India: Police Consider Charges Against Arundhati Roy

The following appeared in Outlook (April 12). The implications, danger and urgency of this should speak for itself. Arundhati Roy has just publicly stepped out in defense of the tribal people and Maoist fighters targeted by the Indian governments Operation Green Hunt.

Chhatisgarh Police Mulls Action Against Arundhati Roy

First came the report in today’s Hindi daily Nai Duniya, published from Bhopal, with the dateline Raipur, that the police in Chhattisgarh was considering action against author Arundhati Roy under under Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act-2005. And then came the corroboration from various police sources.

Apparently, one Vishwajit Mitra, has lodged a complaint at the Telibanda police station in Raipur, pointing out that the contents and photographs of Arundhati Roy’s essay Walking With The Comrades, published in the March 29 issue of Outlook could attract action as an offence under Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act-2005.

The complaint has also been sent to the governor Shekhar Dutt, Chief Minister Raman Singh and Director General of Police Vishwaranjan, demanding legal action against Arundhati Roy.

Nai Duniya had earlier reported that DGP Vishwaranjan had confirmed receipt of the complaint and asked the State Intelligence Bureau to enquire into the merits of the case against the Booker prize winning author.

The Indian Express quotes the police as saying: “We are examining it to find out whether any offence has been committed”.

The complainant, Vishwajit Mitra, told The Indian Express that Arundhati’s essay had sought to not only “glorify” the Maoists but also denigrate the country’s established system, including the judiciary. “Referring to a Maoist ‘Jan adalat’, she says in her essay that “in most jan adalats, at least the collective is physically present to make a decision. It’s not made by judges who’ve lost touch with ordinary life”, he pointed out, alleging that the writer also sought to justify Maoist other activities.

Arundhati Roy Among India’s Naxalbari: A Debate, Part 1

This was originally posted on kafila.org.  H/T to J. Ramsey.

Arundhati Roy’s powerful article Walking with the Comrades touched off an intense debate within India.  To provide a snapshot, we are posting a critique and a response to Roy’s piece.

“…[A]re we seriously supposed to believe that the extraordinary tide of insurrection will wash over the messy landscapes of urban India and over the millions of disorganised workers in our countryside without the emergence of a powerful social agency, a broad alliance of salaried and wage-earning strata, that can contest the stranglehold of capitalism?  Without mass organisations, battles for democracy, struggles for the radicalisation of culture, etc., etc.?  Does any of this matter for her?”

Response to Arundhati Roy: Jairus Banaji

This is a guest post by JAIRUS BANAJI

Arundhati Roy’s essay “Walking with the Comrades” is a powerful indictment of the Indian state and its brutality but its political drawbacks are screamingly obvious.  Arundhati clearly believes that the Indian state is such a bastion of oppression and unrelieved brutality that there is no alternative to violent struggle or ‘protracted war’. In other words, democracy is a pure excrescence on a military apparatus that forms the true backbone of the Indian state. It is simply its ‘benign façade’. If all you had in India were forest communities and corporate predators, tribals and paramilitary forces, the government and the Maoists, her espousal of the Maoists might just cut ice. But where does the rest of India fit in? What categories do we have for them?  Or are we seriously supposed to believe that the extraordinary tide of insurrection will wash over the messy landscapes of urban India and over the millions of disorganised workers in our countryside without the emergence of a powerful social agency, a broad alliance of salaried and wage-earning strata, that can contest the stranglehold of capitalism?  Without mass organisations, battles for democracy, struggles for the radicalisation of culture, etc., etc.?  Does any of this matter for her?

Arundhati Roy Among India’s Naxalbari: A Debate, Part 2

This was originally posted on kafila.org.  It’ was a comment to a piece originally written by Jairus Banaji.

“Only a “civic” anxiety could have mis-read what Arundhati painfully tries to make us see. That certain people are not living under conditions we can even imagine unless we witness and hear it. Does human life have to carry as complex a message that intellectual discourses carry?! What the hell do we mean by “social change” when all that it can mean is something of a middle-class passport to “conscious political” livelihood?! Whereas, the SOCIAL itself is UNDER THREAT in certain societies and CHANGE can only mean either daily annihilation or resistance?!”

A response to Jairus Banaji

By Manash

I must confess I found the highly reputed Jairus Banaji’s response to Arundhati utterly disappointing and irrelevant. I will simply raise a few questions against his reading of Arundhati’s article and leave it there.

Banaji asks, “But where does the rest of India fit in? What categories do we have for them?” –

Well, the irony is, the rest of India does “fit in” somehow, somewhere, in the scheme of things, unlike those hungry tribal boys who eat up their bananas on their way to meet a “kaamraid” and understand defending life with guns. Unless these tribals are psychopaths, I don’t understand any meaningful explanation for them to live the way they are doing. And as far as the “rest of India” is concerned, the “categories” of civil society and all such civil discourses keep the academia, the media, the law, and the government going. Why should civil-society suddenly, deliberately feature in a debate which is precisely about people who are forced to lead an un-civic life?! Why should pro-civil society intellectuals behave like judges in their suggestive remarks about the tribals being innocent victims of (Maoist) politics? Are we to believe that the whole debate which involves the life and death so many poor people needs a kind of judge-versus-vanguard quarrel?! I feel “Who are with the Maoists?” isn’t the question we face. The question we face is: Who are with the tribals?

Says Banaji, “In Arundhati’s vision of politics the only agent of social change is a military force.” –

This is a totally misguided misrepresentation. I don’t think Arundhati means it at all. Only a “civic” anxiety could have mis-read what Arundhati painfully tries to make us see. That certain people are not living under conditions we can even imagine unless we witness and hear it. Does human life have to carry as complex a message that intellectual discourses carry?! What the hell do we mean by “social change” when all that it can mean is something of a middle-class passport to “conscious political” livelihood?! Whereas, the SOCIAL itself is UNDER THREAT in certain societies and CHANGE can only mean either daily annihilation or resistance?!