New Delhi, Jun 29 (PTI) The second and concluding volume of Abhishek Choudhary’s two-part biography on former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will hit the stands on July 20, announced publishing house Pan Macmillan India on Sunday.
“Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power”, sequel to the award-winning “Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right” (2023), is described as a political history of contemporary India covering the crucial period between 1978–2018 — “a transformative 40-year span that saw the Hindu Right move from the fringes into the corridors of power”.
It offers a fresh perspective on several pivotal historical events, including the collapse of the Janata Party experiment, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and Babri Masjid demolition, India’s 1998 nuclear tests, the 2002 Gujarat riots, the emergence of coalition politics, the UPA era, and Vajpayee’s final public act — his opposition to the Indo-US nuclear deal he had once helped initiate.
“The book explains India’s present through Its recent past, and engages with urgent questions of nationalism, pluralism, and power — revealing how today’s socio-political landscape was shaped by the unresolved dilemmas from the Vajpayee years,” said the publisher in a statement.
A prime minister for six years between 1998-2004, Vajpayee, a Bharat Ratna awardee, died in 2018 at 93 years of age.
The book, whose first volume received the ‘Tata Literature Live! First Book Award,’ blends newly discovered archival materials with more than ten years of interviews with key political figures to present a clear, compelling narrative that is both thoroughly researched and highly accessible to all readers.
It also offers fresh insights into key events during Vajpayee’s tenure as prime minister (1998–2004), highlighting his resolve to conduct nuclear tests, the pragmatic yet heartfelt complexities of negotiating with Pakistan and China, and the emotional resilience that helped him manage a 24-party coalition and transform India into a vibrant multi-party democracy, among other achievements.
A decade in the making, “Believer’s Dilemma” also maps the evolution of the Sangh Parivar as it reveals a deeper pattern in Vajpayee’s character — “his reflexive loyalty to his ideological family in moments of crisis”. PTI MG MG MG
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