The author stated in a TOI interview:

I was inspired by a book I read on Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China in the 1980s…

On the issue of getting access to Rao’s personal papers by the ex-PM’s family, Sitapathi said in the same interview-



It was important to me that the family does not control what I write. Which is why I have been able to write about Rao’s strengths as well as his flaws…

