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Narendra Modi in 2005: “A Hindu who is against Islam is not a Hindu”
In a 2005 Seedhi Baat interview with Prabhu Chawla, then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi said he was “not at all” against Islam and that a Hindu who is against Islam is not a Hindu. A resurfaced reel uses the clip to contrast his CM and PM-era image; that comparison is the uploader’s framing.
What Narendra Modi said
In a 2005 Seedhi Baat interview with journalist Prabhu Chawla, then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said he was not against Islam. When Chawla asked, “You are not against Islam?”, Modi replied, “Not at all.” He continued in Hindi that a Hindu who is against Islam is not a Hindu, because Hindu tradition teaches respect for all religions.
Context and verification
The circulating Instagram reel is a short excerpt from that interview. Its spoken passage matches the archived 2005 interview context. India Today’s archive identifies the interview as a Seedhi Baat conversation between Modi and Chawla, published in the April 11, 2005 issue, in which he discussed Islam, jihad, the Gujarat violence and the denial of a US visa. In 2022, Scroll also identified the resurfaced clip as Modi speaking to Prabhu Chawla in 2005.
The reel’s caption, “CM Modi … PM Modi”, invites a comparison between Modi’s position as Gujarat chief minister and his later political image as prime minister. That contrast is the uploader’s framing; this record verifies the 2005 statement itself and does not treat the meme-style caption as evidence of any later change in position.
Why this is archived
The clip is useful primary audiovisual evidence of Modi’s stated position on Islam and religious pluralism in 2005. Archiving the original wording and date helps distinguish the historical statement from later social-media commentary about it.
