period Modi developed something Of a hot and cold relationship with its leadership. As he conceded himself to a recent biographer, 'There are several senior leaders Of the Sangh who are very fond Of me. And there would be some who are less fond.'
The second group clearly felt he was getting too self-important. But he never burned his boats with them and, crucially. when it mattered most in 2013 and 2014, the RSS top brass were among his strongest supporters. convinced that only he could lead the BJP to victory. TO get a balanced and informed assessment Of the RSS and its influence on Modi and the BJP today, I visited the veteran BBC commentator. Mark Tully, at his home in central Delhi. Tully has been observing and writing about Indian politics since the late 1960s: during all that time he has been trying to translate its intricacies for a western audience. One reason, he told why it's wrong to think Of the RSS as a fascist organisation these days is that it is intrinsically hostile to any kind Of authoritarian leadership. 'There is no Mussolini in the RSS and there never has been. There's no Hitler in them, although some people are glibly calling Modi Hitler.
It's always been a reasonably corporate type of leadership and suspicious Of anybody who becomes too big. too important. too well known. And that's why some Of them have been suspicious Of Modi. Some Of them would admit that there is unease that Modi is running away with the show.' As for what they stand for. Tully says the tenets Of Hindu nationalism, known as Hindutva, can't be compared to the extreme nationalism we associate with far-right in the west.
'It is much more to do with culture and a belief that all of Indian culture is Hindu.' Tully is the first to agree, however, that many liberal Hindus, including many of his neighbours in the more comfortable districts of the capital, don't see it that way. To them Hindutva is not an inclusive ideology but one that stirs up hatred against anybody who refuses to accept its precepts During the general election campaign, the BJP did its best to avoid any discussion of Hindutva. it looked as if they were all but certain to win, however, the debate over what relevance it has to the India of today intensified, even if Modi himself refused to get involved.
Ashutosh Varshney, director Of the India Initiative at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, added an academic perspective. He wrote that, Anyone who has read the basic texts of Hindu nationalism knows that three ideas constitute the thematic core of Hindu nationalist ideology First. Hindus are the primary, or exclusive. owners Of the Indian nation. India is a Hindu rashtra (nation). Second, two minorities the Christians and have a profoundly especially the Muslims ambivalent relationship with India.
As Savarkar wrote in Hindutva, a classic text Of Hindu nationalism. Muslims and Christians can call India their pitribhumi (fatherland), but India is not their punyabhumi (holy land).' Most parties carry with them some controversial ideological baggage, so we should not be surprised that Narendra Modi is as reluctant to talk about Hindutva as Labour leaders are to discuss the Marxist and socialist texts that were worshipped by many of their founding fathers.
Fortunately, not all BJP leaders are so reticent. The party HQ, close to Delhi's government district, is a world away from the calm efficiency of the prime minister's residence. The waiting area here is a crowded room, close to the street, where all manner of people hoping for a meeting jostle for attention. The offices beyond are contained in a sprawl of low- level buildings with a constant swirl of comings and goings and an air of purposeful, if somewhat chaotic, activity. I went there for the first time to see the party's official spokesman, Prakash Javadekar. It was his job to deal with the many and varied demands of the media, so his life was lived very much in the here and now. He clearly thought the party had better things to talk about, but he was more than ready to give me his thoughts on Hindutva, insisting that it posed no threat to minority religions in the country today. 'It is a way Of life in India, how Indians live,' he told me. 'It has nothing to do with theocracy, nothing to do with any one religion. Hindutva is a bigger concept. Hindu is a religion, Muslim or Islam is a religion, Christianity is a religion. But Hindutva is an identity, a cultural civilisation, an ethos of India which is shared by everybody. Because Muslims or Christians here have not come from outside, they are Indians. They share the same history, same ancestors, so there is no issue.'
