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Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Based on interviews with Atal Bihari Vajpayee's closest confidants and aides, this is the most intimate and revealing portrait there is of India's most loved prime minister.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
468 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 14, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 6, 2022
One word review: Superficial
Most cringeworthy was the way, the 'voice' of this book comes across.
It is very superficial to its core.
Another startling feature of this book is: zero original research.
There are some 50 distinct works available on Amzn about or by Atal ji and I own some 30 of them, I was hoping with all glitz around this book, she would add something worthy USP in this book. But its so vain and does not add anything to one of the most remarkable Indian life.
I got this book to understand so called 'liberal point of view' on my favorite leader and icon.
I am aghast by the prose.
(One example, just three cringeworthy lines: "6 December 1992. Down Ayodhya’s winding, narrow streets, on a grassy hillock, stood the three-domed Babri Masjid. The small mosque was in the eye of a storm, the focal point of hysterical rage on one side and defiant assertion on the other. Railings, barricades, steel fences and ropes ringed the controversy-ridden structure.")
It reads juvenile.
Short abrupt sentences, no depth, no research, this is a Shobha De kind of literature about a person who arguably is the most important political figure post Indira Gandhi era.
With Narendra Modi's arrival, many people who were vehemently anti BJP and anti- Atal ji suddenly became pro- Atal ji, same crowd that celebrated Sonia Gandhi's UPA victory over NDA in 2004, and this book just shows that.
If it had thorough research and a readable prose, it would have been different.
But my rating: 1*/5
Most cringeworthy was the way, the 'voice' of this book comes across.
It is very superficial to its core.
Another startling feature of this book is: zero original research.
There are some 50 distinct works available on Amzn about or by Atal ji and I own some 30 of them, I was hoping with all glitz around this book, she would add something worthy USP in this book. But its so vain and does not add anything to one of the most remarkable Indian life.
I got this book to understand so called 'liberal point of view' on my favorite leader and icon.
I am aghast by the prose.
(One example, just three cringeworthy lines: "6 December 1992. Down Ayodhya’s winding, narrow streets, on a grassy hillock, stood the three-domed Babri Masjid. The small mosque was in the eye of a storm, the focal point of hysterical rage on one side and defiant assertion on the other. Railings, barricades, steel fences and ropes ringed the controversy-ridden structure.")
It reads juvenile.
Short abrupt sentences, no depth, no research, this is a Shobha De kind of literature about a person who arguably is the most important political figure post Indira Gandhi era.
With Narendra Modi's arrival, many people who were vehemently anti BJP and anti- Atal ji suddenly became pro- Atal ji, same crowd that celebrated Sonia Gandhi's UPA victory over NDA in 2004, and this book just shows that.
If it had thorough research and a readable prose, it would have been different.
But my rating: 1*/5
July 2, 2023
The book was well written but at certain points the author goes too far in her conjectures, like she says that bjp may have taken a different route had Vajpayee had demanded a resignation from Modi after the 2002 genocide, nope i don't think so these butchers would have come to power anyhow, she overestimates the moderate Vajpayee standing in his own party another point that irked me was her avoidance of Vajpayee personal life she just says that the man lived with with his friend's wife for about 50 years and that's it, she doesn't even acknowledge the love child he had with the woman calling his daughter "foster daughter" the entire length of the book. But I do believe she understands Vajpayee. A very ambitious man who made his way to the top of the greasy pole and didn't give a damn about the way he did it, he played a bigot, a majoritarian, a secular and everything else. And then he is at the top and after that we see a very different man, a man who is above petty politics who believes in a pluralist India and who would fight the RSS when he thinks he is right.
A very difficult man, i don't even know that i like him or hate him, he does some despicable things at certain times which makes me want to call him a c*nt and at other places this man just becomes a titan, his handling of Kargil was superb(Although it was due to his laziness we got into the mess). This right wing Hindu nationalist want to have peace with an Islamic country and he does everything for peace even after he is betrayed by the Pakistanis.
His respect for democratic institutions is phenomenal, he respected parliament, like oh my god! he did respect parliament, the monkeys in power today could learn a lot from him. Overall i think he was one of the finest PM of India after independence. But I don't understand the man, maybe before reading this book I was thinking "now here is the man I can admire" I saw too many of his speeches in parliament about democracy. The lines "But this tradition should remain, the game of politics will go on, parties will come and go, but this country should remain immortal, it's constitution should remain immortal" these lines still pierces this young heart. But humans are flawed I guess and with that this rambling ends.
A very difficult man, i don't even know that i like him or hate him, he does some despicable things at certain times which makes me want to call him a c*nt and at other places this man just becomes a titan, his handling of Kargil was superb(Although it was due to his laziness we got into the mess). This right wing Hindu nationalist want to have peace with an Islamic country and he does everything for peace even after he is betrayed by the Pakistanis.
His respect for democratic institutions is phenomenal, he respected parliament, like oh my god! he did respect parliament, the monkeys in power today could learn a lot from him. Overall i think he was one of the finest PM of India after independence. But I don't understand the man, maybe before reading this book I was thinking "now here is the man I can admire" I saw too many of his speeches in parliament about democracy. The lines "But this tradition should remain, the game of politics will go on, parties will come and go, but this country should remain immortal, it's constitution should remain immortal" these lines still pierces this young heart. But humans are flawed I guess and with that this rambling ends.
