About the Book

This book is about the history of the CPI(M). The Left is facing its severest political test in the country. It lost the 2009 Lok Sabha elections and doubts are being cast on whether it would be able to survive the West Bengal assembly polls in 2011.  A careful reading will explain that the hope for regeneration for the CPI(M) appears almost lost. The party is in crisis as never before, with no single leader capable of reviving its past glory. The CPI(M) aligned with the Congress and weakened the forces that could have strengthened the Left’s ideological direction. The proximity to the Congress gave birth to a neoliberal section, and it spelled doom for the party.

Diptendra makes an in-depth study of the situation and presents a rare insight into the failures of the Left party. The book challenges the conventional wisdom that a secular polity has developed in India in the last two decades to fight the communal forces. He has also explained how two groups, one led by Prakash Karat and the other by Sitaram Yechury–Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, are fighting a long-drawn battle to gain the party’s control.

The conflict between PC Joshi and BT Ranadive was the genesis of the crisis that is haunting the CPI(M) even today, the book argues.  It tries to find out why the party became so arrogant between 2004 and 2008 and why it failed to see the writings on the wall.

About the Author

Born in 1964, Diptendra Raychaudhuri is a senior journalist, based in New Delhi. He worked as a political correspondent of Anandabazar Parika and is currently Political Editor with Kolkata TV.

His journalistic assignment, that included reporting on the Left Front parties, gave him a deep insight into the functioning of the Left and its predicaments. Some of his observations may infuriate the Left bosses of today, but the party cadre would testify to the vitality of the arguments presented. It must be remembered that Diptendra has written this book as an insider and has no qualms about admitting his closeness to the Left. The author’s credentials as an author is already well established. His novel Seeing through the Stones—A Tale from the Maoist Land that later came as A Naxal Story... showed his brilliant understanding of the countryside and the way people were turning into Naxals. There too, he said a lot about the deficiencies of the CPI (M) and the Left movement in general.

Born and raised in Calcutta (Kolkata), Diptendra graduated from St Xavier’s College in Political Science and completed his Masters in Sociology from University of Calcutta.  He joined the Anandabazar Patrika in 1987.