The party's manifesto in 2014 repeated its support for the Concept Of 'one nation, one people and One culture'. Those who see nothing wrong with this formulation point out that most Muslims and Christians in the country are the descendants of people who converted from Hinduism, hoping, in vain as it turned out, to improve their status in society by embracing Islam or Christianity. As the party's most recent historian, Kingshuk Nag,
Islam or Christianity. As the party's most recent historian, Kingshuk Nag, explained, 'Many found this theory Of the BJP abhorrent because it seemed to convey that India was mono-cultural.' Or as Tully puts it. 'They say. "It's 0K, you can be Muslim, but you have to realise that you come originally from Hindu stock." Obviously the Muslims don't like it. They think, "What you're really saying is that I'm not a Muslim at all, I'm a Hindu" ' Time then to resume Modi's life story where we left off.
He was just eight years old when he attended his first RSS meeting and took the oath to become a bal swayamsevak Or child volunteer.
It seems fair to assume that the doctrinal niceties Of who was and was not a Hindu were not uppermost in his mind at the time. But signing up to the RSS was no childhood whim, Nor was it just the Indian equivalent of joining the Boy Scouts. He embraced its rigours of 'renunciation, dedication and hard work' with such enthusiasm and conviction that he became estranged even from his own flesh and blood. It is no exaggeration to say that for much Of his adult life the RSS and Hindu nationalism have been his family. On a personal level, Modi has never been known to deviate from the way of life that full-time RSS volunteers and propagandists, known as pracharaks, are expected to adopt, including that trio of supposed virtues: vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy. As a teenager, Modi remained wedded to traditional teachings that placed such an emphasis on self- denial and the service of others. He even considered entering the priesthood. It came as something of a shock to him. therefore, when in common with most Indian parents, Modi's mother and father arranged first an engagernent and then a marriage for him. It was only when he came to file his papers as a candidate for the general election that Modi finally confirmed publicly that the wedding had taken place and he was, in fact, still married to a woman by the name Of Jashodaben. Even now, Modi refuses to discuss the marriage, but his brother Sombhai says it was 'only a formal ritual' and was never consummated. Rather than follow his parents' wishes, the teenage Modi left home and started the first Of many long periods Of nomadic wandering across all parts Of India, starting Off with the Himalayas. Mother and all Of us were very worried for him,' Sombhai recalled. 'We had no idea where he had disappeared to. Then, two years later, he just turned up one day.' But when his parents tried to
bring him together again with his wife, he packed his bag once more and disappeared. By his own account, 'l could fit all my belongings in a small bundle. I kept wandering for forty/forty five years and I spent Over forty years begging for food. This was the non-political side Of an RSS volunteer, seeking spiritual understanding, spreading the word, helping out in communities, and putting 'self last'. In Britain. candidates who have never known a career outside politics are treated with suspicion, and every Once in a while some prominent MP or another will take time off. usually little more than a week or two, to 'listen to the people'. Forty years would seem to be taking that to extremes, but it belies the idea that Modi was convinced from an early age that it was his destiny to drive around in big cars. It's hard to escape the conclusion that there has to be a bit Of spin in play at this stage in his story. He left home at the age of seventeen, and thirty-five years later he was already chief minister, having previously worked as a BJP organiser in both Gujarat and Delhi. The chief minister's residence might have been his first permanent home, and his wanderings
