(The article was originally published in Indian Express as a part of Dr Ram Madhav’s column titled Ram Rajya on September 18, 2026. Views expressed are personal.)
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power”, Abraham Lincoln famously said. Political power is like a delicate flower, a sharp knife and a precious diamond. It needs to be handled gently and diligently. Many falter in power. But one leader stood out and that was Narendra Modi.
Modi came from the ideological school that taught him the song – ‘path ka antim lakshya nahi hai simhasan chadte jaana’ – ‘ascension to power is not the ultimate aim of our journey’, but it is ‘sab samaj ko liye saath me aage hai badhte jaana’ (marching ahead by carrying the entire society with you) and ‘safal Rashtra ka Anupam Vaibhav sabhi bhanti se hai laana’ (bringing about the ultimate glory of the successful nation in all respects). As he completes 25 years in public service, first in Gandhinagar and later in Delhi, it is this vision and mission that guided Modi’s politics.
A couple of years after the formation of the Modi Government in 2014, we passed a resolution at the National Executive of the party which asserted that “we are not here merely for reform. Reform is good, but it is largely about tinkering the existing system. PM Modi’s vision is transformative”. In the West, it is said that “a society gets a government it deserves”. But in the Shanti Parv of Mahabharat, Bhishma tells Yudhistir that “Raja Kaalasya Kaaranam”, meaning “the king is the master of the times”. Modi implemented that transformative agenda. There are two ways of doing that – one prescribed by Machiavelli, the Italian statesman of the 16th Century, and the other professed by Kautilya, a scholar minister in India of the 3rd Century BCE. Machiavelli, in his famous book The Prince, proposed that “a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good”. But Kautilya, on the other hand, argued that the happiness of a king lies in the happiness of his subjects. He insisted that the ruler must be disciplined and compassionate. “The king who has no control over his senses will soon perish” he warned insisting that a ruler should necessarily abide by Dharma.
This discourse is important to understand the political philosophy of the Modi Government. In calling for a month-long campaign of “Seva Sankalp” – commitment to service – on the occasion of the completion of 25 years in public office, Modi demonstrated his commitment to Kautilyan principles. ‘Seva’ is a uniquely Indian concept, which the English word ‘service’ fails to comprehend fully. That’s why the Oxford Dictionary had made a separate entry for the word ‘Seva’ in 2024, defining it as “selfless service; the action or practise of rendering service to others…”. Where the word ‘service’ is seen broadly as an altruistic civic duty of a giver towards a taker, ‘Seva’ is a spiritual concept that helps in self-purification and elimination of ego, in which the giver is just a human while the receiver is regarded as the divine. The concept of Nar Seva (serving humans) as Narayan Seva (serving the God) is integral to Indian thinking.
Modi’s governance is based on that spiritual idea of serving the society with devotion. Bhishma’s Raj Dharma talks about three qualities of a transformative ruler – saahas (courage), samvedna (compassion) and samadrishti(equanimity). Modi demonstrated these qualities abundantly in his governance. The nation witnessed his courage and compassion on several occasions, especially during his handling of the Covid crisis. His equanimity is evident in his endurance of the extreme levels of slander, insults and criticism, never allowing them to impact his governance and objectives.
Confucius, the renowned Chinese philosopher, was once asked a tricky question by his disciple. When you are slapped on one cheek, should you show the other cheek as some say or you should respond in a way that “for one tooth, the entire jaw”? Should one do good to those who do bad unto him, or one should respond to the evil doer in the same coin? Confucius responds with a counter question: If you do good to those who do bad unto you, what do you do to those who do good unto you? His answer was: you should always do good to those who do good to you; but don’t do bad to those who do bad to you; give them justice. Justice is a higher idea that calls for a great sense of righteousness and equanimity. Modi’s governance personified that justice.
Sometime ago, an article in the prestigious Forbes magazine enumerated eight qualities of a successful leader: honesty, communication skills, confidence, commitment, positive attitude, innovation, intuition, and inspiring. If a leader possesses several of these qualities, he will be a good leader. But if a leader possesses all of them, he will be Narendra Modi.
