It is truly an arduous task to write about the life and politics of someone as enigmatic as Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Abhishek Choudhary undertook that task in two volumes: Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right 1924-1977 (2023) and, the book under review here, Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power 1977-2018 (2025).
Vajpayee is one of those rare charismatic RSS ideologues who had the skills to cultivate the liberals and occupy considerable space among them. Surprisingly, he was even tolerated by sections of the Left. However, Choudhary has not merely written an engaging biography but has, in this second volume, graphically depicted the turbulent three decades from the 1970s onwards. It was during this phase of Indian politics that Jayaprakash Narayan (JP) ended the political untouchability of those who seem to be invincible today.
This one intervention of JP mainstreamed a political party and also the RSS, the so-called NGO that has never been registered in the past 100 years. The RSS has also successfully fooled many since 1925, claiming that it is merely a cultural platform. When the whole country was in the midst of an intense battle for freedom, the RSS declared that its aim was to “defend” Hindu religion and culture. Choudhary rightly calls the RSS and its affiliates India’s deep nation, which was allowed by Vajpayee to function despite all his grumbling. “Without Vajpayee there would be no Modi,” Choudhary writes succinctly.
This second volume deals with one of the most turbulent phases of Indian politics where Mandal (caste) was challenged by Kamandal (Hindu supremacists), and before India reached this conflictual stage, it had its first non-Congress government. The Janata government came to power with Morarji Desai as Prime Minister; he was not only a Gandhian but also a man with the “Gujarati instinct for business”. Both these traits made him antithetical to the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), India’s closest ally for decades. In any case, “foreign policy had never been Morarjibhai’s chief interests”. Vajpayee, though, was keenly interested in matters of foreign affairs, and the two evolved a working relationship. Vajpayee, with his combative Sangh background, had to dilute his ultra-nationalistic and xenophobic approach while Morarjibhai had to set aside his prejudices.
Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power 1977-2018By Abhishek ChoudharyPicador IndiaPages: 453Price Rs.999
The book begins with the Janata experiment, a cocktail of varied constituents from the right-wing Jana Sangh to the radical socialists. This experiment brought them together in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency with the aim of restoring democracy and constitutional governance. They did begin in right earnest and restored many of the institutions and their constitutional dignity, but the inner contradictions of the conglomerate began haunting them early on.
If looked at retrospectively, the model of governance we see today was tested and tried during the brief Janata regime. It was JP, as I said earlier, who wedded the RSS and its cohorts with their inveterate political others, but he also began insisting that “the RSS ought to ‘disband itself’, or at least reform by opening ‘its doors to Harijans, Muslims and Christians'”. Nothing of that nature has happened until today, but Balasaheb Deoras, the RSS’ third sarsangchalak, did promise JP that the organisation would do that soon, and the inclusion of Mahatma Gandhi in the RSS’ pantheon of great men was a step in that direction.
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Before I go further, I feel compelled to comment on the book’s footnotes, most of which are extremely insightful and go far to enrich and enliven the main text. Illustratively, the footnote on pages 38-39 about Subramaniam Swamy, so pertinent even now, is long, but I will share a part of it: “Thus complained Madhu Limaye to the Organiser editor K.R. Malkani on the Janata infights: ‘the most undisciplined is your Swamy. He is the barking dog of Morarji. He has attacked Vajpayee, George, Chandrashekar, me. Every other day he calls Vajpayee “scoundrel” and many other names in the Central Hall of Parliament. And you people parade him at Mazdoor Sangh and Vidyarthi Parishad and Yuva Morcha conferences…. He is attacking your Vajpayee and you don’t think about it! If you have no confidence in Vajpayee, withdraw him.'” Choudhary has woven these stories well within the larger account of the period.
Another relevant footnote in the contemporary context of West Asian politics and India’s attitude towards Palestine today is worth quoting. Vajpayee said: “The question of Palestine is the core of the West Asian problem and unless the Palestinian people are restored their inalienable rights, including the right to return and set up their own national state, there cannot be a just and lasting peace in the region.” This may be India’s official position even now, but the External Affairs Minister has not articulated it so categorically. Instead, we see police action against those who speak of the plight and misery of the Palestinian people.