It's hard to escape the conclusion that there has to be a bit Of spin in play at this stage in his Story. He left home at the age of seventeen, and thirty-five years later he was already chief minister. having previously worked as a BJP organiser in both Gujarat and Delhi. The chief minister's residence might have been his first permanent home, and his wanderings and subsequent political work certainly kept him on the move. but it is stretching things more than a little to claim to have been begging for food for forty years or more. Even if allow for a bit Of embellishment, however, it is undoubtedly the case that Modi came to elected politics relatively late in life and that he did so having seen a great deal of the country he would go on to govern, and not from the windows of a speeding motorcade Over this lengthy period of time. Modi proved beyond doubt his dedication to the cause and capacity for self-sacrifice and hard work. Over time that commitment graduated from the mainly social and community work Of the RSS to the political sphere and to the BJP itself. It was here that he showed his true calling as he honed his skills as a party back-room man. skills that he says later helped him plan and execute his own election. until 1978 1 was behind the curtains but over the years I was picking up skills that were required and this made me a master organiser. This meant I had a strong understanding Of what worked and how to plan. While as yet he had no place on the national stage,
party workers and RSS volunteers from all over the country got to know him or to hear of his reputation, and these people would later be key to his takeover of the leadership. 'Behind the curtains' he might have been, but at one stage he very nearly ended up behind bars. When, following a long period of political unrest, Indira Gandhi suspended democracy in 1975 and declared an Emergency, enabling her to rule by decree, tens of thousands of opposition leaders and activists were imprisoned and the RSS was again banned. Modi narrowly avoided going to jail himself and took to wearing elaborate disguises as he travelled around distributing clandestine propaganda and helping to organise peaceful protests demanding the restoration of democracy. Inevitably it hardened his contempt for Mrs Gandhi and her Congress Party, but it also brought him into contact with activists from other parties outside the narrow world of the Sangh. Writing about his memories of this period on his blog, Modi said: At that time I was a twenty-five-year-old youngster who had recently started working for the RSS but what I witnessed during those dark days remains forever ingrained in my memory. Who can forget the manner in which personal freedom was brutally trampled over?'
That period in his life, he told me, made him more of a democrat. 'l was lucky to work with socialist leaders, I was lucky to work with Islamic organisations, with liberal organisations — so many people. That period was a good period to mould me. Because Of that and the democratic values that I found, it became part Of my DNA. Yes, that was one of the best experiences that I had. I became aware; I understood the constitution, I understood the rights, because before that I was living in a different world,' The Emergency, vfiich lasted for twenty-one months between 1975 and 1977, was the lowest point in Indira Gandhi's career and it taught Modi a great deal about political protest and the essential safeguards of democracy. It pained him greatly that at the lowest point in his own career, a quarter of a century later in 2002, he was accused Of being a demagogue and Of encouraging violent anti-democratic behaviour.
two and six million people. Even at the lowest end, that makes it the second largest political movement in the world after the Chinese Communist party The word 'political' is not inappropriate, despite the fact that most of its supporters are far more comfortable helping out in their communities than engaging in ideological debate. They perform countless good deeds and do a vast amount of work helping the poorest in society, Often ignorant Of the Organisation's history and heedless of the fact that its leadership is so closely entwined in BJP politics. The RSS was founded in 1925 with the aim Of uniting Hindus and opposing British imperialism. Many Of its early leaders were impatient with the passive resistance espoused by Mahatma Gandhi and, not long after Independence was finally won, the RSS was banned for a year as a direct consequence of Gandhi's assassination by one of its former adherents, Nathuram Godse. The organisation was acquitted of any involvement in the murder and Godse had left because he thought it wasn't militant enough. The 'fascist' tag made more sense in the mid- twentieth century than it does today. While it is purely coincidental that the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol (it is a familiar emblem in Buddhist and Jain culture, too, and was used by the ancient Greeks and Celts), during the Second World War some of the RSS's leading lights expressed open admiration for Hitler and his dreams Of racial purity.
