The problem called Arundhati Roy
By Kishore Budha • Dec 15th, 2008 • Category: Must Read, Political CommunicationsIndian society, while valorised for various reasons, is a deeply problematic one. A society that is constantly at odds with itself. While appreciating its history (as much as any other civilisation ought to be respected), one cannot help but reflect on its paradoxes. For example, Kali the female goddess is venerated by Hindus for her power. Paradoxically, any behaviour by a female that is ontologically similar to Kali’s would be completely out of place in most Indian household. Women are generally expected to personify a narrative of a docile Sita. In this context Arundhati Roy is a problem for a masculine Indian society. As an old Hindustan Times article argued, Even more intriguing is the Indian response to Roy at a personal level. Despite her waif-like appearance, she does not fit the stereotypical Indian woman. If Indian men feel threatened by her, the average woman would probably be deeply confused by her personal carriage.. The reasons for this are manifold. She is unlike modern female symbols such as Aishwarya Rai who can be argued to typify many urban Indian women – having a career, yet declaring that she believes in the institution of marriage. We all know the sub-text of such declarations — in one stroke she presents herself as a non-threatening symbol to patriarchy while continuing to enjoy fruits of individual pursuits. In this context, Arundhati Roy is derided by the Indian male as she refuses to be slotted into the “liberated” position that Aishwarya Rai is in. Unlike other Indian women, Arundhati will not be bullied or subjugated into accepting a controlled choice. To us she is closer to the Kali persona than the feminine cult of Sita and Lakshmi, which Indian society so much venerates. Like Kali she is the rebel, the outcast – the slayer of all masculine power. All hail Kali
Why we love to hate Ms Roy
The article appeared in the Hindustan Times, which has a terrible system of removing articles from its website. So I reluctantly republish it here:
The full article appeared here.
Arundhati Roy certainly has a stomach for controversy. By writing several articles (including Who needs Reality TV? in HT, Dec 23) and providing an introduction to a book defending Mohammad Afzal Guru (December 13, A Reader The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament), the main accused in the December 13, 2001, attack on the Indian Parliament, she has stuck her neck out again.
Ever since the lady made her views on the matter public, many furious friends have called. “Who does that woman think she is?” they have thundered, accusing her of “passing off conspiracy theories as investigations”. As far as they are concerned, Roy should be the first citizen in their rogue’s gallery of anti-national elements. No other writer inspires as much anger and mountains of hate mail to publications where she writes as this petite woman.
So when a foreign journalist recently asked me how Roy is perceived by Indians, the best reply I could come up with is that we have a love-hate relationship with her. I then checked the Net and found an old essay in the Observer, London.
“Is India just jealous of Arundhati Roy,” asked the paper which profiled her under the headline The Dam Buster. The same day the Sunday Times carried a full-page article that somewhat absurdly equated Roy with Victoria Beckham, both described as “role models for young British women”.
Ridiculous as the comparison between a sexy footballer-wife-pop-star and a serious novelist-essayist may be, it does reveal that Roy has been an icon in the West for some years now.
But what of her status back home in India? She’s certainly not the sort of role model that utters platitudes and makes us feel good about ourselves. On the contrary, she manages to ruffle many Indian feathers. Deconstructing the complex Indian responses to Roy reveals layers of prejudice.
First, there is the macho male response to a woman who is not just brilliant and beautiful, but is also blessed with a talent for turning out powerful prose. Roy would be adored by the Indian male if she had been content to sit prettily on a pedestal.
Instead, she has repeatedly asked for trouble challenging the big boys when they are playing with their favourite toys: the Big Bomb, the Big Dam, the Big War and now the Big Terrorist.
Even more intriguing is the Indian response to Roy at a personal level. Despite her waif-like appearance, she does not fit the stereotypical Indian woman. If Indian men feel threatened by her, the average woman would probably be deeply confused by her personal carriage.
Roy’s sartorial tastes are like a bucket of cold water to a cash-rich middle-class pursuing polyester dreams. Ethnic chic, new-age hippie, Western vogue, all rolled into one. Her mix of colourful peasant style skirts with the casual Western T-shirt is devastatingly trendy, but also very individualistic.
