History moves through a series of events that stack upon one another – timely and mistimed, intentional and accidental, logical and baffling. To understand the present means understanding this stack, something Abhishek Choudhary achieves effectively in Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power, 1977–2018 , the sequel to his award-winning Vajpayee: The Ascent of the Hindu Right, 1924–1977 .

To grasp how the Hindu right rose so meteorically in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, one must study former Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s life, a task not yet undertaken with such analytical depth. The text in both books itself is remarkably fluid and compelling, the kind you gobble up rather than simply read. Through a series of messages, emails, and

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