Even today, the uniform worn when RSS members corne together every at a shakha, or to perform exercises and recite nationalist slogans, Often while wielding a long stick. is closely on that worn by Mussolini's Blackshirts. In more recent times, however. the RSS leadership has involved itself in democratic politics and bitterly resents any attempt to tarnish the organisation by associating it with fascism. In 1980 it played a key role in establishing the BJP as a vehicle for translating its beliefs into action, and it continues to think of itself as the guardian of Hindu nationalist belief and the ideological conscience of the party. Officially the BJP is independent of the RSS and open to all Indians. but the importance Of the Sangh's vast network Of members cannot be overestimated. It provided many thousands Of the foot soldiers who worked tirelessly at the grassroots level to secure the election Of Modi and his government (see Chapter Twelve). Perhaps the most useful. though incomplete. comparison is the trade union movement in many western democracies.While the unions can cause embarrassment to leaders of the Labour Party in Britain or the Democrats in the United States, for example, especially when they are perceived to be influencing policy, their support is still vital at election time. And, just as with the unions, many outside the ranks of the RSS view it as being a bit of a dinosaur, rather old-fashioned and even irrelevant in the modern world. Worse than that, it is often portrayed as not merely supporting Hindu values. but as being anti-Muslim and anti-Christian. Indeed anti anybody who doesn't believe that all of India should be Hindu. Its defenders, like the journalist Swaminathan Gurumurthy, take a very different view. He believes the RSS has been subjected to endless ignorant abuse and needs to be more objectively assessed. He put it for me like this: 'The RSS is at best an effort to protect Hinduism', In his opinion, Hindu civilisation would be at risk of extinction without it. 'In the world of organised religions and peoples, no unorganised culture or civilisation, or even religion, will survive', he said.
The question as to what degree Narendra Modi still subscribes to the philosophy Of the organisation he grew up vhth took on a new significance when he became prime minister. But the question was not a new one. Another reason why his life story is so important is in order to shed some light on whether India is now governed by a man still committed to an ideology that many of his non-Hindu citizens feel excludes them, or whether he has put it aside in his pursuit of economic development. At the age Of 51, Modi assumed the highest office in his home state, and he soon showed the first signs that he might be ready to distance himself from the ideological dictates Of the Sangh. He presented himself as a thrusting chief minister trying to modernise Gujarat's economy and his own image. But conserving traditional values rather than modernity was the raison d'étre of the RSS and during this period Modi developed something Of a hot and cold relationship with its leadership. As he conceded himself to a recent biographer, 'There are several senior leaders Of the Sangh who are very fond Of me. And there would be some who are less fond.'
The second group clearly felt he was getting too self-important. But he never burned his boats with them and, crucially. when it mattered most in 2013 and 2014, the RSS top brass were among his strongest supporters. convinced that only he could lead the BJP to victory. TO get a balanced and informed assessment Of the RSS and its influence on Modi and the BJP today, I visited the veteran BBC commentator. Mark Tully, at his home in central Delhi. Tully has been observing and writing about Indian politics since the late 1960s: during all that time he has been trying to translate its intricacies for a western audience. One reason, he told why it's wrong to think Of the RSS as a fascist organisation these days is that it is intrinsically hostile to any kind Of authoritarian leadership. 'There is no Mussolini in the RSS and there never has been. There's no Hitler in them, although some people are glibly calling Modi Hitler.
It's always been a reasonably corporate type of leadership and suspicious Of anybody who becomes too big. too important. too well known. And that's why some Of them have been suspicious Of Modi. Some Of them would admit that there is unease that Modi is running away with the show.' As for what they stand for. Tully says the tenets Of Hindu nationalism, known as Hindutva, can't be compared to the extreme nationalism we associate with far-right in the west.
'It is much more to do with culture and a belief that all of Indian culture is Hindu.' Tully is the first to agree, however, that many liberal Hindus, including many of his neighbours in the more comfortable districts of the capital, don't see it that way. To them Hindutva is not an inclusive ideology but one that stirs up hatred against anybody who refuses to accept its precepts During the general election campaign, the BJP did its best to avoid any discussion of Hindutva. it looked as if they were all but certain to win, however, the debate over what relevance it has to the India of today intensified, even if Modi himself refused to get involved.
Ashutosh Varshney, director Of the India Initiative at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, added an academic perspective. He wrote that, Anyone who has read the basic texts of Hindu nationalism knows that three ideas constitute the thematic core of Hindu nationalist ideology First. Hindus are the primary, or exclusive. owners Of the Indian nation. India is a Hindu rashtra (nation). Second, two minorities the Christians and have a profoundly especially the Muslims ambivalent relationship with India.
