Towards Injustice

Today we seem to be running in the opposite direction, striving towards injustice, applauding it as though it’s a worthy dream, a goal, an aspiration, and the terrible tragedy of India is that the caste system has institutionalised injustice, made it a sacred thing. So we are programmed to accept hierarchies and injustice. It’s not that other societies are just. Other societies have been through wars and genocide on an incredible scale. I am just talking about the imagination of our society. What can one do, how do we rail against it? Many of us do what we do, knowing that even if no one’s listening, even if we never win, though we want to, badly, we’d rather go down on the other side than be a part of this victory march that is really a death march.

--Arundhati Roy

Militarized democracy!

"We are facing the prospect of a militarized democracy, though that might sound as an oxymoron."

Arundhati Roy's Life Inspires an Upcoming Film

Can you imagine, in these times, a film inspired by life of Arundhati Roy, the well-known writer and social activist? The film has reportedly other characters inspired by jailed human rights activist Binayak Sen, and the rare, honest policeman Promod Muthalik.

If you revel in this news, wait. There is a catch. The film-maker,Vivek Agnihotri, who dared to get together all these charcters in his upcoming film Buddha in a Traffic Jam, may not trot it out along your line of thought. He seems to have other things on his mind. "Arundhati Roy has been called many things, including a terrorist," says Vivek. "While some think she was only exercising her right to free speech, my film indeed is about intellectual terrorism".

So, what is intellectual terrorism anyway? Of course, a new idea, though funny one. Since when intellectuals like Arundhati Roy got to be terrorists? Words are weapons, right, but are they any match for the lethal things the real terrorists use to damage human corpus and property?

India may not have many intellectuals Like Roy, but Europe had and still has intellectuals who were/are pro-active against the establishment and the Government. Three names immediately come to mind: Jean Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Elfriede Jelinek.Sartre and Foucault participated in demonstrations against the Government quite often, and had offered resistance in person whenever they felt like it. Foucault was roughed by the police a number of times, and mind you he was quite famous internationally. Jelinek, for her activism, was hounded,pounded, and even sent to mental asylum by the socialist rulers.

Arundhati's participation in movements would never measure up to the level of Sartre and Foucault. And she did never suffer as much as them,let alone Jelinek.

Has anybody ever called Sartre and Foucault intellectual terrorist? Can you accuse Jelinek of intellectual terrorism?

And to label Arundhati Roy an intellectual terrorist ..Ha! Ha!

When News is manufactured

"Now that Operation Green Hunt has begun to knock on the doors of people like myself, imagine what’s happening to activists and political workers who are not well known. To the hundreds who are being jailed, tortured and eliminated. June 26 is the 35th anniversary of the Emergency. Perhaps the Indian people should declare (because the government certainly won’t) that this country is in a state of Emergency. (On second thoughts, did it ever go away?) This time censorship is not the only problem. The manufacture of news is an even more serious one."

Arundhati Roy as mediator in Govt-Maoist peace talks?

Arundhati Roy never ceases to amaze me.

I'm not surprised Kishenji, the top Maist leader, proposes her name as a mediator. Not only is Arundhati savvy and knowlegeable about such an impotrant issue, her integrity is also above board.

But Arundhati does not want to be a mediator, saying she has not got the required skill-set of a mediator. She would rather act as an observer.

That is real Arundhati Roy who knows her limitations and understands how she could be useful to such a crucial talk.

But would the Indian govt agree to take her even as an observer? Nope.

The slipper that was to hit Arundhati Roy

Did most Indian dailies block this news?

A slipper was thrown at Arundhati Roy when she visited the Delhi University on February 13 was auctioned for Rs 101,000 on Thursday, Hindustan Times reported. Asif Kumar, a member of the Youth Unity for Vibrant Action, threw his slipper at the acclaimed author in protest against her statement that “Kashmir should be given to Pakistan”, an official of the student group told the newspaper.

What's your take on this auction?