The State That Made India’s Modi Could Break Him

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vaulted to national office in 2014 after presiding over more than a decade of robust economic growth in Gujarat, India’s westernmost state. During his almost 13 years as the state’s chief minister, Gujarat’s economy grew faster than the rest of India, and its per capita income almost quadrupled. The “Gujarat model” became a byword for Modi’s pro-business policies—and a promise of what he might do for India.

Yet his move last year to ban 86 percent of the country’s paper currency in a bid to stamp out corruption is having a particularly harsh effect on the state’s economy, which is heavily dependent on export, trade, and manufacturing. A new national sales tax is hurting, too. “Development has slowed here,” says Kanti Bhai Yadav, 40, a small-restaurant owner who voted for Modi in the past three elections. Yadav says his situation hasn’t improved since Modi left for New Delhi. “Maybe it’s because as a prime minister, he is thinking of the whole country,” he says.