The compromiser
Rajdharma was the sutra Vajpayee invoked for Modi to follow after the 2002 riots. It was widely read as a public rebuke of the Gujarat chief minister. Yet, just a week later, in a speech in Goa, he struck a very different note. Had he failed his own rajdharma?
The Marriott hotel in Goa, nestled in a quiet leafy lane by the banks of the River Mandovi in Panaji, would hardly be seen as the ideal locale to decide the course of India's contemporary political history. In the land of sun and sand, siesta and susegado, the hotel prides itself on offering visitors a classic Goan holiday experience. In April 2002, however, the hotel was not the venue for beach-loving tourists but for the BJP national executive, a high-profile meet that was seeking to quell
