Everyone is talking about Narendra Modi’s birthday – Sept 17th, 2025. Most analysts are talking about ‘positive’ aspects and achievements. But let us also take a closer look at some of his limitations and mistakes.
The Govt has often been 'careless' and would leave the sleeping dog .... 'not bark'.
::::: But some how close shave for Narendra Modi !!
The objective analysis is key to many things. Let us see how things moved. Under his regime there have been a few odd instances and quite serious ones. People stirred the communal cauldron in India.
As an example, we can refer to Karnataka where a few years ago there was a row over Muslim girls wearing the hijab. The BJP’s critics say this was done in 2022 with an eye on state polls in Uttar Pradesh
Take a closer view. The power of Indian electorate is not something gauged even by India's best poll strategist – that is Mr Narendra Modi himself.
Well, it is certainly not understood by many in the Congress and Rahul Gandhi himself. Is India’s grand old party solely banking afresh on the vote choir charge for revival?
But this may not happen.
Rahul Gandhi seems to love the word 'chor and chori'. In 2019 – Rahul raised slogan ‘Chowkidar Chor hae’. It backfired.
In 2024, when Narendra Modi said he is 'sent' by God, the Congress called it “purely political". Importantly, they also said - Modi is aware this would go down well during poll season. But ultimately it did not. The BJP strength in Lok Sabha came down to 240 from 303.
India's rich-poor divide is widening
It goes without stating that the elite one percent in India corner benefits of economic reforms, said one World Inequality Report a few years back. PM Modi has pushed welfarism and yet the system needs lot of changes. The government control on so many things of life of common people still remain very strong. The ease of doing business and ‘ease of living’ are yet to help the common citizens.
For example, KYC data updating of banks is one notorious thing and is much disturbing for day to day life – the Prime Minister must address these small issues. In 2024, during the peak of electioneering season, Narendra Modi said: he is "God sent” and that the energy he musters during his election campaign does not come from his “biological body”.
Rightly, it invited ridicule and such things should have been avoided by Modi – who is even otherwise very popular and is rated highly as a ‘performer’.. Looking back; in 2024, Modi said: "After my mother passed away, upon reflecting on all my experiences, I was convinced that God had sent me”.
“This energy could not be from my biological body but was bestowed upon me by God... whenever I do anything, I believe God is guiding me... I am nobody, I am just an instrument,” he added. Opposition Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said an average person saying this would be asked to “go see a psychiatrist.”
Congress chief spokesman Jairam Ramesh said Modi’s remarks reflect “an unprecedented level of delusion and arrogance.” But many BJP leaders tried defending the prime minister by calling him “the epitome of hard work and dedication”.
A woman stands on the balcony of a residential building with cut-outs of India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi and God Ram, in Ahmedabad - 2024 before general elections
“He can work hard... He can address two rallies, participate in two road shows in the summer heat, and then return to Delhi and give full-scale TV interviews to senior journalists," said BJP leader Sanju Verma.
Guwahati-based political analyst Ashutosh Talukdar believes that India’s English media and their Western counterparts will be mistaken if they try interpreting what Modi said through a Christian idiom. “Jesus is believed to be the son of God. Modi is nowhere saying so,” he said.
Talukdar stressed that the Prime Minister was addressing his countrymen, who believe “everything happens as destined by God and humans are merely an instrument or excuse.
So, whatever is happening, or whatever I [Modi] am doing, is God’s wish.”
Modi's extremely shrewd appeal was and always is to encourage Indians to vote for his party and thus contribute to fulfilling God’s will.
A BJP leader in West Bengal, who did not want to be named, said comparing a leader with gods or goddesses was nothing new in India. He reminded how Idris Ali, a parliamentarian from Trinamool Congress had compared his leader and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning.
After the creation of Bangladesh in the 1970s when India defeated the Pakistan army, the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was compared to Durga, the Hindu goddess known as a slayer of evil, by her political rival Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Vidyarthi Kumar in Varanasi said Modi understands the importance of religion in India, especially among Hindus. “It is true that God and religion are dominant themes of the BJP’s politics,” Kumar explained.
Modi promoted Hinduism – deliberately:
That PM Narendra Modi is pro-Hindutva is a well known fact.
He has almost legitimised the slogan 'Jai Shri Ram'. Today it’s a salutation even on Whatsapp. Perhaps the RSS’s 'mindset' on caste and social justice has changed over the decades. In 2015, Mohan Bhagwat called for a review of the Reservation policy. In the process, the BJP paid a heavy price electorally in Bihar.
Now both the BJP and the RSS are all defending the continuation of the reservation policy. Modi has even agreed to Rahul Gandhi's demand for caste census. But overall the society and polity in India is deeply Polarised.
This polarisation is also reflected in Hindu assertion.
Either you are pro-Modi or you are impressed by Rahul Gandhi's 'vote chori' charge.
