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Early life and education

Narendra Damodardas Modi was born on 17 September 1950 to a Gujarati Hindu family of oil presser (Modh-Ghanchi) which is an Other Backward Class (OBC) category in Vadnagar, Mehsana district, Bombay State (present-day Gujarat). He was the third of six children born to Damodardas Mulchand Modi (c. 1915–1989) and Hiraben Modi (1923–2022).

Modi had infrequently worked as a child in his father's tea business on the Vadnagar railway station platform, according to Modi and his neighbours.

Modi completed his higher secondary education in Vadnagar in 1967; his teachers described him as an average student and a keen, gifted debater with an interest in theatre. He preferred playing larger-than-life characters in theatrical productions, which has influenced his political image.

When Modi was eight years old, he was introduced to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and began attending its local shakhas (training sessions). There, he met Lakshmanrao Inamdar, who inducted Modi as a balswayamsevak (junior cadet) in the RSS and became his political mentor. While Modi was training with the RSS, he also met Vasant Gajendragadkar and Nathalal Jaghda, Bharatiya Jana Sangh leaders who in 1980 helped found the BJP's Gujarat unit. As a teenager, he was enrolled in the National Cadet Corps.

In a custom traditional to Narendra Modi's caste, his family arranged a betrothal to Jashodaben Chimanlal Modi, leading to their marriage when she was 17 and he was 18. Soon afterwards, he abandoned his wife, and left home. The couple never divorced but the marriage was not in his public pronouncements for many decades. In April 2014, shortly before the national election in which he gained power, Modi publicly affirmed he was married and that his spouse was Jashodaben. A Modi biographer wrote that Modi kept the marriage a secret because he would not have been able to become a pracharak in the RSS, for which celibacy had once been a requirement.

Modi spent the following two years travelling across northern and north-eastern India. In interviews, he has described visiting Hindu ashrams founded by Swami Vivekananda: the Belur Math near Kolkata, the Advaita Ashrama in Almora and the Ramakrishna Mission in Rajkot. His stays at each ashram were brief because he lacked the required college education. Vivekananda has had a large influence in Modi's life.

In mid 1968, Modi reached Belur Math but was turned away, after which he visited Calcutta, West Bengal and Assam, stopping in Siliguri and Guwahati. He then went to the Ramakrishna Ashram in Almora, where he was again rejected, before returning to Gujarat via Delhi and Rajasthan in 1968 to 1969. In either late 1969 or early 1970, he returned to Vadnagar for a brief visit before leaving again for Ahmedabad, where he lived with his uncle and worked in his uncle's canteen at Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation.

In Ahmedabad, Modi renewed his acquaintance with Inamdar, who was based at the Hedgewar Bhavan (RSS headquarters) in the city. Modi's first-known political activity as an adult was in 1971 when he joined a Jana Sangh Satyagraha in Delhi led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee to enlist to fight in the Bangladesh Liberation War. The Indira Gandhi -led central government prohibited open support for the Mukti Bahini; according to Modi, he was briefly held in Tihar Jail. After the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Modi left his uncle's employment and became a full-time pracharak (campaigner) for the RSS, working under Inamdar. Shortly before the war, Modi took part in a non-violent protest in New Delhi against the Indian government, for which he was arrested; because of this arrest, Inamdar decided to mentor Modi. According to Modi, he was part of a Satyagraha that led to a political war.

In 1978, Modi received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in political science from the School of Open Learning at the Delhi University. In 1983, he received a Master of Arts (MA) degree in political science from Gujarat University, graduating with a first class as an external distance learning student. There is a controversy surrounding the authenticity of his BA and MA degrees.