Books like The Untold Vajpayee: Politician and Paradox

The book is full of well-known stories about the Ex-Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, except they are in a bit less details.Vajpayee's professional life is no secret and everyone knows about it, what was surprising was to know about his personal life and his ideologies.I was too young during his tenure as the Prime Minister from 1999 to 2004 and I was uninterested in politics at that time.I picked this book because I wanted to know more about him as after this death everyone praised him like he was some kind of saintly man but while he was alive, I have heard that he was severely criticized by the opposition and sometimes by his own people.After reading this book I realized that I had a completely different version of Atal Bihari Vajpayee in my mind, which changed a lot after reading this book.I am not saying that I am taking every word in this book as truth because nothing in politics is true and almost always biased, but there is information on him the validity of which cannot be denied.He was not like Modi and he was definitely not a Hindu nationalist as I thought him to be.Vajpayee was shrewd, clever but at the same time a brilliant Politician. He would destroy his opponents if need aroused and he knew how to keep people in his control.That was a real revelation about him which I didn't know.I always thought that he was a simple man. I also believed that he was more powerful than Advani but turns out I was wrong.He was more respected than Advani but Advani had more control over Hindu nationalists and organizations than him.Vajpayee in fact opposed Hindu nationalists and was averse to their lifestyle.He would drink, flirt and eat beef as well. This was a side of his personality that I didn't know.Vajpayee was born before independence so he was an integral part of Indian history and his upbringing had happened in such a way that he had been a socialist at a period of time, a communist briefly and finally a nationalist.He had gone through lots of philosophical journeys and then chose one ideology to stay with the rest of his life.Vajpayee was not Pro-Hindutva as most people think him to be.But he was a true nationalist and Pro-Nation.He was responsible for enhancing foreign relations with the world and he also tried everything in his power to heal the Indo-Pak relations. It is ironical that the more he tried to heal the Indo-Pak relations, the more he was backstabbed by Pakistan.I agree that he improved the Indian Economy during his tenure and also improved the infrastructure of the country at the fastest rate possible.But he was not completely honest and incorruptible.His cabinet was comprised of people who were either his relatives or his friends and not necessarily the ablest person.He was extremely partial towards his son-in-law, his adopted daughter and his advisor Brijesh Mishra.He always lived a life of luxury and comfort and though he was a bachelor, he was not a celibate.Reading the book I understood many things about his personality.He would claim that he didn't desire power but the few evidence about his life proves otherwise that he was a power-hungry man.The man who promoted him to be the Prime Minister, Advani was later looked down upon by him when he came to know that others want Advani and not him to become the prime minister.He didn't like Narendra Modi despite Modi worshipping him and even asked Advani once to remove him from Gujrat's CM post after Godhara Riots. He wanted to do it just to please the press, the opposition and the minority communities. He succumbed to the pressure they had created. I admire Modi so much today because Modi never yields in front of pressure.Vajpayee believed that Modi was responsible for letting Gujrat burn deliberately despite Modi doing all the efforts to stop it. He even made an indirect comment on Modi by advising him to follow Rajdharma. Modi replied that he is doing exactly the same.Vajpayee was not a saint as I thought he was and neither he was a person who took pride in Hindu culture.He was a man of mixed beliefs.Despite him criticizing Nehru during his early years, I truly believe that he had more Nehru traits than of any other politician.He was just the Nehru one the other side.