Why did the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government prove to be such a comprehensive failure? Why did the Bharatiya Janata Party, the so-called "party with a difference" that promised to provide "a viable alternative", falter so badly once in power? Why after every scandal did the BJP leaders brazenly argue that "Congress did the same thing" and that "their scam was bigger than ours"? Failing the Promise probes such questions.

The book indicts the Vajpayee government for failing its promise of effecting fundamental change. More than the so-called compulsions of coalition politics, the author holds the real reason to be a lack of conviction on the part of Vajpayee and his colleagues. Theirs was a mandate for a change of regime, and not merely of government but the first-ever Indian Right-wing formation in power failed to alter the grammar of politics and the idiom of public discourse. Its major failings include:

Generally, it is the Left-libbers who deprecate BJP for communalizing India’s education system, supporting fascist tendencies, and spreading jingoism. But Ravi Shanker Kapoor, a self-confessed conservative, severely criticizes the Parivar for diluting its political agenda and for blindly internalizing the economic philosophy of the Left. Failing the Promise is a damning critique of both the Indian Right and Vajpayee and his men from a conservative perspective, both meaty and readable.