Narendra Modi Life Story

Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a family of grocers belonging to the backward Ghanchi-Teli (oil-presser) community, in Vadnagar in Mehsana district of what was then Bombay Presidency (present-day Gujarat), India.[ He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi and his wife, Heeraben. He helped his father sell tea at Vadnagar railway station when a child and as a teenager he ran a tea stall with his brother near a bus terminus. He completed his schooling in Vadnagar, where a teacher described him as being an average student, but a keen debater who had an interest in theatre. That interest has influenced how he now projects himself in politics.

Modi's parents arranged his marriage as a child, in keeping with the traditions of the Ghanchi caste. He was engaged at the age of 13 to Jashodaben Chimanlal and the couple were married by the time he was 18. They spent very little time together and were soon estranged because Modi decided to pursue an itinerant life. However as per Modi's biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, the marriage was never consummated. Having remained silent on the question of marriage in four previous election campaigns, and having claimed that his status as a single person meant that he had no reason to be corrupt, Modi acknowledged Jashodaben as his legal spouse when filling in his nomination form for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Little is known of the two years that Modi spent travelling, probably in the Himalayas, and he resumed selling tea upon his return. He then worked in the staff canteen of Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation until he became a full–time pracharak (propagandist) of the RSS in 1970. He had been involved with the RSS as a volunteer from the age of eight and had come into contact with Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, leaders of the Jan Sangh who later founded the BJP's Gujarat state unit. After Modi had received some RSS training in Nagpur, which was a prerequisite for taking up an official position in the Sangh Parivar, he was given charge of Sangh's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in Gujarat. Modi organised agitations and covert distribution of Sangh's pamphlets during the Emergency. Modi graduated with an extramural degree through Distance Education in political science from Delhi University. Modi remained a pracharak in the RSS while he completed his Master's degree in political science from Gujarat University.