In Bharat, a mother’s word is a child’s first constitution. An oath is sworn in a moment. A promise to a mother is kept for a lifetime. That takes character.
Gujarat lay in rubble. Duty called a karyakarta . Before taking charge, he went first to his mother. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself placed her words on record: “First, you will always work for the poor, and second, you will never take a bribe. His devoted service to Bharat spans more than six decades. Milestones are counted in years. Leadership is measured in trust. So let the record speak, one promise at a time. The second promise is rarer in our politics, and easier to test. No house. No land. No car. Time and again, the savings from his own salary have gone the same way, to charity. An affidavit is public life’s most unforgiving document. He built the same probity into the system. Bharat remembers what he replaced: the 2G, coal, and CWG era, a UPA government synonymous with the worst form of corruption, cronyism, and policy paralysis. Through DBT, the whole rupee now reaches the hand it was meant for. Motivated persons in the opposition called him names; one even put those words in the Supreme Court’s mouth, and had to apologise unconditionally. Clean hands were a mother’s condition, and he has abided by it devoutly. Seva is not his slogan. It is his whole life. For three decades before he held any office, he served as a pracharak , and during the Emergency, he went underground, in disguise, to defend the democracy he would one day lead. Then came the Chief Minister who rebuilt Kutch and Gujarat, and the Prime Minister who bowed at the steps of Parliament and worked as Pradhan Sevak. Rajpath became Kartavya Path, and his office left the colonial South Block for an address called Seva Teerth. When a man has lived seva for six decades, even the buildings around him learn the word. Democracy is the one court whose verdict no public man can appeal. He has never been refused. In March, he became the longest-serving head of an elected government in India’s history, and in June, our longest continuously serving elected Prime Minister. Between the two, Bengal elected its first BJP government. Trust that endures this long is not luck. It is earned, ballot after ballot.
The 2001 earthquake broke Bhuj. He took the oath of office on October 7, 2001. This October 7, he will complete 25 continuous years of public service in the high offices of Chief Minister and Prime Minister. On his birthday, September 17, the nation marks the occasion the only way he would wish, with a season of seva. At Varanasi in 2024, the head of government of the world’s most populous nation and fourth-biggest world economy declared on oath that his immovable assets were nil. Leaving Gandhinagar in 2014, he gave Rs 21 lakh of his savings to educate the daughters of the Gujarat government staff, and the Rs 89.96 crore raised by auctioning every gift of his Chief Ministership went to girls’ education. His, after more than 25 years in power, reads like a sage’s. Rajiv Gandhi lamented that of every rupee Delhi sent, barely 15 paise reached the poor. Six times he has stood before it as his party’s face, in Gujarat in 2002, 2007, and 2012, across India in 2014, 2019, and 2024.
She knew little of his work, she told him, and sought only two things.
