The Compromiser

RAJDHARMA was the sutra Vajpayee invoked for Modi to follow after the 2002 riots. It was widely read as a public rebuke of the Gujarat chief minister. Yet, just a week later, in a speech in Goa, he struck a very different note. Had he failed his own rajdharma?

- Rajdeep Sardesai

The Marriott hotel in Goa, nestled in a quiet leafy lane by the banks of the River Mandovi in Panaji, would hardly be seen as the ideal locale to decide the course of India’s contemporary political history. In the land of sun and sand, siesta and susegado, the hotel prides itself on offering visitors a classic Goan holiday experience. In April 2002, however, the hotel was not the venue for beach-loving tourists but for the BJP national executive, a high-profile meet that was seeking to quell the political storm that was raging within the party and beyond.

The executive was being held against the backdrop of the Gujarat communal riots, which just weeks earlier had claimed more than 900 lives. Speculation was mounting that the BJP leadership piloted by prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would decide the fate of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi at the meeting. This was still the relatively nascent period of 24x7 television without the incessant noise of breaking news. We were just a handful of news channels and while the frenetic competition of the modern age was missing, everyone wanted to be first with the big story. I had been in touch with the prime minister’s all-powerful principal secretary Brajesh Mishra and the BJP’s chief impresario Pramod Mahajan, both of whom promised to keep me informed of any major news development.