Explaining Contradictions of A Complex Personality

Abstract

While there is plenty of literature available on Vajpayee, the politician, the statesman, and the prime minister, it’s to Choudhary’s credit that he starts the book with a guided tour to Vapayee’s home town Bateshwar near Agra. He takes us through him childhood, adolescence and finally emergence as a political activist. A very interesting revelation here is that Vajpayee’s ideological make-up was not rooted in reading of any ancient Indian texts from Vedic or the later period but gorging on the Arya Samaj’s interpretation of Indian history.
Another interesting aspect of the book is clearing many popular beliefs around Vajpayee, be it about his relationship with first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter and India’s third Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and about his friend Rajkumari Kaul. None of the hagiographers of Vajpayee ever attempted to clear such ‘misgivings’, probably because their work lacked the rigour of research to counter popular beliefs, howsoever wrong.