Did you know Prime Minister Narendra Modi threatened to pull India out of the Group of 20 (G20) nations? This was revealed by none other than India’s G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant at a book release event in Delhi on Friday. As ‘Power Within: The Leadership Legacy of Narendra Modi’ was being released at the Pradhanmantri Sangrahalaya, the former CEO of Niti Aayog recalled many personal anecdotes involving the Prime Minister while discussing leadership — the theme of the book.
“At the time (2023 G20 summit in India) we were passing through a situation of the Russia-Ukraine war…There were 300 hours of negotiations and 16 drafts. The Prime Minister was getting reports every two hours,” recollected Kant. He also mentioned how everyone’s concerns were addressed and India was even at the last moment balancing the demands of the United States and China due to their strained relationship.
“The Prime Minister came to Bharat Mandapam around eight in the morning. I was detailing the process. He cut me short asking about the result. When I briefed him, the Prime Minister was clear; he wanted a consensus — a joint declaration. Else, India would be pulling out of G20,” revealed Kant.
He also divulged that two hours ahead of the joint declaration, there were hiccups, but India managed to achieve the impossible. “It was just because of the stature and standing of the Prime Minister,” Kant said.
Ajay Piramal of the Piramal Group who released the book by Dr Ramaswami Balasubramaniam (Dr Balu) recalled how in 2013, when Narendra Modi was announced as the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP, he held a five-hour marathon meeting with economists and industry experts to learn about India’s financial state of affairs and the ideal way forward. He joked that while many took a break, Modi didn’t.
This is not just another book on the Prime Minister, nor a biography. This is probably the first book of its kind, where the leadership’s “to-do list” is being discussed with anecdotes from PM Modi’s life.
Debjani Ghosh, chairman of NASSCOM, reminded during a panel discussion at the book release how India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) has changed to challenge the status quo where companies like Googe and Paytm happily participate. Kant pitched in to recount another anecdote on what took India’s digital payment system to where it is today. “It was after demonetisation when I got a call from the Prime Minister saying, ‘Digital payments ko push karein’. He asked us to hold 100 digital melas in 100 days in 100 cities. But that was extremely tough. I requested the Prime Minister thrice during a slideshow to reconsider this. Each time he refused to listen. Today the number of digital transactions we do, it is because of his being insistent on holding 100 digital melas in 100 days in 100 cities. It’s his vision,” he said.
Ajay Piramal conceded that more reforms are required including in the judicial system, but he also accepted that “no other country has the growth that we do”. However, he stressed the importance of bridging the gap of inequality of which the Modi Sarkar is mindful. “Any Prime Minister has so many things to worry about. But he was thinking about 112 most under-developed districts of India and pulling them up. That’s leadership,” he said.
Debjani Ghosh discussed artificial intelligence and how it may create a new divide between haves and have-nots. IIM Bangalore’s Prof B Mahadevan spoke on leadership quality that requires both empathy and firmness, borrowing examples from the Gita. “I often cite why Arjuna failed as a leader because he failed within. This book talks about that aspect,” he said.
Dr Balu, who authored the book, revealed how it came into being. He was thinking about leadership qualities and met his mentor, a saint, to discuss it, which is when he suggested studying the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s life from his early years. How PM Modi went from Ramakrishna Ashram to the highest office embodies an Indic sense of leadership that Dr Balu hopes he will be able to teach a generation of new civil servants, who will have the “power within”.
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