The primary school in Vadnagar where Narendra Modi began his education has been transformed into Prerna School, where students from across India are introduced to Indian culture, heritage and values
When Narendra Modi was old enough to begin formal schooling, his father, Damodardas Modi, enrolled him in the primary school in Vadnagar along with his cousin, Narsidas Mulchanddas Modi.
The school was already familiar to the Modi family. Modi’s elder brother Somabhai Modi and several other members of the family had also studied there. Narendra Modi studied at the school from 1957 to 1964. His brother Somabhai and his younger brother Pankaj Modi also began their education there.
I visited this school in 2014, the year Narendra Modi took oath as the Prime Minister of India.
That visit remains vivid in my memory.
As I stood at the gate of the school, one thought immediately came to me: the man who had just become the country’s Prime Minister had begun his educational journey at this very place.
At the time, the school still looked like an old, ordinary primary school. There were classrooms, benches and the familiar noise of children. It looked much like the school Narendra Modi would have known when he first entered its gates.
By then, repair work was already underway after Modi’s elevation to Prime Minister.
As I entered the school courtyard, the sound of children immediately took me back to my own childhood. The principal first took us to the classroom where Narendra Modi had begun his education.
The classroom had tiered benches for the students.
Then came an unexpected moment.
The school peon informed us that Kanhaiya Lal Bhudar Das Bhausa, who had taught Narendra Modi, had arrived and was ready to meet us.
I was delighted.
What Modi’s teacher remembered
Kanhaiya Lal told us he joined the school in 1959, when Narendra Modi was in Class 3.
His recollection of the young Narendra was not that of an extraordinary student academically. He described him as a normal student, but one who would help classmates who were weaker in their studies.
According to Kanhaiya Lal, Narendra had another distinctive quality even at that age: he did not readily accept something he believed was wrong.
It did not matter whether the person saying or doing it was another student or a teacher.
He recalled that Narendra had a clear way of thinking even as a child. He would do things in his own way, but he would also seek the opinion of his group — his friends.
The incident that stayed with him
Yogeshbhai Kantibhai Shah, who was senior to Narendra Modi at the school, also recalled an incident from those days.
Narendra was then studying in Class 2-B, while Shah was in Class 3-B.
According to Shah, a teacher at the school, Chandrashekhar Vyas, once beat a student in Narendra’s class. About 50 students were in the classroom at the time.
The incident deeply affected the young Narendra, Shah recalled.
Despite his young age, Narendra felt that the matter should not simply be ignored. They decided to bring the incident to the headmaster’s attention.
For those who knew him as a child, such incidents offered an early glimpse of a boy unwilling to accept what he considered wrong.
‘We planned our strategy in the garden’
Narendra Modi’s childhood friend Ishwarbhai P. Patel provided another glimpse into the world of the schoolchildren.
After school, the children would gather in the garden behind the school.
“We would make the strategy for the next day there,” Patel recalled.
The garden and classroom were part of the young students’ ordinary world. Decades later, however, those same places had acquired a different significance because one of the boys who studied there had gone on to become Prime Minister.
The old school gets a new identity
The Vadnagar school where Narendra Modi began his education has since changed considerably.
A large new school building has been constructed at the site and is now known as Prerna School.
The institution has been developed as a place where students from across India are brought together to learn about Indian culture, traditions and values.
The school is under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The Ministry of Culture and the Gujarat Tourism Department completed its reconstruction in cooperation.
The school’s walls now carry images of personalities such as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, Maharana Pratap, Gautama Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and Vinoba Bhave.
These figures are presented to students as sources of inspiration.
Prerna School welcomes students from Classes 9 to 12 from across the country. The students attend week-long sessions during which they are introduced to modern technology as well as India’s cultural heritage.
The programme also seeks to bring together students from different parts of the country. To promote diversity, the school selects one boy and one girl from each district.
Specially selected teachers conduct the sessions and guide the students.
From Narendra’s classroom to Prerna
The school I saw in 2014 was still recognisable as the old Vadnagar primary school — a place of classrooms, benches and children’s voices.
Today, the place has a very different identity.
The school where Narendra Modi began his education is now Prerna School, drawing students from across India to a place connected to the Prime Minister’s early life.
The transformation is striking.
What was once a modest primary school in Vadnagar, where young Narendra sat among other children and began his education, now stands as an institution devoted to teaching a new generation about India’s culture, heritage, and values.
For those who remember the old school, the change is not merely in the building.
It is also in what the place has come to represent.
The classrooms where Narendra began his schooling remain part of his early-life story. The new Prerna School carries that memory forward while creating a new chapter of its own.