April 9, 2022
I remember how in the late 90s, every time the then Prime Minister of India in Atal Bihari Vajpayee, stood up in the Parliament to deliver his speech, the streets all across would go deserted. The traffic would come to a halt, leaving the roads, lifeless. BJP’s most beloved son, in his quintessential style of putting forth his viewpoint, would not only attract the common man to a nearby TV set but would silence his adversaries into listening to him.
Atal Bihari was not your typical politician who despite of your difference in opinion with him and his party, would get him to loathe you. He was an extremely seasoned parliamentarian, who kept his friends and the foe in good harmony.
In spite of the fact that he was a soldier of the hardcore Hindutva propagating RSS, he delivered the balancing act of keeping this organisation at bay and ensuring a smoother functioning of the democracy. For him, the parliament was sacrosanct.
Sagarika Ghose’s portrait of Atal Bihari Vajpayee is genuinely one of the best. The writing reflects on how extensively the research has been done by her. It’s like buying a ‘ready-reckoner’ of the former PM. Only a flaw if I may point out is, this book does not have pictures of those crucial moments that would have gone a long way in completing this narrative.
Do read this journey of India’s very own Bharat Ratna awardee, from ‘geet naya gaata hoon’ to ‘geet nahin gaata hoon’! 📚
Atal Bihari was not your typical politician who despite of your difference in opinion with him and his party, would get him to loathe you. He was an extremely seasoned parliamentarian, who kept his friends and the foe in good harmony.
In spite of the fact that he was a soldier of the hardcore Hindutva propagating RSS, he delivered the balancing act of keeping this organisation at bay and ensuring a smoother functioning of the democracy. For him, the parliament was sacrosanct.
Sagarika Ghose’s portrait of Atal Bihari Vajpayee is genuinely one of the best. The writing reflects on how extensively the research has been done by her. It’s like buying a ‘ready-reckoner’ of the former PM. Only a flaw if I may point out is, this book does not have pictures of those crucial moments that would have gone a long way in completing this narrative.
Do read this journey of India’s very own Bharat Ratna awardee, from ‘geet naya gaata hoon’ to ‘geet nahin gaata hoon’! 📚
December 8, 2025
Completed reading tenth book of the year Atal Bihari Vajpayee by Sagarikha Ghose. Biographies were my desired category during the initial days of reading but that declined soon after. This book got my gaze unexpectedly but could not decline as the person dealt remains as a complex political figure with a standalone personality. The book discusses the rise, reign and fall of Vajpayee with oodles first hand information and references. The transition from one section/ segment to another within a chapter doesn't felt seamless atleast initially. People who are interested in the person himself and Indian political and electoral history can consider while others might feel mundane.
September 30, 2022
A Biography of India’s ex-PM. The author does a great job of highlighting the personality and personal aspects of a person - warts and all - who was called by Khushwant Singh to be ‘a good man in a bad party’.
December 24, 2024
There are better books on Vajpayee than this. The prose sounded very frivolous. I read it only because I wanted to know more about my favourite political personality but was disappointed. Very repetitive and ill-researched!
April 22, 2022
Very boring , lacks depth. Extremely repetitive .
October 17, 2022
Amazing book
The book was amazing sagarika mam but please use simple language hence forward the poetry you wrote f koor vajpayee was also astonishing
The book was amazing sagarika mam but please use simple language hence forward the poetry you wrote f koor vajpayee was also astonishing
March 16, 2025
Please note: this is a solid 3.5 but went with a 4 instead of a 3 in the rating.
I continued my quest to better understand the Prime Minister of my childhood days through this book. At the outset, if Shakti Sinha's memoir style work offers great detail of the years from 1996 to Kargil especially the 13 month government, Sagarika Ghose's biography is the zoomed out broadbrush almost literary salutation to the man not owned by liberals in his life and misowned in his death.
My fundamental beef with the book is the almost novel style of writing where analysis gives way to unnecessarily long trails of adjectives especially in the first and last chapters. The second problem I identified is with the tone. At times I almost felt that Ghose tried too hard to show Vajpayee's adoration and respect for Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Her own analysis in other parts made me takeaway that Vajpayee was a strategic communicator who knew how to keep his audience happy and may have kept his praise for Nehru-Gandhi in context of a conversation. Thirdly, Ghose touches on Vajpayee's almost modern family like personal life only in the last chapter. His choice to practice an unorthodox family is in fact the true testament of his liberal and progressive thinking more than any other political speech. There is definitely more that can be explored here and I understand Vajpayee's most recent biographer, Abhishek Choudhary has researched and written on Vajpayee's family life. Lastly, the entire book is constructed on secondary research of popular non-fiction titles and interviews of close associates of Vajpayee most prominently N.M. Ghatate, his close friend and biographer. L.K. Advani and Vajpayee's family members are notably absent. Any comprehensive biography of ABV would be incomplete without detailed interviews of these stakeholders. However, it's understandable why they may not be keen to offer their insights. Perhaps, whats most glaring is the absence of coverage of scholarly writings on Vajpayee from sources such as the Economic and Political Weekly, journals of the Communist party, Frontline, the RSS Organiser among others. What were the commentators of these and other journals including internationally writing about Vajpayee, his ambiguous politics and policies. Ghose only scratches the surface of these to add detail to her protagonist's actions on a few occasions.
