Five Decades in Politics

Veteran politician Sushilkumar Shinde’s career trajectory is unrivalled in Indian politics. Beginning life working as a child labourer and as a ward boy to make ends meet, he went on to hold some of the highest offices in the land: the chief minister of Maharashtra, the Union home minister, All India Congress Committee general secretary and the UPA’s vice-presidential candidate. In this candid memoir written with Rasheed Kidwai, he takes us though the highs and lows of his fifty-year-long political journey: from being ‘discovered’ by Sharad Pawar and fighting his first few elections to his subsequent rise to the pinnacles of power.

Shinde’s tenure as Union home minister saw, among other things, the controversial trials and executions of Ajmal Kasab and Afzal Guru, the 2012 Delhi gangrape case and an investigation of ‘Hindu terror’ groups. Andhra Pradesh was bifurcated into two states under his watch as governor. He gives us a behind-the-scenes view of these significant events and also sheds light on what went wrong with the Manmohan Singh-led UPA II government and why the Congress-led coalition lost to the BJP-led NDA in 2014.

Referring to the many challenges Sushilkumar Shinde confronted and overcame in his long career, President Pranab Mukherjee once said, ‘His [Shinde’s] story is the story of India.’ Five Decades in Politics, Shinde’s memoir, makes for fascinating reading, and the tale it tells will be an inspiration to many.