In The Light Of What We Know

Narendra Modi has been a hundred years in the making. Vinay Sitapatis Jugalbandi provides this backstory to his current dominance in Indian politics. It begins with the creation of Hindu nationalism as a response to Britishinduced elections in the 1920s moves on to the formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party BJP in 1980 and ends with its first national government from 1998 to 2004. And it follows this journey through the entangled lives of its founding jugalbandi Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Over their sixdecadelong relationship Vajpayee and Advani worked as a team despite differences in personality and beliefs. What kept them together was fraternal love and professional synergy of course but also above all an ideology that stressed on unity. Their partnership explains what the BJP before Modi was and why it won. In supporting roles are a cast of charactersfrom the wardens wife who made room for Vajpayee in her family to the billionaire grandson of Pakistans founder who happened to be a major early funder of the BJP. Based on private papers party documents newspapers and over two hundred interviews this is a mustread for those interested in the ideology that now rules India.