Power struggles and personality clashes quickly doomed the Janata experiment, and “after twenty-eight months as the foreign minister — of which he had spent seven and a half months abroad — Vajpayee lost his job”. In the midst of the political turmoil that followed, Vajpayee did what he knew best: he went on a retreat for physiotherapy where he published his musings in The Indian Express, holding all parties responsible for the collapse of the Janata experiment. He also wrote critically about the RSS, saying: “A certain onus accordingly devolved on the RSS, an onus that has not been discharged effectively by the RSS. Its repudiation of the theocratic form of the state was welcome, yet the question could legitimately be asked — why does it not open its doors to non-Hindus?” This was a mere exercise in public relations, as the author points out, probably in the wake of widespread communal violence and the Sangh Parivar’s involvement in anti-Muslim riots. Vajpayee was known for such rhetorical flourishes, which seldom meant anything serious.
“The 1980s will be a difficult decade,” Vajpayee somberly predicted after the Janata experiment failed and Indira Gandhi bounced back. Vajpayee had to reluctantly agree to the revival of the Jana Sangh faction, of course, with a different name; it was called the Bharatiya Janata Party and had Vajpayee as its president. In this new avatar, Vajpayee replaced the Jana Sangh credo of “Integral Humanism” with the Janata’s Gandhian socialism. “Gandhism and socialism had often been a handy cover for vaguely defined ideologies,” writes Choudhary aptly.
“After the Janata experiment failed and Indira Gandhi bounced back, Vajpayee reluctantly agreed to the revival of the Jana Sangh faction, of course, with a different name; it was called the Bharatiya Janata Party and had Vajpayee as its president.”
The decade also saw the resurgence of Hindutva through the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), which was the most crucial vehicle for the RSS’ expansion plans. It got a cause to rally around in 1981 when the news of mass conversions in Meenakshipuram (Tamil Nadu) spread like a wildfire. The narrative of Hinduism in danger pushed 78 per cent of the people in north Indian cities to support a ban on religious conversions. However, on July 5, 1981, in the midst of this religious frenzy, Vajpayee visited Meenakshipuram where he mostly sat on the fence. He said: “A mass conversion is bound to have serious reactions across the country. But if we must blame someone, we have only ourselves to blame. After all, why did we not treat our Harijan brothers equally? Yet there is no justification for mass conversion.”
To promote Hindutva, the VHP planned three Ekatmata yatras in 1983, of course with RSS support. The VHP also roped in some Congressmen to appear a bit neutral and proclaim the objective as a Hindu cause across political parties. Vajpayee had called the 1980s a difficult decade, and it proved to be so. Punjab was on the boil; the creation of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale as an incendiary voice for Khalistan led to a series of high-profile murders in Punjab. Even Vajpayee was sent a letter informing him that he would be “slain in the next 27 days” if he did not stop criticising Bhindranwale.
The ominous political developments pushed Indira Gandhi towards Operation Blue Star in June 1984, which had a far-reaching and tragic impact on Indian politics and society. All political parties, initially, had no option but to endorse the action. Vajpayee noticed that the RSS elders were all praise for the military action and some even distributed laddus. In his reaction, Vajpayee said in an interview to The New York Times: “But encouraging Hindu chauvinism is not going to pay. As the majority community, the Hindus must be above parochial politics.” This is one of the most vital political lessons his party needs to learn from Vajpayee today.
The book begins with the Janata experiment, a cocktail of varied constituents from the right-wing Jana Sangh to the radical socialists. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement
The tragic assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, by her two Sikh bodyguards led to brutal rioting across India and the killing of thousands of innocent Sikhs. Many Congressmen were implicated in fanning the hate against the Sikhs, leading to widespread violence.
