Of Love and Politics is Indian author Tuhin A. Sinha’s third and most ambitious novel. Set against the backdrop of Indian politics, the book is an unusual and a first-of its kind endeavor which despite being a fictitious story about relationships, fixes responsibility for some of India’s biggest political failings in the last 63 years.

The book, being published by Hachette India, is due for release on 25th June, 2010. However, thanks to an astute teaser campaign- a series of columns called Love Thy Leader, which was carried out by the author in the country’s leading paper, The Times Of India, the book has generated unprecedented curiosity.

Blurb

I’m a political journalist by profession and an eternal romantic at heart. I’m sure that is a scandalous and a rare combination.

Unlike the US, where elections are essentially personality centric and every citizen has a right to decide the next leader, Indian elections tend to be extra-democratic, often putting the very institution at peril. The Indian political scenario is largely tri-polar. There is the Congress and its allies called the UPA on the one hand, the BJP and its allies called the NDA on the other. And then there is the Third Front comprising Left Parties and others who come and leave the front on their convenience. A tri-polar contest carries a huge probability of a hung parliament, which in turn results in some rather hasty and volatile re-alignments to form government. Some of these alignments can be outright opportunistic. And having closely studied them over the last several years, I am in a position to deduce that Indian political parties are promiscuous by nature.

The other interesting point that I have noted is that the political ideology or thought of an individual does tend to percolate down to the individual’s personal demeanor and beliefs too. At least, my friendship with a host of politicos cutting across ideological affinities and my comprehension of them bears testimony to such a phenomenon.

What happens then, when the political drama that unfolds in the country’s corridors of powers, spills over to a complicated personal bond that the protagonists – Aditya Samar Singh, Brajesh Ranjan and Chaitali Sen share? Aditya Singh, like the Congress party he belongs to, tends to be aristocratic while he stands for rationalism and prudence; he is a centrist and he’s accommodating. Brajesh Ranjan, like his party, the BJP, swears by an overtly nationalist agenda; his personal dignity, as well as his idea of the nation’s self dignity tend to be so inflated that they sometimes border on egocentricity; he is hard on himself and others alike. Chaitali Sen, like the CPI(M) she represents, does have some revolutionary crusader traits and instincts. It goes without saying, she is leftist at heart and swears by the underpowered.

Facts, as they say are stranger than fiction and in as much as they would want to deny it, this is an oxymoronic tale of how Aditya, Brajesh and Chaitali were once entangled in a personal alliance, as volatile as the one their parties were forming and breaking. Through their journey, I could manage some rare insights into the personal side of Indian politics.