When George Fernandes died at the age of eighty-eight earlier this year, he was almost a forgotten person. Yet he had once been an astounding figure, a militant trade unionist who clashed with Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian government and committed himself earnestly to socialist causes. But in a matter of years, he moved radically to the right, aligning with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), supporting India’s nuclear weapons program, and even defending Narendra Modi during the bloody anti-Muslim 2002 Gujarat riots.

His life and trajectory tell us a lot about what’s happened to politics in India over the years.

Fernandes was born in a Christian family in Karnataka. His family wanted him to become a priest. In 1949, he instead went to Bombay, as it was then called, and was drawn there to the socialist movement and trade union activism.