MANN KI BAAT: DIALOGUE OF HOPE AND EMPOWERMENT

It was October 2014, and a new Prime Minister had settled into his South Block office.

- MADHAV NALAPAT

Unlike many of his predecessors, Narendra Modi came from a humble background, and had spent years of his life moving across the country by bus or train, carrying his possessions with him from place to place. In the process, he met countless people, experienced their culture, attitudes to life and a medley of vegetarian cuisine. Those years were for him a preparation for what was to come. In 2001, seeing the quiet way in which he went about the work assigned to him by the BJP, its central leadership decided to put the key western state of Gujarat under his care. His predecessor, Keshubhai Patel, had lost his steam, and was content to coast along at a slower and slower pace, dragging the favorability rating of the BJP ever lower. The Congress Party was at the time entrenched within each part of the state, and was sensing that the BJP was vulnerable. Once made Chief Minister, Modi fought and won the Rajkot Assembly seat, and it was found that the share of the Muslim vote in his victory was much more than was the case for other BJP candidates. There was something about this individual, who was steeped in the best form of knowledge about a society, that gained by participation and experience in that society. His securing an unexpectedly large proportion of the Muslim vote in Rajkot tolled warning bells for the Congress Party, which had long regarded that vote as being securely in its corner. Just months after taking over as Chief Minister, a group of rioters set fire to the compartment of a train that was filled with those who had gone to Ayodhya to carry forward their long-cherished dream of rebuilding the Ram Mandir at the site of Lord Ram's birth, the earlier shrine having been demolished on the instructions of Emperor Aurangzeb. The sight of the pilgrims being burnt alive set free passions that in Gujarat had never been far from the surface, and for a couple of days, there were uncontrollable paroxysms of violence. It was not the first or the worst such riot that