The most enduring achievement of the Modi era may not be found in any single road, scheme, reform or infrastructure project. It lies in something deeper: the expansion of the Indian mainstream itself. I watched him closely as my Prime Minister for 5 years from 2017 to 2022 during my term as the President of India. On this basis and my own association with him in public, I would like to share some thoughts on the occasion of his birthday. Over 25 years at the helm of an elected government - from Gujarat in October 2001 to the Prime Minister’s Office since 2014 - PM Modi has consistently advanced a simple but transformative idea: Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.
At its heart is another formulation that has come to define his politics of inclusion: Jisko kisi ne nahi poocha, usko Modi ne puja. Those who were unheard, unseen or underserved could no longer remain at the margins of India’s development story. This is perhaps the most consequential shift in the Modi era: not merely taking development to the margins, but bringing the margins into the mainstream.
Reimagining Who Belongs at the Centre
For decades after Independence, India’s development imagination often had an implicit centre and a periphery. Some regions were seen as distant. Some villages remained too remote to receive the full benefits of state capacity. Some aspirations simply did not find a place in the national conversation.
The Modi government has sought to change that hierarchy.
The governing idea has increasingly been one of saturation rather than selectivity; inclusion rather than exclusion; empowerment rather than mere entitlement. The question is no longer simply whether a government has launched a programme, but whether the person who was least likely to benefit from it has actually been reached.
Few examples illustrate this transformation better than the Northeast.
For decades, the Northeast was too often discussed as India’s distant periphery. Under PM Modi, it has increasingly been articulated as India’s forward face and gateway to South-East Asia.
PM Modi has visited the region more than 83 times since November 2014. These visits have accompanied a sustained push for connectivity, infrastructure, investment and peace. The region has witnessed 12 major peace agreements, while more than ₹7 lakh crore has been allocated for development between 2014-15 and 2025-26, compared with around ₹1.4 lakh crore in the previous decade.
The infrastructural map of the North-East is changing as well. The Bogibeel Bridge and Sela Tunnel have overcome formidable geographical barriers. Mizoram received its first direct railway connection to the rest of India when the Bairabi-Sairang line was inaugurated. Nagaland got its first railway station after Independence. AIIMS Guwahati became the first AIIMS in the Northeast.
Assam’s semiconductor plant represents a radically different ambition: the idea that one of India’s most technologically advanced industries can emerge from a region once treated primarily as geographically remote.
From ‘Last Villages’ to ‘First Villages’
The same inversion of perspective is visible along India’s borders.
For years, remote settlements were commonly described as the country's “last villages”. The Modi government deliberately sought to change that vocabulary, and more importantly, the policy priority behind it. These are now India’s “first villages”.
The Vibrant Villages Programme gives this idea institutional form through roads, connectivity, tourism, livelihoods and essential services in remote border areas.
The principle extends inland through the Aspirational Districts Programme. Instead of accepting 112 historically underdeveloped districts as permanent laggards, the programme introduced measurable outcomes, convergence and competitive development to accelerate progress in health, education, infrastructure and livelihoods.
In 2023, this approach was taken deeper into the administrative system through the Aspirational Blocks Programme, covering 500 blocks across 329 districts.
The message is clear: geography cannot be a permanent disadvantage.
When the Tribal Community Became a Development Priority
The same philosophy is visible in the treatment of tribal communities.
The shift has been from episodic welfare to sustained, targeted and whole-of-government intervention. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs' budget has grown by 243% over the last decade. PM-JANMAN covers all 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, focusing on housing, roads, water, healthcare and other basic necessities.
The Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan takes this approach further by addressing long-standing gaps in tribal-majority villages and PVTG habitations through coordinated government intervention.
The philosophy is not simply to provide welfare to communities at the margins. It is to give them the capabilities to participate fully in the country's future.
The Last Mile Becomes the First Priority
More than 59 crore Jan Dhan accounts have brought previously excluded households into the formal financial system. Direct Benefit Transfer has enabled government assistance to reach beneficiaries directly and has contributed to cumulative savings of more than ₹5.14 lakh crore by plugging leakages.
The scale of financial inclusion is matched by the scale of basic-service delivery. Saubhagya achieved 100% rural electrification. Ujjwala has provided clean cooking fuel to more than 10 crore households. Jal Jeevan Mission has extended tap-water connections to 13 crore rural households.
These programmes embody one common principle: find the person who has been left out and take the governance benefits to that person.
That is the practical meaning of saturation.
The objective is no longer simply to have a welfare scheme. It is to ensure that every eligible person is reached by it.
From Women’s Development to Women-Led Development
The transformation is equally significant in the case of women.
For generations, women were often positioned primarily as recipients of welfare. The Modi government's larger intervention has been to change that position - from mere beneficiaries to stakeholders, from recipients to entrepreneurs, and increasingly from participants in development to leaders of development.
Swachh Bharat Mission addressed an issue intimately connected with women's dignity, safety and health. MUDRA has enabled women to participate in entrepreneurship at unprecedented scale, with women accounting for 68% of total MUDRA loans. Women also constitute 46% of PM SVANidhi beneficiaries. The Lakhpati Didi initiative places women's economic empowerment at the heart of rural transformation.
It is the same principle in a different form - bringing a group historically treated as a beneficiary into the centre of national progress.
The Real Meaning of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’
Seen individually, the North-East, tribal communities, border villages, women, rural households and financially excluded citizens represent different policy challenges.
Seen together, they reveal the larger architecture of the Modi government's governance philosophy.
Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas is ultimately about expanding the circle of participation. It asks a fundamental question of governance: Who has not been reached? Who has not been heard? Who has remained outside the opportunity structure of a rising India?
And then it seeks to act on the answer, which has led to the margins moving towards the centre.
A Larger Mainstream for a Viksit Bharat
The deepest legacy of the Modi era, therefore, is this redefinition of the Indian mainstream.
Development is no longer imagined as something that begins at the centre and eventually reaches the periphery. The periphery itself is being made part of the centre of India's development ambition.
As India looks towards Viksit Bharat 2047, the ambition is not merely to build a bigger economy, a stronger infrastructure network or a more capable state. It is to ensure that the India being built belongs equally to those who were once least visible in its development story.
The most powerful measure of progress, ultimately, is not how high the ceiling rises, but how many people are brought under it.
That is the Modi era's defining proposition: those who were once at the margins are no longer waiting to enter India's mainstream. They are helping define it.
(The author is the former President of India)