How Prime Ministers Decide
India�s prime ministers have taken decisions that changed the course of the country�s history. This book by Neerja Chowdhury, an award-winning journalist and political commentator, goes beyond the news headlines to provide an eye-opening account of how some of the most important political decisions in independent India were taken.<br> The author analyses the operating styles of the country�s prime ministers through the prism of six decisions of historic significance. These are as follows: the strategy that Indira Gandhi devised to return to power in 1980, after her humiliating defeat post the Emergency in 1977; the errors of judgment that led Rajiv Gandhi to undo the Supreme Court�s judgment in the Shah Bano case; V. P. Singh�s implementation of the Mandal Commission Report to save his government which forever changed the face of contemporary politics; P. V. Narasimha Rao�s masterful indecision that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid; the rapidly changing political scenarios that turned the avowed pacifist Atal Bihari Vajpayee into a nuclear hawk who greenlighted the testing of nuclear devices; and the mild and professorial Manmohan Singh, widely regarded as one of the country�s weakest prime ministers, who defied interest groups and foes within the political establishment to seal a historic nuclear deal with the United States�and upgraded the bilateral relationship to a new level.<br> Based on hundreds of interviews that the author conducted with prime ministers, key figures in the political establishment, bureaucrats, aides, policymakers, and even fixers�the book provides remarkable insights that have been gleaned over forty years of high-level reporting on the national political scene.<br> <i>How Prime Ministers Decide</i> is an unparalleled book about modern Indian politics which will change the way we view how prime ministers govern the country.
Categories: Politics & Society
