Success lies in how I prepare my team for the future: PM in debut podcast

In his podcast debut, released on Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he considers the benchmark of his success would be to shape an able team that will deftly handle things in the years to come, and spoke of his enormous faith in the country’s youth.

 

In an over two-hour long podcast, hosted by Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, the PM spoke on an array of issues, such as his personal and leadership goals, including those for his third term in office. When Kamath asked him if he has planned for the time beyond him, training those he has faith in, not for today but after 20-30 years, Modi said, “When I was in Gujarat, I would say that I want to go after preparing (team) for the next 20 years. I am doing it. My success lies in how I prepare my team who will be able to deftly handle things. This is my benchmark for me."

 

The PM identified the US refusing him a visa in 2005, when he was the Gujarat chief minister, as a “setback” not for him personally, since he had visited the US previously and had as such no desire to visit it, but an “insult” to a democratically elected government, a state, and a nation. He said at a press conference that day he said that there will soon be a time when the world would queue up to get an Indian visa. “India’s time has arrived. I can see that happening,” the PM said.

 

Modi stressed his ideological moorings of “nation first”, which allows him to discard obsolete ideas and embrace new ones as long as they are in the nation’s interest. He attributed to his good fortune that he has to live out of his comfort zone, and has enormous risk-taking capacity, which he believed has not been fully utilised yet. “I have an enormous risk-taking capacity because I do not care about myself,” he said.

 

To Kamath’s question how he dealt with anxiety, the PM said that in his position, earlier as the CM of Gujarat and now as the PM, he has tried to detach himself from emotions, and rise above the natural tendencies of human beings at such junctures. In this context, he spoke of the counting day of the December 2002 Gujarat Assembly polls, which he said was the biggest test of his life. Modi had become the state’s CM the previous year. He also spoke of the February 2002 Godhra train burning day and the serial bomb blasts that hit Ahmedabad in July 2008 as some other such moments.

 

Modi said it has been his life's mantra that he may make mistakes but will not do anything wrong out of bad intentions. “When I became the CM, I said I will not spare any effort to work hard. I will not do anything for myself. And, thirdly, I am human and I can make mistakes. But I will not do anything wrong out of bad intentions. I have made it a mantra of my life. Mistakes are inevitable. I must have made mistakes. I am a human too, not a god," he said.

 

The PM said his vision was to ensure 100 per cent delivery of services to beneficiaries without any discrimination, which was “true social justice and true secularism”. Modi described himself as not a typical politician, and his time is mostly spent on governance. "I have to make political speeches during elections. It is my compulsion. I don’t like it but I have to do it,” he said.

 

Modi said his thrust on “minimum government, maximum governance” was misinterpreted by some people who thought it meant fewer ministers or government employees. In the last 10 years, his government has repealed over 1,500 archaic laws and junked 40,000 compliances, he said.

 

About his personal life, the PM said he was an average student in school and expressed his disappointment at his father refusing to send him to a Sainik school for lack of money. He said he was not a foodie.

 

Recognised for his oratory, Modi stressed that communication is more important than oratorical skills and pointed to the example of Mahatma Gandhi, saying that he lived such a life which did the "talking" for him and rallied the nation behind him during the freedom movement.

 

To the PM’s comment that he is human and not god, and can commit mistakes, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh posted on X: "This from a man who proclaimed his non-biological status just eight months back. This is clearly damage control.”