‘THE UNFORTUNATE INDIAN is a novel presented by fictional characters on historical reality in thirty chapters of a single but zigzag, multifaceted and multicoloured story. It’s a revelation of the human struggle in progression for living a moralistic life of higher human values in the realistic circumstances of utter poverty, social dislocation and hostile environment.  Across the interactions of the featured characters, the novel has rendered itself to be reflective of a new appraisal of the society, polity, economy, culture, customs, beliefs and ways of life of the Indian people expressly since the partition of the country parallel with the transfer of power from Britain to India and Pakistan. The partition trauma, the plight of the refugees, their struggle for survival in utter wretchedness, women trafficking and the stories how refugee girls in hundreds ended in becoming sex-workers in brothels have been depicted in the activities and dialogues of the characters of the novel. Vivid descriptions are there of the very realistic nature of the lives of monks, churchmen, so-called god-men, peasants, politicians, physicians, teachers, housewives and historians acted by the featured characters in different stages of the novel. There are chapters to deal with the bright as well as the dark side of Indian culture and tradition from the past to the present. As a whole, the novel is reflective of a revisiting and revaluation of Indian history, colonial administration, nationalist movement, Indian intellectuals, foreign relations, post-independence social conditions and way of life in terms of overall human values, culture, reason, humanism and progressivism.

Sailen Debnath is a prolific writer in various fields. This novel is reflective of his profound knowledge about Indian life and people’s ways of living, ethno-religious environment, socio-economic struggles of the downtrodden, different facets of culture and civilization. Here in this novel he portrays the striving have-nots and the marginalized people of India viz-a-viz their exploiters throughout the ages; and that he has done symbolically as well as explicitly through the activities and thought-waves of the central featured figures in the novel. In fact, the unknown India has come out through his pen in this novel, ‘The Unfortunate Indian’.