From tea boy to India’s Prime Minister

As a young boy, Narendra Damodardas Modi helped his dad serve tea in Gujarat’s Vadnagar railway station. At the age of 63, and as leader of India’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, he has become the prime minister of the world’s largest democracy.

Born on September 17, 1950, into a low-caste family running a small business, his interest in politics was sparked at an early age: At eight, Modi associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS, a powerful Hindu nationalist group which rejected secularism and wanted Hinduism enshrined in the Indian constitution. This policy, Hindutva, remains at the core of the BJP.

It was a logical step when Modi joined the BJP in 1985, as the party licked its wounds after winning just two seats in a disastrous showing in 1984 the Lok Sabha elections.

He rose steadily through the ranks, and was inducted into the national executive in 1991 after aiding Murli Manohar Joshi, a party senior, in his ekta yatra (unity journey) to bolster support.

Four years later, and now a stalwart, Modi worked hard behind the scenes to secure the party victory in Gujarat elections.

Despite his association with Joshi, it was LK Advani, the BJP’s most revered leader, who became his chief political mentor.

“It was Advani who mentored Modi when he virtually handpicked him into his team of state apparatchiks after recommendations from a few trusted peers in the late 1980s,” writes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay in Modi’s biography, Narendra Modi: The man, the Times.