Narendra Modi - Misplaced Pages

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Narendra Damodardas Modi (born September 17, 1950, Gujarat, India) became the Chief Minister of Gujarat on October 7, 2001.

He was born in Vadnagar, a town in the northern Mehsana district of Gujarat, to a middle-class Hindu family. As a young man, he joined the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. He became a fulltime worker and organiser for it, and was later nominated by it to be a representative on the Bharatiya Janata Party.

He participated in the rise to political dominance of Gujarat by the Bharatiya Janata Party as its elections organiser in the early 1990s, a period which led to its election in 1995. He became Gujarat's Chief Minister in 2001, promoted to that office when his predecessor Keshubhai Patel resigned, following the defeat of the BJP in by-elections.

Gujarat Riots of 2002

Main article: 2002 Gujarat violence

In 2002, when Narendra Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat, violence took place in the state claiming hundreds of lives. While some refer to the violence as riots others refer to it as an anti-Muslim pogrom. Official estimates state that 259 Hindus and more than 1,000 Muslims were killed, with 200 more missing. Many human rights groups put the figure of total killed at beyond 2,000.

Subsequent reports from several independent human rights organisations have claimed that Modi and his ministers instructed Gujarat's police officers not to obstruct the mobs. The National Human Rights Commission criticised the government, pointing to "a comprehensive failure on the part of the State Government of Gujarat to control persistent violations of rights".

These claims have been denied by Modi, and the BJP and its supporters have attacked the reports as being politically motivated. A judicial commission constituted to examine allegations of Gujarat state administration's involvement in the riots of 2002 has twice so far said that there was no evidence "as yet" to implicate either Modi or his administration in the riots.

Despite the allegations against him, Modi won the elections to the state legislature conducted soon after the violence.

He was refused a United States visa in 2005. This was for alleged violation of religious freedom. The matter brought a protest to the United States from the central government in Delhi.

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