Believer's Dilemma: A leader's struggle with power and self-doubt

A new biography unravels Atal Bihari Vajpayee's complex persona, tracing his political journey, inner conflicts, and role in shaping modern Indian politics

Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s path to power 1977-2018

By Abhishek Choudhary

Published by Picador India

453 pages  ₹999

  All politicians are complex, but this outstanding book attempts to deconstruct the personality, life and times of one of the most complicated individuals to have become India’s Prime Minister. That Atal Bihari Vajpayee was considered the “right man in the wrong party” is an overdone cliché. The book explores the restlessness of a personality who played a pivotal role in insinuating a new way of thinking into power politics and the Indian system — all the time racked by self-doubt. 

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