KNOWING VAJPAYEE

How is it that some political figures loom large in our collective memory and yet remain enigmatic, if not little-known? Atal Bihari Vajpayee is certainly one such figure, one of India’s most consequential politicians, not just for the party he steered for more than five decades, but also for the country he played a part in shaping as a political activist, a lifelong RSS member, a party leader, a parliamentarian, and a prime minister

- Gilles Verniers

VAJPAYEE: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924-1977

By Abhishek Choudhary

PICADOR INDIA

And yet, his life has been reduced to stereotypical notions and snippets: Vajpayee the moderate, the poet-orator, the non-vegetarian, whisky-drinking pracharak, or the right man in the wrong party. Some of these notions, it turns out, are, at best, mild distortions of the truth. Others are misrepresentations of a complex man who, for all his unconventionalities, dedicated his life to the Sangh Parivar’s political project of making India Hindu with great constancy and consistency.

To separate the wheat from the chaff of such representations, we turn to biographers who undertake the painstaking work of sifting through the tiniest details of a person’s life, rely on primary sources to sort fact from fiction, and critically assess popular views, while steering clear of unfounded speculations. On all these counts, Abhishek Choudhary’s spectacular biography of Atal Bihari Vajpayee is a resounding success.

The first volume spans the early years of Vajpayee’s life and political engagement till the end of the Emergency. In three sections, Choudhary portrays the familial and social environment in which Vajpayee’s worldview was formed, his rise as a party-builder and parliamentarian, and his role first as Nehru’s and then Indira Gandhi’s opponent.