Left Out in Bengal (Hardcover)  | Released: 2012

The biggest story of Bengal in post-Independence India is the overthrow of the 34-year-long Marxist regime in May 2011. The collapse of Marxist rule marks the end of a dream about a corruption-free, egalitarian socio-economic-political system. When the rest of the world with a few exceptions wrote off Communism as a utopia or a fraud on the people, Bengal continued to be fed with the illusion that the alternative to Communism is death. The homegrown Marxists' flirtations with the Communist Party of Soviet Union and the Communist Party of China added an international flavour to this Indian drama. The Marxist government of Bengal created a record by staying in power for over three decades at a stretch, a feat no other political party in India could achieve in any other state. For many, outside Bengal, the prolonged Marxist rule was a triumph of an ideology that sought to replace parliamentary democracy. The majority of people in Bengal, however, learnt from their personal experiences how bitter the sugar-coated pill of Marxist rule tasted. But they were helpless in the face of Marxist terror and electoral manipulations till Mamata Banerjee, a woman crusader of humble origin, and Sonia Gandhi, Congress President, teamed up to free Bengal from the shackles of fear. With a keen insight and relying on authentic documents scarcely accessed before, the book delves deep into the mechanism of the collaboration of the two women that demolished a regime sustained by a mighty ideology and a marauding army of cadres. It traces where the Marxists went wrong and sounds a warning about the fate of the Mamata-Sonia joint venture in which the ultra-Left Maoist outfit with radical and conflicting political aims was a fringe player.