The young Sarkar grew up in the atmosphere of Bengal renaissance, with his family being inspired by Ram Mohan Roy, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore.
Post-independence and Cold War Contemporary history One of the priests of the Ramakrishna Mission at Patna, which Sarkar frequented in his youth, introduced him to Marxist literature, which was then banned in British India.
Sarkar went on to study economics at Patna University, where he associated with the Freedom Movement and the nascent Communist Party in Bihar, and he became an activist among students and educated people.
After joining the Communist Party, he moved to the working class areas of Bihar and then Jharkhand, were, in the 1940s and 1950s, he engaged in campaigns for miners' and colliery workers' rights.
Sarkar was a leader in the Communist Party of India in Bihar in the 1950s and 1960s when it came to power in the state, and he railed against supporters of military dictatorship and ideology-less rule.