Of Love and Politics (novel)

Of Love and Politics is a novel by Indian author Tuhin Sinha. 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 was published by Hachette India on 25 June 2010. A series of columns written by Sinha called "Love Thy Leader" that appeared in The Times of India generated unprecedented curiosity about the novel prior to its release.

Themes

The book plays upon several ideas:

• That politics, religion and/or ideology are issues that seem impersonal and relatively inconsequential in our daily existence, and yet sometimes, the influence cast by them is such they make or break personal bonds.

• That ideological differences do impact personal bonds.

• That Indian politics tends to be largely promiscuous – perhaps a fallout of being overly democratic. As such alliances are entered into and broken pretty much conveniently out here.

• Paradoxically enough, in the book, a similar making and breaking of personal alliances takes place between Aditya Samar Singh (Congress MP), Brajesh Ranjan ( BJP MP) and Chaitali Sen ( CPI-M activist).

Love Thy Leader Series

In March and April 2010, Tuhin wrote a controversial series of four columns called “Love Thy Leader” for Times Life, TOI. Each column talked about a romance involving a key political figure. The column disputed existing notions and sought to provide a different perspective about facts that have often remained clouded in history. While the first column delved into the power play in the romance Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, the second questioned the veracity of the Akbar-Jodha hyphenation; the third probed the possible political implications of the Nehru-Edwina romance, while the last one dwelt upon the bond between Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, which still remains shrouded in mystery.

External links

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