NEW DELHI — On Thursday, as the government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi completed 30 days in office, Mr. Modi, with a perceptible confidence in his political persona, reached out to the public through a blog post.
His message was marked by a theme of his campaign — that of the political outsider, beset by hostile critics, but nonetheless eager to transform the country through its highest office. He wrote of the “honeymoon period” that previous governments enjoyed — “up to a hundred days and beyond.”
“Not unexpectedly I don’t have any such luxury,” he wrote. “Forget hundred days, the series of allegations began in less than a hundred hours.” He did not specify what those allegations were.
He stressed that he was “new to this place” and that some people believed it would take him “a year, even two,” to understand the workings of the government, but after 30 days, “that thought does not exist any longer in my mind.”
He wrote of the challenge of convincing “a select group of people” in Delhi, which had 10 years of Congress party leadership, about his government’s sincerity in “bringing a positive change to the country.”
For political observers, this self-characterization was not surprising.
“He has always said that he is not part of the power brokers club based in Delhi,” said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, a journalist who wrote a biography about Mr. Modi that was initially authorized by the politician, then unauthorized. “He has said that he is an outsider and a poor man’s child.”
Little has come out in the media about Mr. Modi’s first month from a policy perspective, beyond a few cabinet decisions and proposals — pushing an increase in railway fares, later partially rolled back and for the import duty for sugar, and a proposal to ease environmental clearances for development projects.
But Mr. Modi’s mastery of the message appears to grow — a study of political use on Twitter found that he had become the fourth-most-followed leader on the social media platform, just surpassing the White House, though behind President Obama, the pope, and the Indonesian president, S. B. Yudhoyono. Mr. Modi now has more than 5 million Twitter followers.
He also engaged in a series of high-profile foreign policy moves with his closest neighbors — inviting neighboring countries including Pakistan to his swearing-in, touring Bhutan and meeting with the Chinese president’s special envoy. Some media have reported on a planned trip to the United States in the fall.
Mr. Modi’s post also included a parting rebuke, in a sense, to the Congress party. His 30 days coincided with an anniversary of another kind — the 39-year anniversary of the imposition of authoritarian rule by Indira Gandhi, an iconic Congress leader, which began on June 26, 1975. The period saw a rollback of democratic institutions in the country, and Mrs. Gandhi’s political rivals were arrested, though there is evidence that some elites in India appreciated the imposition of order at a chaotic time.
“The Emergency surely stands out as one of the darkest periods in our history and is a grim reminder of the dangers associated with subverting freedom of speech, press, expression and silencing opposition,” Mr. Modi wrote.
The phase, which he witnessed as a “youngster,” taught him “the significance of a vibrant democracy.”