When Achille Forler, a Frenchman in Gujarat, opened registrations for the first Alliance française French language institute in the State, around a thousand people obtained paid memberships in the first year. One of the very first was a young man named Narendra Modi. “He was a regular member,” Mr. Forler, speaking in French, recalled in a phone call with The Hindu. “He attended many of the art exhibitions, concerts, film screenings and events we had organised.”
The membership receipt, obtained by the future Chief Minister of Gujarat and Prime Minister of India, was shared with the public in the run-up to Mr. Modi’s state visit to France.
From February 1981 to the end of 1989, when Mr. Forler, who founded the Alliance française d’Ahmedabad with his wife Chantal Forler, Mr. Modi became a familiar face. “I would recognise and greet all the regulars, but I wouldn’t speak to all of them,” he said. Mr. Modi, he said, was an exception. “He had the classic social worker look,” Mr. Forler quipped, describing the then Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker as wearing a kurta pajama, carrying a black bag.
