Narendra Modi is the most nationalist prime minister India has ever seen. Why against Muslims? What kind of environment did he grow up in, how did he become prime minister? Here is his story:
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was born on September 17, 1950 in the town of Vadnagar, Gujarat, India to a Hindu family. His family was an oil-making family and belonged to a below-middle caste in the caste system in India.
After graduating from high school in Vadnagar in 1967, Modi was married by his parents in 1968, but left his wife the following year.
Modi, who participated in the Bangladesh War in 1971 in Hindu volunteer battalions, wanted the annexation of Bangladesh by India. But at the end of 1971, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the withdrawal of the Indian army and Hindu volunteer battalions from Bangladesh.
Modi, who reluctantly withdrew from Bangladesh, therefore opposed Indira Gandhi and took part in various opposition parties. Modi, who also received a university education, graduated from Delhi University, Faculty of Political Science in 1978. According to his relatives, Modi started to shift more and more towards Hindu and Gujarati nationalism during his university years.
After participating in various Indira Gandhi opposition formations, Modi settled on the Hindu nationalist 'Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Organisation)', and in 1978 became one of its leading directors. He played a critical role in the transformation of this formation into the 'Bharatiya Janata Party' (Indian People's Party) in 1980. Modi became the vice president of this new party.
The BJP was spreading propaganda that the Hindu majority in India was oppressed and needed to be raised up, and was accused of spreading hate speech against religious minorities and especially Muslims.
After the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, India went to parliamentary elections. BJP was able to win only 2 MPs in these elections. Modi, who was a candidate in these elections, could not enter the parliament. In the 1989 parliamentary elections, the BJP, including Modi, won 85 deputies and came to power. The BJP prompted the government to increase pressure on Muslims, threatening to withdraw support.
BJP continued to be the ruling partner as the second party with 20.1% of the votes in the 1991 elections. BJP, which was sometimes second and sometimes first by a small margin, continued to be the ruling partner in the elections that were repeated frequently with the disintegration of the coalitions in the following period. During these periods, Modi was always the second man in BJP.
The earthquake that occurred on January 26, 2001 in the state of Gujarat, Modi's birthplace, killed approximately 25,000 people and caused a political crisis in the state. Modi then aspired to the presidency of Gujarat, and he achieved this goal in October 2001.
On February 27, 2002, while Modi was ruling Gujarat, an explosion occurred at Gujarat's Godra railway station on a train carrying Gujarati Hindus returning from a Hindu festival in the state of Uttar Pradesh. It was announced that the explosion was carried out with a bomb and 59 people were killed.
After this explosion, Modi claimed that the Muslims in the state carried out the attack and incited the Gujarati Hindus against the Muslims who make up 10-15% of the state's population.
Upon Modi's provocations, attacks and massacres of Hindus against Muslims began with the participation of BJP in the organization throughout the state. According to official figures, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed in the events that lasted until 9 March. Houses and shops of Muslims were looted, 150 thousand Muslims were driven from their homes, 230 mosques were destroyed.
In the case where the train explosion and these subsequent attacks were combined, many Muslims and Hindus were punished, while Modi, who was seen as the instigator of the events, was not put on trial. In the following months of 2002, Modi tried to justify the massacre of Muslims by stating that he saw it as a "reaction to action".
Modi's premiership of Gujarat lasted until 2014, when he became prime minister of the entire country. During his tenure, Modi instilled anti-Muslim and Hindu nationalism in Hindus in the state, while increasing repression against Muslims in Gujarat.
In September 2013, it was announced that the BJP will go to the parliamentary elections, which will be held in April 2014, under the leadership of Modi. BJP and Modi effectively won the April 2014 elections with 31% of the vote. BJP and Modi came to power alone, with the advantage of the electoral system for the winner.
Modi made promises of economic development and the fight against poverty at the beginning of his rule. However, as India's economic growth slowed during the Modi era, poverty began to increase rapidly with the effects of the pandemic that started in 2020.
From the beginning of his rule, Modi used a Hindu nationalist and anti-Muslim language not seen since India's independence. Some experts considered this to be an attempt to overshadow Modi's economic failure by drawing the attention of the Hindu majority out of poverty to "manufactured enemies, Muslims".
With Modi's provocative rhetoric, there has been a huge increase in oppression and attacks against Muslims throughout India, which has around 300 million Muslims out of a population of 1.4 billion. Modi's anti-Islam rhetoric, which incited radical Hinduism, drew reaction not only among Indian Muslims but around the world.
In the parliamentary election held in April 2019, the BJP led by Modi maintained its power by increasing the vote to 37%. But as the economic and social problems in the country escalated after 2019, the polls show that the BJP may lose the next election.