The Twice-Born Heretic M. N. Roy and Comintern By Samaren Roy

About Book - 

This biographic study of M. N. Roy covers the period of his life from 1916 to 1930, the first being the year when he arrived in America as a political fugitive and the second when he returned to India after fifteen years of active political life abroad, and is a sequel to my earlier publication, The Restless Brahmin: The Early Life of M. N. Roy (1970).

A biography of M. N. Roy dealing with this period can- not just be a chronicle of events, or a story of his activities in diverse countries or a vindication of policies he had advocated at different times. Ideas-his, of those he clashed with, and of the Age-have a significance which have to be accorded pro- per recognition.

Ideas and events are intertwined., The events of Roy's life or in other words, his behaviour the manner in which he acted or reacted to developments, were to a great extent deter- mined by the ideas he held at the time of a particular decision taken by him. He was not a successful man; if he had acted differently from his ideas he would have been an opportunist; if he had refused to revise his opinions he would have been obstinate and unrealistic.

When I wrote The Restless Brahmin dealing with the first 28 years of his life the subject of the biography was a roman- tic revolutionary. In this volume I have tried to analyse the development of his personality as a Marxist thinker when he also became a controversial person. The task has not been easy.