The Congress won a landslide victory in the general election following the assassination, getting 404 seats. Despite Vajpayee’s warning against majoritarian mobilisation, his party found in this victory of the Congress a mantra that would never fail. If polarisation against a minuscule Sikh community could pay such huge dividends, then what could be achieved by polarisation against India’s largest minority community? The RSS has used Muslims to polarise the electorate for decades, and this will continue to work for it until people themselves get sick and tired of the divisive rhetoric.
Rajiv Gandhi’s government began with a lot of promise, including a remarkable revolution in information technology. However, it soon got mired in a competitive communalism when shilanyas (foundation laying) in Ayodhya was followed by the disastrous Shah Bano case. Both decisions were calamitous for India: nothing hurt the country’s sociopolitical fabric as much as these decisions did. The Bofors issue added to the woes of the Rajiv Gandhi government, and as expected, the 1989 election resulted in a fractured mandate.
V.P. Singh formed a National Front government with the support of the BJP and the Left. One of this government’s major decisions shook India both politically and socially: implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations of 27 per cent reservation for the backward castes. The BJP could see the damage and responded by launching L.K. Advani’s Rath Yatra for the Ram mandir in September-October 1990.
Choudhary narrates the journey towards the final razing of the mosque in Ayodhya and Vajpayee’s ambiguous role in the demolition project. Vajpayee joined Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in Lucknow on December 5, 1992, where they addressed a public meeting. When asked if the Babri Masjid would be safe tomorrow, Vajpayee said that he hoped so, but he could not be sure: “Asha hai, aur ashanka bhi.” After the demolition, Vajpayee pointed out that “the outcry was an overreaction, for which he blamed the left-liberal press and intelligentsia: ‘It is inaccurate to say that the mosque has been demolished: it was a disputed structure that was being used as a temple.'”
Vajpayee was not very far from the public position of the Sangh Parivar though he also feigned shock when talking to the press from his Delhi drawing room. Even the judicial commission set up on December 16, 1992, to investigate the demolition would later call Vajpayee out as one of the “pseudo-moderates” whose “sins of omission” had contributed to the razing of the Babri Masjid.
“The judicial commission set up on December 16, 1992, to investigate the demolition would later call Vajpayee out as one of the “pseudo-moderates” whose “sins of omission” had contributed to the razing of the Babri Masjid. ”
Choudhary covers the period when governments came and disappeared until Vajpayee took over as Prime Minister of a National Democratic Alliance coalition and completed his five years. It was an eventful tenure during which Vajpayee was not in the best of health, and “there emerged an image of Vajpayee as a wobbly man leading a wobbly government”. He also had to face crises like the Parliament terrorist attack, the IC 814 hijack drama, the Kargil War, and all in the midst of serious efforts to build bridges of friendship with Pakistan. No such attempts took place during the United Progressive Alliance government or even later. Vajpayee was committed to resolving the Kashmir issue, which made him “cross the border of mistrust” in a gold-painted bus in Amritsar. Choudhary is right when he says that “the alternatives to not talking to Pakistan had brought more deaths, more chaos, more destruction for both” countries.
One of the most tragic episodes in these five years was the unfortunate Godhra tragedy in 2002 in which 59 karsevaks were killed and that led to widespread hate and violence against Muslims. The book gives us many sad and painful political stories of those traumatic times where Vajpayee as Prime Minister comes across as guileful and ambiguous.
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In the end, it is interesting to know that Nusli Wadia, chairman of the Wadia Group, was one of the earliest funders of the BJP and “had personally known Sangh Parivar elders for decades”. It is good that Choudhary has documented this fact here. It matters today because Nusli Wadia was the only grandchild of M.A. Jinnah and was among “the dozen-odd people who had taken to calling Vajpayee ‘Baapji'”.
I see Choudhary’s book as a milestone in the genre of biography writing. It gives us a colourful account of the multilayered relationships within the Sangh Parivar, and right now, there is no better book to understand Hindutva with a light-hearted seriousness. It is also a great book to celebrate 100 years of the RSS.
S. Irfan Habib is a Delhi-based historian of modern political history.
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