As Savarkar wrote in Hindutva, a classic text Of Hindu nationalism. Muslims and Christians can call India their pitribhumi (fatherland), but India is not their punyabhumi (holy land).' Most parties carry with them some controversial ideological baggage, so we should not be surprised that Narendra Modi is as reluctant to talk about Hindutva as Labour leaders are to discuss the Marxist and socialist texts that were worshipped by many of their founding fathers.
Fortunately, not all BJP leaders are so reticent. The party HQ, close to Delhi's government district, is a world away from the calm efficiency of the prime minister's residence. The waiting area here is a crowded room, close to the street, where all manner of people hoping for a meeting jostle for attention. The offices beyond are contained in a sprawl of low- level buildings with a constant swirl of comings and goings and an air of purposeful, if somewhat chaotic, activity. I went there for the first time to see the party's official spokesman, Prakash Javadekar. It was his job to deal with the many and varied demands of the media, so his life was lived very much in the here and now. He clearly thought the party had better things to talk about, but he was more than ready to give me his thoughts on Hindutva, insisting that it posed no threat to minority religions in the country today. 'It is a way Of life in India, how Indians live,' he told me. 'It has nothing to do with theocracy, nothing to do with any one religion. Hindutva is a bigger concept. Hindu is a religion, Muslim or Islam is a religion, Christianity is a religion. But Hindutva is an identity, a cultural civilisation, an ethos of India which is shared by everybody. Because Muslims or Christians here have not come from outside, they are Indians. They share the same history, same ancestors, so there is no issue.'
The party's manifesto in 2014 repeated its support for the Concept Of 'one nation, one people and One culture'. Those who see nothing wrong with this formulation point out that most Muslims and Christians in the country are the descendants of people who converted from Hinduism, hoping, in vain as it turned out, to improve their status in society by embracing Islam or Christianity. As the party's most recent historian, Kingshuk Nag,
Islam or Christianity. As the party's most recent historian, Kingshuk Nag, explained, 'Many found this theory Of the BJP abhorrent because it seemed to convey that India was mono-cultural.' Or as Tully puts it. 'They say. "It's 0K, you can be Muslim, but you have to realise that you come originally from Hindu stock." Obviously the Muslims don't like it. They think, "What you're really saying is that I'm not a Muslim at all, I'm a Hindu" ' Time then to resume Modi's life story where we left off.
He was just eight years old when he attended his first RSS meeting and took the oath to become a bal swayamsevak Or child volunteer.
It seems fair to assume that the doctrinal niceties Of who was and was not a Hindu were not uppermost in his mind at the time. But signing up to the RSS was no childhood whim, Nor was it just the Indian equivalent of joining the Boy Scouts. He embraced its rigours of 'renunciation, dedication and hard work' with such enthusiasm and conviction that he became estranged even from his own flesh and blood. It is no exaggeration to say that for much Of his adult life the RSS and Hindu nationalism have been his family. On a personal level, Modi has never been known to deviate from the way of life that full-time RSS volunteers and propagandists, known as pracharaks, are expected to adopt, including that trio of supposed virtues: vegetarianism, teetotalism and celibacy. As a teenager, Modi remained wedded to traditional teachings that placed such an emphasis on self- denial and the service of others. He even considered entering the priesthood. It came as something of a shock to him. therefore, when in common with most Indian parents, Modi's mother and father arranged first an engagernent and then a marriage for him. It was only when he came to file his papers as a candidate for the general election that Modi finally confirmed publicly that the wedding had taken place and he was, in fact, still married to a woman by the name Of Jashodaben. Even now, Modi refuses to discuss the marriage, but his brother Sombhai says it was 'only a formal ritual' and was never consummated. Rather than follow his parents' wishes, the teenage Modi left home and started the first Of many long periods Of nomadic wandering across all parts Of India, starting Off with the Himalayas. Mother and all Of us were very worried for him,' Sombhai recalled. 'We had no idea where he had disappeared to. Then, two years later, he just turned up one day.' But when his parents tried to
