Believer's Dilemma: Volume 2: A. B. Vajpayee and the Hindu Right's Path to Power 1977-2018
Abhishek Choudhary
Dec 2026 · Pan Macmillan
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472
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About this ebook
The definitive, riveting conclusion to the landmark biography of India’s most enigmatic prime minister.
‘Riveting’ Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Foreign Affairs
‘A political biography that reads like a thriller’ Telegraph India
‘It won’t be bettered for a long time’ Pankaj Mishra
Believer’s Dilemma: Volume 2 delivers the magisterial conclusion to Abhishek Choudhary’s definitive biography of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Combining newly uncovered archival documents with revealing interviews, Choudhary exposes the forces that enabled Vajpayee and the Hindu Right to emerge from the fringes and displace Congress as India’s natural party of power.
Expertly tracing the long road to power, from the Janata experiment – the first non-Congress government and the Hindu Right’s first real taste of power – to the inner workings of Vajpayee’s prime ministership, Choudhary pulls back the curtain on Vajpayee’s reflexive loyalty to his ideological family in moments of crisis, his desperation to conduct nuclear tests and cold pragmatism with Pakistan and China, and his ability to manage an unwieldy thirteen-party coalition while propping India up as a rising global superpower.
This second volume completes a compelling and psychologically revealing look at the Hindu Right, and the patriarch who enabled Narendra Modi’s rise and permanently embedded Hindutva and capitalist aspiration into the national imagination.
‘Riveting’ Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Foreign Affairs
‘A political biography that reads like a thriller’ Telegraph India
‘It won’t be bettered for a long time’ Pankaj Mishra
Believer’s Dilemma: Volume 2 delivers the magisterial conclusion to Abhishek Choudhary’s definitive biography of Atal Behari Vajpayee. Combining newly uncovered archival documents with revealing interviews, Choudhary exposes the forces that enabled Vajpayee and the Hindu Right to emerge from the fringes and displace Congress as India’s natural party of power.
Expertly tracing the long road to power, from the Janata experiment – the first non-Congress government and the Hindu Right’s first real taste of power – to the inner workings of Vajpayee’s prime ministership, Choudhary pulls back the curtain on Vajpayee’s reflexive loyalty to his ideological family in moments of crisis, his desperation to conduct nuclear tests and cold pragmatism with Pakistan and China, and his ability to manage an unwieldy thirteen-party coalition while propping India up as a rising global superpower.
This second volume completes a compelling and psychologically revealing look at the Hindu Right, and the patriarch who enabled Narendra Modi’s rise and permanently embedded Hindutva and capitalist aspiration into the national imagination.
The definitive, riveting conclusion to the landmark biography of India’s most enigmatic prime minister.
‘Riveting’ Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Foreign Affairs
‘A political biography that reads like a thriller’ Telegraph India
‘It won’t be bettered for a long time’ Pankaj Mishra
Believer’s Dilemma: Volu...
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About the author
Abhishek Choudhary is a bilingual writer, best known for Believer's Dilemma, his two-part study of former Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Hindu Right. His work has been featured and reviewed in leading South Asian and international publications and shortlisted for several awards, with the first volume winning the 2023 Tata Literature First Book Award. He studied economics in Delhi and Chennai and previously worked in non-profits and journalism. A fellow of the New India Foundation and a grantee of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, he is a Gates Scholar in history at Peterhouse, University of Cambridge.
Abhishek Choudhary is a bilingual writer, best known for Believer's Dilemma, his two-part study of former Indian prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the Hindu Right. His work has been featured and reviewed in leading South Asian and international publications and shortlisted for several award...
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