Arvind Chaturvedi
From schoolmates to families who shared festivals and friendships, Narendra Modi’s childhood in Vadnagar included close associations with several Muslim families. Some of those friendships have endured in memories and personal accounts long after he left the town.
Narendra Modi’s political career has taken him from the lanes of Vadnagar to the highest office in India. Over the years, his relationship with leaders of Muslim-majority and Gulf countries has been an important part of his diplomatic outreach. But before politics and diplomacy, there was a much more ordinary world—the Vadnagar of his childhood, where friendships were formed at school and neighbourhood families frequently visited one another.
Several Muslim friends and acquaintances from Modi’s early years remember that period.
One of them was Jasud Khan Pathan, who studied with Modi from Class 1 through Class 11, according to his own account.
I met Pathan during a visit to Vadnagar in 2014. He ran a small shop selling electronic goods. When he learned that I was interested in Modi’s childhood, he welcomed me warmly and joked that he had almost become a celebrity himself.
Journalists, he said, had repeatedly visited him for interviews about Modi.
“Every journalist tells me that we should reveal something that nobody has heard before,” Pathan recalled.
Then, smiling as he adjusted himself on a small three-legged stool in his shop, he spoke about his long association with Modi.
“We studied together from Class 1 to Class 11,” he said.
Pathan belonged to Simbarwada, a neighbourhood adjoining the area known as Kala Vasudev, where Modi’s family lived. According to him, the two families knew each other well, and they moved between their homes regularly.
That meeting remains fresh in my memory.
Pathan has since died. But in Vadnagar, he is still remembered by those who knew him as one of Modi’s childhood school friends.
Abbas: The Boy Who Became Part of the Modi Household
Another story comes from Kesimpa, a village around eight kilometres from Vadnagar.
The village was home to a Momin Muslim family. Among them was Miyan Bhai, who was a friend of Damodardas Modi, Narendra Modi’s father. Miyan Bhai had a son, Abbas Miyanjibhai Ramsada Momin.
At the time, Kesimpa had educational facilities only up to Class 7. Students who wanted to continue their education had to travel to Vadnagar. For some families, this made it difficult to ensure that their children continued their studies.
According to the family’s account, Miyan Bhai once expressed his concern to Damodardas Modi about his younger son Abbas, whom he considered a bright student.
The concern was simple: the village had no secondary school, and he feared his son might have to discontinue his education.
Damodardas Modi reportedly reassured his friend and offered to have Abbas stay with his family in Vadnagar so that he could continue his studies.
That decision meant Abbas spent part of his childhood living with the Modi family.
Years later, Narendra Modi himself recalled Abbas in a blog written in June 2022 to mark his mother Heeraben Modi’s 100th birthday.
The reference brought Abbas back into the public spotlight. Media organisations contacted him after the blog was published.
In an interaction with Tehelka, Abbas recalled the episode with emotion and said he was happy that Modi, despite occupying the country’s highest political office, still remembered his childhood and the family that had once been part of his life.
Abbas said the Modi family had treated him with affection and a sense of belonging. He recalled that after his father’s death, he stayed at the Modi household for around a year.
According to Abbas, Heeraben treated him like one of her own children. During Eid, she would prepare sewaiyan and dishes that he particularly liked.
For Abbas, those memories also represented a social environment that he remembered as different from the present.
He recalled a time when people in the neighbourhood participated in each other’s festivals, including Eid, Holi and Diwali, without the divisions that he felt were more visible in later years.
Abbas also said that he never sought any personal or political benefit from his association with Narendra Modi.
He eventually served as a Class II officer in Gujarat’s Food and Civil Supplies Department before retiring. When Modi’s 2022 blog post appeared, Abbas was in Australia, where he had gone to spend time with his son after retiring.
Another Schoolmate: Asgar Ali Bohra
Abbas was not the only Muslim friend associated with Modi’s school years.
Asgar Ali Bohra, who studied with Narendra Modi at B.N. High School in Vadnagar, has also been described as one of his close childhood friends.
In September 2026, Asgar Ali Bohra again came into the news after reconnecting with his old schoolmate Narendra Modi. Bohra, now 81, met the Prime Minister on September 8 and sought his intervention in a long-running land dispute in Bhayandar, Maharashtra, as well as a CBI probe into the matter. According to reports, he had purchased around 2,810 square metres of land in Bhayandar East in 1989 and had alleged that the property was subsequently encroached upon and became the subject of a prolonged dispute. Days after his meeting with Modi, the dispute saw a significant development, with a firm linked to BJP MLA Narendra Mehta agreeing to relinquish possession of the disputed plot and surrender the construction permission. The development was reported by several news organisations, although there is no official confirmation that the Prime Minister’s meeting directly caused the change.
These schoolmates’ recollections offer a glimpse into the social environment in which Modi grew up—one in which friendships were not necessarily defined by religious identity.
The Mosque Near Modi’s Old Home
Vadnagar itself carries visible reminders of its mixed social and religious history.
The town has several temples, mosques and dargahs. Khajuri Masjid is located close to the house where Modi spent his early years.
Accounts of Modi’s childhood also mention his interactions with Muslim residents of the town during religious occasions.
One such recollection concerns Muharram. According to these accounts, Modi would arrange water and refreshments for people participating in Muharram processions.
Such memories are particularly significant because they belong to a period long before Narendra Modi became a politician.
They do not tell the entire story of his political career or his later relationship with India’s Muslim community. But they do provide a window into the personal relationships and neighbourhood associations of the young boy who grew up in Vadnagar.
For those who knew him then, Narendra Modi was not yet a chief minister, prime minister or global political figure. He was simply a boy from Vadnagar, studying alongside classmates such as Jasud Khan Pathan and Asgar Ali Bohra, and growing up among families that included people of different faiths.
Some of those childhood friendships have survived primarily through memories. Others, like Abbas’s story, were recalled by Modi decades later.
And in Vadnagar, where temples, mosques and dargahs still stand within the same historic town, those memories remain part of the story of Narendra Modi’s early years.