Either you are pro-Hindutva or maybe you are anti-Hindu.
In 2014, after the Congress debacle, a noted Christian leader in the grand old party A K Antony said that the party has already got a tag 'anti-Hindu' and that has completely eroded its support base.
In Manipur’s ethnic clashes since May 2023; more than 220 people, most of them Christians, have died.
Kukis tribal Christians have been fighting Meitei Hindus since May 3, 2024. Christians account for 41 percent of the hilly state’s 3.6 million population.
Since 2021, Christian-majority Mizoram has been witnessing the arrival of migrants from Myanmar after the coup of the civilian government by the Myanmar military. Myanmar, the world’s largest opium-producing nation, shares borders with Mizoram's three districts -- Hnahthial, Champhai and Lawngtlai.
Of course, the ethnic divisions in northeast are far more complex than it is merely understood. But a Government in office and a Prime Minister of Modi’s calibre was expected to handle these things better.
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The Myanmar coup took place in 2021 and the fighting also started. India should have handled boundary security much better. The fact that a large number of ethnic tribals (close to Kukis and Zo people) came to Manipur from Myanmar is also a bitter truth.
Various security agencies and the state government in Manipur under BJP should have handled the situation better.
There have been Global concerns over ‘Modi-fication’ of Indian elections.
Western governments, institutions and media appeared doubtful whether the ‘Mother of Democracy’ has been in good shape. Some of it is not without good reason even as Modi-bashing has been a favourite pass time of some western organisations.
India in 2024 conducted the world’s biggest election and Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought a record third consecutive term in office. Here is an example one was referring to. In an editorial, London’s popular daily, ‘The Guardian’ had asked Indians to “think hard” about re-electing Modi.
BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta, also a former journalist, had reacted sharply. “If the June 4 (2024) results lead to the BJP decimating the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress party yet again, Modi’s overseas critics will likely team up with India’s opposition to question the legitimacy of the triumph”.
Many like him in the BJP ecosystem believed that the Western media's larger objective was to sow doubts in the minds of business leaders and political decision-makers about India’s success story.
Dasgupta had further argued: “Modi is the real target (2024) and by tarring him with the brush of autocracy, his critics hope to envelop him in yet another murky controversy.”
Then a surprise warning about Washington wanting to “unbalance the internal political situation in India and complicate the general election” came from Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. “America continues to make ‘unfounded accusations’ about religious freedoms” and is also being “disrespectful” towards India, she said.
Though they come from different backgrounds, President Vladimir Putin and Modi have always had a good personal rapport. This was proved again in 2025.
For his part, Narendra Modi has described his Hindu nationalist government as a “Vishwamitra”, or "friend of the world”.
In 2025, India’s diplomacy came under scanner after Trump played his tariff card. But in short, it is unlikely any major player in the comity of nations including China can ignore the new, confident India under Modi’s leadership.
But the old stories are also important episodes of life and geo-politics. In 2005, the US had denied a visa to Narendra Modi for his alleged complicity in 2002 anti-Muslim ethnic violence in western Gujarat state. But the paradox is in 2014, when Modi became prime minister, President Barack Obama received him with his native Gujarati salutation Kemchho (How are you).
In subsequent period, Modi’s relationship with Donald Trump and later Joe Biden also grew stronger. US Secretary of State under Biden administration; Antony Blinken had called Indo-US ties as an “extraordinary success story”.
In 2025, it almost collapsed. But corrective steps have been taken and Trump did call up his friend Modi in Delhi to wish him on his 75th birthday.
There were other problems too. The US officials in December 2023 claimed to have foiled a plot to assassinate an American on US soil for advocating a Sikh separatist state back home in India. Earlier, the then Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused India of involvement in the assassination of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil.
Last year, Dr S Jaishankar, a close Modi aide and India’s plain-speaking foreign minister felt that -- “these noises from the Western press” are only “because they lack information”. He also alleged the western press and a few organisations “think” they are also political players in Indian elections.
Jaishankar further suggested, "It’s time today that we disabuse them, and the best way we do that is by confidence.”
Sanjay Das, a Congress leader from Meghalaya state in the northeast region, felt it is never easy to connect the dots.
“However, Russia’s statement about US interference in Indian elections in 2024 may be a case in point to suggest that ‘India's Putin, Modi,’ is this time getting help and moral support from Russian czar Vladimir Putin.”
And since Russia is no democracy, the Congress fear was— India's parliamentary democracy may face some challenges.
The unsavory nexus between criminals and politicians is a permanent slur and exists across political lines and regions of India. “Criminalization of politics essentially means politicization of criminals and therefore is a serious matter that threatens the essence of our democracy,” says political analyst Ramakanto Shanyal.
The bigger worry is that this menace is often encouraged and exploited in democratic India.
Ends
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