Prime Minister Narendra Modi will remember 2022 with mixed feelings. While the year saw a phenomenal rise in his stature as a politician and statesman, with the Bharatiya Janata Party –notching up significant electoral victories and his foreign policy eliciting praise from leaders around the world, he suffered a terrible personal loss towards its end as his mother, Heeraben Modi, whom he has often described as his best teacher, passed away yesterday (December 30) at the age of 100.
Hiraben, also known as Hiraba, lived with his younger brother, Pankaj Modi, at a village called Raysan near Gujarat’s Gandhinagar. Prime Minister Modi visited the village regularly to spend time with her. After being a pall-bearer at her funeral, he paid tribute to Heeraben on Twitter with a heartwarming message that described his beloved mother as “a selfless karmayogi whose life was committed to values”. He recalled that his mother had advised him on her 100th birthday to ‘work with wisdom and live with purity.’
Although she was the mother of the most powerful person in the country, Heeraben always stayed away from the limelight and advised her son to be as humble as possible while serving the people of the country. The Prime Minister himself highlighted in a blog that there were only two instances when she accompanied him publicly – one was a public function in Ahmedabad when she applied tilak on his forehead after he had returned from Srinagar completing the Ekta Yatra, and the other when he first took oath as Gujarat’s chief minister in 2001.
The Prime Minister, who has never made a secret of his humble beginnings, wrote that his mother made him realize that it was possible to be learned without being formally educated. He mentioned an incident when he wanted to publicly honour all his teachers, including his biggest teacher – his mother. But Heeraben declined, saying, “See, I am an ordinary person. I may have given birth to you, but you have been taught and brought up by the Almighty.”
She taught him to be a “karmayogi” and that is what he remained even on the day of her death. He did not let her demise overshadow his official engagements. Within a couple of hours after performing the last rites of his mother Modi inaugurated the Vande Bharat Express connecting Howrah and New Jalpaiguri, and some other developmental projects in Kolkata via video link. He was scheduled to visit West Bengal to inaugurate and lay the foundation stone for projects worth more than Rs 7800 crore, but had to rush to Ahmedabad after the news of his mother’s demise reached him.
The PM arrived in Ahmedabad, performed the last rites of his mother at around 9.30 am and addressed the programmes in Kolkata via video link around 11.30 am. Leaders across the political spectrum have praised Modi’s commitment to work. That commitment makes him the man he is.
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