Despite these shortcomings, Ghose's biography is an important addition to the growing literature, not just on Atal Bihari Vajpayee but on the Hindutva movement brewing from the 20th century which has shaped modern India and will possibly impact the rest of the 21st century. Much of our history books have unfortunately not given emphasis to the movement and its leaders and the BJP's outcry to change books is partially justified. Using her novelist style of writing, Ghose paints the ambitious fluidity in Vajpayee's politics from the 50s till 2004. She does a great job in making you sympathize with him in the times of his political lows and finds some meaning in his communal turns. My greatest takeaway from this book is about how masterful a political mind Vajpayee had which manifested in almost a six decade long political career and more importantly how the poet in him impacted his ethics and politics. Ghose does an interesting job of juxtaposing Vajpayee's poems in some of the key sections of the book- adding flavor and helping the reader understand the subject better. Peppered with anecdotes- many light hearted and topped with Vajpayee's witty responses, the book almost reads like a novel and I found myself rushing through the first 50 and last 100 pages.
I would recommend this book to almost anyone living in modern India to understand the politician who played an instrumental role in founding the most prominent political party in India and how Parliamentarians are expected to add value to the lives of citizens. However, I would particularly recommend it to those who have a philosophical soft corner for Hindi poetry. Vajpayee's lines will especially ring out. For me it was his poem on release after Emergency which resonated the most. You too may find the poem you see yourself quoting the most, snucked away in the book.
I continued my quest to better understand the Prime Minister of my childhood days through this book. At the outset, if Shakti Sinha's memoir style work offers great detail of the years from 1996 to Kargil especially the 13 month government, Sagarika Ghose's biography is the zoomed out broadbrush almost literary salutation to the man not owned by liberals in his life and misowned in his death.
My fundamental beef with the book is the almost novel style of writing where analysis gives way to unnecessarily long trails of adjectives especially in the first and last chapters. The second problem I identified is with the tone. At times I almost felt that Ghose tried too hard to show Vajpayee's adoration and respect for Nehru and Indira Gandhi. Her own analysis in other parts made me takeaway that Vajpayee was a strategic communicator who knew how to keep his audience happy and may have kept his praise for Nehru-Gandhi in context of a conversation. Thirdly, Ghose touches on Vajpayee's almost modern family like personal life only in the last chapter. His choice to practice an unorthodox family is in fact the true testament of his liberal and progressive thinking more than any other political speech. There is definitely more that can be explored here and I understand Vajpayee's most recent biographer, Abhishek Choudhary has researched and written on Vajpayee's family life. Lastly, the entire book is constructed on secondary research of popular non-fiction titles and interviews of close associates of Vajpayee most prominently N.M. Ghatate, his close friend and biographer. L.K. Advani and Vajpayee's family members are notably absent. Any comprehensive biography of ABV would be incomplete without detailed interviews of these stakeholders. However, it's understandable why they may not be keen to offer their insights. Perhaps, whats most glaring is the absence of coverage of scholarly writings on Vajpayee from sources such as the Economic and Political Weekly, journals of the Communist party, Frontline, the RSS Organiser among others. What were the commentators of these and other journals including internationally writing about Vajpayee, his ambiguous politics and policies. Ghose only scratches the surface of these to add detail to her protagonist's actions on a few occasions.
Despite these shortcomings, Ghose's biography is an important addition to the growing literature, not just on Atal Bihari Vajpayee but on the Hindutva movement brewing from the 20th century which has shaped modern India and will possibly impact the rest of the 21st century. Much of our history books have unfortunately not given emphasis to the movement and its leaders and the BJP's outcry to change books is partially justified. Using her novelist style of writing, Ghose paints the ambitious fluidity in Vajpayee's politics from the 50s till 2004. She does a great job in making you sympathize with him in the times of his political lows and finds some meaning in his communal turns. My greatest takeaway from this book is about how masterful a political mind Vajpayee had which manifested in almost a six decade long political career and more importantly how the poet in him impacted his ethics and politics. Ghose does an interesting job of juxtaposing Vajpayee's poems in some of the key sections of the book- adding flavor and helping the reader understand the subject better. Peppered with anecdotes- many light hearted and topped with Vajpayee's witty responses, the book almost reads like a novel and I found myself rushing through the first 50 and last 100 pages.
I would recommend this book to almost anyone living in modern India to understand the politician who played an instrumental role in founding the most prominent political party in India and how Parliamentarians are expected to add value to the lives of citizens. However, I would particularly recommend it to those who have a philosophical soft corner for Hindi poetry. Vajpayee's lines will especially ring out. For me it was his poem on release after Emergency which resonated the most. You too may find the poem you see yourself quoting the most, snucked away in the book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews