The Devil’s Manifesto

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Once a hot-shot and ambitious lawyer, Prabhat is now sick, bitter, alcoholic and suicidal. Dragging his wrecked personal and social life, he spends 10 years in oblivi- on. With an incessant rage and disdain for life, he arrives in a university to meet his old pal one day. Soon enough, he gets mired in the deadly nexus of covert Naxals. It seems everyone around him harbours a fatal secret. And then, his dark past resurfaces to blow up in his face. A tale of love, rage, deceit and revenge, woven around the deadly illusion of the communist eutopia.

Dr Benul Beshak is Associate Professor and Director PR, at State University of Performing & Visual Arts, Rohtak. Prior to this, he had served as Content & Communication Head (Special Publications) at Dainik Jagran Group. He has also served as production consultant for a host of institutions. A business graduate from National Institute of Technology, Allahabad (Prayagraj) and a Doctorate in Journalism & Mass Communication, he has over 12 years' experi- ence in academics, media production and publication management. Dr Beshak is a professional writer, researcher and scriptwriter, with keen interest in cinema, cultural and philosophical studies. Some of his significant books include- 'Envisioning Higher Education in India; 'Banaras: City of Million Tales; 'Pathfinders of Aligarh, 'Magnates' and 'Legends. His debut novel was a crime/comic thriller- The Accidental Banker.

started developing this work in July 2018. I was provoked by some of the finest literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, by the likes of Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn and Orwell. The idea was to reconcile and contextualise the contemporary currents of left- wing thinking and impact, especially on campus culture and beyond. The idea of the book was to put some incendiary material on the table, and then see where it goes. Popular fiction genre provides a fine opportunity to reach out to young. argumentative and curious minds with entertaining yet nuanced content.

Saying too much at the start may spoil the fun of the read- although, by the time you read this, you might have an idea of what lies ahead. Besides the fatal folly of the Communist Revolution, the book also deals with the fatalities of nihilism, the evolutionary idea of free will and the fallouts of ideological possession.

Carl Jung once said, "People don't have ideas, ideas have people." This pretty much captures the power that ideas can wield over the thinking and actions of people. The ideological possession, although, on one hand (over)simplifies and 'resolves' any given problematic phenomena by offering a definitive conclusion or 'solution' based upon the ideological dictates. However, it is a "low-resolution' image of the problem - which risks false or even fatal solutions. In particular, when it comes to complex problems like inequality, ideology offers a deterministic explanation since it is based upon univariate analyses, which, interestingly, are more often politically expedient. The explanation, therefore, doesn't solve the problem but either creates an illusion of a solution, or - worse- gives a halo of self-importance to the ideologically possessed. Worse still, it engenders seductive narcissism among the purpose-starved youth (who are looking for some fancy, self- satisfying avenue for image-building) by claiming moral one- upmanship by building a 'just' and 'fair' society.

I hope the book provokes some rethinking and remodelling of moral contours amidst the ideologically possessed left-wing messiahs.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages