India Before Modi

Narendra Modi has been a hundred years in the making, and this book provides the backstory. It begins with the creation of Hindu nationalism, moves on to the 1980 formation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and ends with its first national administration, from 1998 to 2004. By revisiting these events, we can trace the Modi government’s current dominance of Indian politics all the way back to its origins.

Vinay Sitapati follows this journey through the entangled lives of the party’s founding fathers: Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. Over their six-decade-long relationship, Vajpayee and Advani worked as a team, despite differences in personality and beliefs. Bound together by RSS discipline and shared ambition–for a Hinduised Indian polity– their partnership explains the nature of the BJP before Modi, and why it won power.

In supporting roles are a colourful cast of characters, from the warden’s wife who made room for Vajpayee in her family to the billionaire grandson of Pakistan’s founder, who happened to be a major early BJP benefactor. Based on private papers, party documents, newspapers and over 200 interviews, this is a must-read for all those interested in the Hindu nationalist ideology that now rules India.