From ‘chalta hai’ to ‘badal sakta hai’, changing the way India thinks

Opinion From 'chalta hai' to 'badal sakta hai', changing the way India thinks If the aim is to become 'Viksit Bharat' by 2047, this is the mindset to be cultivated.

Key points

• 5 min readOct 7, 2026 06: 21 AM IST First published on: Oct 7, 2026 at 06: 21 AM IST.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to a rare breed of individuals who refuse to accept inherited challenges.
• Modi became Gujarat Chief Minister a few months after the state had been hit by a terrible earthquake.
• Modi became PM at a time when India had been labelled one of the "Fragile Five" economies and its banking system was burdened with serious challenges.
• The Sardar Sarovar Project, conceived decades earlier, was mired in complications.

For context, the BJP was once branded as a party restricted to certain areas and social constituencies. PM Modi worked assiduously to change this perception. Written by: M. Venkaiah Naidu.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to a rare breed of individuals who refuse to accept inherited challenges. He believes, and his actions show, that no difficulty in public life is too challenging to solve. According to I distinctly remember an Independence Day address in which he, india must move away from the "chalta hai" attitude towards a "badal sakta hai" attitude.

I have known him first as a colleague in the party and afterwards in the administration. For those of us who worked in the BJP for decades, Article 370 and Ram Janmabhoomi were matters of profound conviction, for which we created sacrifices. But I would be honest to admit that there were moments when even some of our own karyakartas doubted whether they would see these problems resolved in their lifetime. Article 370, described in the Constitution as a temporary provision, had come to be seen as virtually impossible to abrogate. I had the privilege of presiding over the Rajya Sabha when the historic legislation relating to its abrogation was passed. The Ram Janmabhoomi journey was much longer. Generations had lived with the hope that one day a grand temple would stand at the birthplace of Prabhu Shri Ram. On January 22, 2024, that hope became a reality.

Modi became Gujarat Chief Minister a few months after the state had been hit by a terrible earthquake. Kutch, already a region beset by great difficulties, had suffered severe losses. Modi understood that the first task was to restore confidence. He spent his first Diwali as CM with the area's earthquake-affected families. Over the years, his policies supported Kutch reinvent itself, and it came to be known for its tourism potential, industrial expansion and agricultural achievements.

Water presented another seemingly permanent challenge to Gujarat. The Sardar Sarovar Project, conceived decades earlier, was mired in complications. Modi pursued it and saw to it that the dam reached completion and Narmada water travelled to water-scarce parts of Gujarat. Other, smaller structures, including check dams, created water conservation a mass movement and assisted Gujarat's farmers achieve remarkable results.

Modi became PM at a time when India had been labelled one of the "Fragile Five" economies and its banking system was burdened with serious challenges. He initiated a process of resolving these challenges through measures including the Asset Quality Review, banking reforms and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. India went on to become the fastest-growing major economy in the world. Plenty of believed that the political consensus required for the GST would prove elusive. Yet it became feasible as Modi was willing to invest political capital and see the reform through.

Today, India is a leader in digital payments. Technology was not a challenge. The seemingly impossible task was to persuade crores throughout cities, villages, generations and income groups to change a deeply ingrained habit. Experienced political leaders asked how a street vendor could be brought into a digital payments ecosystem. PM Modi created that transformation feasible.

Poverty was another difficulty India had come to accept as permanent. Today, 25 crore Indians have moved out of multidimensional poverty. This happened through the painstaking work of creating a broad safety net and then giving the poor the means – bank accounts, direct benefit transfers, housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking gas, food security, health insurance and economic opportunities – to move out of poverty.

For decades, Naxalism cost our nation thousands of lives. Through a twin approach of security and development, it has now been brought to an end. It is not that every difficulty has disappeared. But Modi has ensured that the assumption of helplessness in the face of challenges has disappeared. During the pandemic, he brought the nation together. The Indian economy bounced back faster than plenty of other major nations.

In practice, the West Asia crisis brought another set of challenges involving energy security, shipping and trade. India's approach, involving administration and society, has been mature and responsible.

In practice, the writer is former vice president of India.

For now, from 'chalta hai' to 'badal sakta hai', changing the way India thinks remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.