The Epoch Maker

Modi is entering his 10th year as prime minister. THE WEEK looks at how he has already left his imprint on India's history, forcing a shift in how politics is practised and governance is delivered

- PRATUL SHARMA

In 1995, Narendra Modi shifted base to Delhi from Gujarat after he was made the BJP's general secretary (organisation).

His reputation preceded him, as he had already won accolades for his organisational acumen, scripting victories in his home state. Modi would soon usher in a generational shift in the BJP's collective thinking.

"We heard that he was very interested and well versed in technology, said Manohar Lal Khattar, Haryana chief minister who was the BJP's organisational secretary in the state when Modi moved to Delhi. "One fine morning, he came to us and asked us to take out three boxes from a vehicle. When unpacked, one had what looked like a TV. He told us it was a monitor. This was 28 years ago, when people hardly knew computers."

At Modi's instance, Khattar learnt to work the computer. He fed into it a wealth of party-related information, provoking questions of whether the entire party had been "captured inside it and its key thrown away".

Those were the early days of information technology. Two decades later, Modi brought his fascination of technology to transform governance at the national level.

"Technology has become a powerful tool of empowerment to remove imbalance and promote social justice," Modi said recently. "There was a time when technology was beyond the reach of common citizens and things like debit and credit cards were status symbols. But today, UPI has become a new normal because of its simplicity. Today, India is among the countries with the highest data use."

The use of technology has been the hallmark of Modi's engagement with the people from the party conducting its biggest membership drive, to the prime minister using social media to bypass traditional instruments of communication. Even the biggest benefit of the much-debated demonetisation in 2016 was rapid digitisation of financial transactions.