bring him together again with his wife, he packed his bag once more and disappeared. By his own account, 'l could fit all my belongings in a small bundle. I kept wandering for forty/forty five years and I spent Over forty years begging for food. This was the non-political side Of an RSS volunteer, seeking spiritual understanding, spreading the word, helping out in communities, and putting 'self last'. In Britain. candidates who have never known a career outside politics are treated with suspicion, and every Once in a while some prominent MP or another will take time off. usually little more than a week or two, to 'listen to the people'. Forty years would seem to be taking that to extremes, but it belies the idea that Modi was convinced from an early age that it was his destiny to drive around in big cars. It's hard to escape the conclusion that there has to be a bit Of spin in play at this stage in his story. He left home at the age of seventeen, and thirty-five years later he was already chief minister, having previously worked as a BJP organiser in both Gujarat and Delhi. The chief minister's residence might have been his first permanent home, and his wanderings
It's hard to escape the conclusion that there has to be a bit Of spin in play at this stage in his Story. He left home at the age of seventeen, and thirty-five years later he was already chief minister. having previously worked as a BJP organiser in both Gujarat and Delhi. The chief minister's residence might have been his first permanent home, and his wanderings and subsequent political work certainly kept him on the move. but it is stretching things more than a little to claim to have been begging for food for forty years or more. Even if allow for a bit Of embellishment, however, it is undoubtedly the case that Modi came to elected politics relatively late in life and that he did so having seen a great deal of the country he would go on to govern, and not from the windows of a speeding motorcade Over this lengthy period of time. Modi proved beyond doubt his dedication to the cause and capacity for self-sacrifice and hard work. Over time that commitment graduated from the mainly social and community work Of the RSS to the political sphere and to the BJP itself. It was here that he showed his true calling as he honed his skills as a party back-room man. skills that he says later helped him plan and execute his own election. until 1978 1 was behind the curtains but over the years I was picking up skills that were required and this made me a master organiser. This meant I had a strong understanding Of what worked and how to plan. While as yet he had no place on the national stage,
party workers and RSS volunteers from all over the country got to know him or to hear of his reputation, and these people would later be key to his takeover of the leadership. 'Behind the curtains' he might have been, but at one stage he very nearly ended up behind bars. When, following a long period of political unrest, Indira Gandhi suspended democracy in 1975 and declared an Emergency, enabling her to rule by decree, tens of thousands of opposition leaders and activists were imprisoned and the RSS was again banned. Modi narrowly avoided going to jail himself and took to wearing elaborate disguises as he travelled around distributing clandestine propaganda and helping to organise peaceful protests demanding the restoration of democracy. Inevitably it hardened his contempt for Mrs Gandhi and her Congress Party, but it also brought him into contact with activists from other parties outside the narrow world of the Sangh. Writing about his memories of this period on his blog, Modi said: At that time I was a twenty-five-year-old youngster who had recently started working for the RSS but what I witnessed during those dark days remains forever ingrained in my memory. Who can forget the manner in which personal freedom was brutally trampled over?'
That period in his life, he told me, made him more of a democrat. 'l was lucky to work with socialist leaders, I was lucky to work with Islamic organisations, with liberal organisations — so many people. That period was a good period to mould me. Because Of that and the democratic values that I found, it became part Of my DNA. Yes, that was one of the best experiences that I had. I became aware; I understood the constitution, I understood the rights, because before that I was living in a different world,' The Emergency, vfiich lasted for twenty-one months between 1975 and 1977, was the lowest point in Indira Gandhi's career and it taught Modi a great deal about political protest and the essential safeguards of democracy. It pained him greatly that at the lowest point in his own career, a quarter of a century later in 2002, he was accused Of being a demagogue and Of encouraging violent anti-democratic behaviour.
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