Her haircut, too, is a case in point. Some years ago she changed to a close-cropped style to expose her slightly protruding ears. In one stroke, she challenged the conventional stereotype of beauty. The hair has now grown, but so has Roy’s appetite for courting controversy.
The trendy style, impeccable articulation and high profile causes have certainly made Roy a romantic heroine in the West. In an article titled “Grassroots gamine” The Guardian‘s Madeline Bunting wrote: “The next time someone asks you what happened to feminism, you know the answer. It moved south in search of the sun.”
But an Indian summer is not a sun-bathing vacation. It is a long, hot, miserable ordeal. Roy’s causes have all landed her in conflict with the Hindu Right that freely bandies the phrase “anti-national”. It also portrays her as a lost soul in search of a cause; an individual who is raising issues that an emerging superpower cannot afford to engage with. To some extent, they have succeeded in projecting this image.
Self-absorbed as we are, most Indians are oblivious that Roy’s forceful post-September 11 essay made her an icon not just in the West but also in West Asia. Yet, most of us still think of Roy as a Booker Prize-winning author of a novel we have never read, who inexplicably seems to enjoy slumming it with anti-dam activists and now “Muslim terrorists”.
Indians would probably like Roy better if like VS Naipaul and Salman Rushdie, those other great writers they claim as their own (despite both of them living in the West), Roy made grand statements about Islam or Indian civilisation in rarefied writers’ fora and then swiftly retreated from the public stage. Besides, shouldn’t she learn some lessons from Naipaul and Rushdie, both of whom are now on the right side of the great “clash of civilisations” debate?
Yet, Roy seems to prefer clashing with those who believe they know better. But Indians are a forgiving people and her critics would absolutely adore Roy if she moved to the West, where they believe people like her actually belong. Then every Indian heart would swell with pride whenever they recall their great galaxy of English language writers.
But if Roy insists on staying on in India, there are a few things she could do to soften the hatred she often inspires in some Indians. Wear saris, shut up, stay at home, have babies, grow her hair long and start plaiting it.
Saba Naqvi Bhaumik is Bureau Chief, Outlook.
Kishore Budha is one of the co-founders of Subaltern Media and the founder-editor of the peer-reviewed Open Access journal Wide Screen. He holds a PhD in media and communications studies from the University of Leeds, UK and has professional experience in print journalism, internet news, and public relations industries. His interests include Critical Theories of Media and Communication, Semiotics, Transnational Communication, Film industry & production, Film theory, Film and history, Communications Policy, Visual Culture, Communication Technologies, Web media and Communication
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Thanks for republishing this on your site. The discovery of this site is a great boon for an autodidact student of cinema and media like me. While I was reading the Chidananda Dasgupta’ book on Film Criticism this passage struck me as much it did the author:
In the Valmiki Ramayana, Sita, eternal model o the submissive Hindu wife, says something about non- violence that should become a beacon light to the postmodernist world. When they are in exile in the forest she objects to Rama’s going about wearing arms. Why? What’s wrong? Rama. Sita’s reply: The fact that you wear arms will make you violent. The rakshasa have not done us any harm; if you kill them without because it will not reflect credit upon you. If you and your brother roam around here with bow and arrow, you might end up doing just that.
He later adds: This later episode, as far as I remember, does not occur in later Ramayana- Kamban’s Tulsidas’s or Krittibasa’s. Ramananda Sagar serial makes no mention of this either. All of them take away Sita’s intelligence and reduce her to an inert shadow of her husband.
As an assertion of women’s intelligence, Sita’s pronouncement is the Valimiki Episode I have quoted is unique.
It’s quite true that in the larger context of things from what I have seen in movies and media. The role of women is broken down into objects and products. One to be seen without intelligence or that of, not in the same wavelength that could match the men. Beside it would obviously be difficult for the male ego to take a woman who resembles the goddess Kali the sign of power. Call it the irony of fate but seen so many men praying to Kali, but when their wives raises her voice, they start feeling insecure. Perhaps, that is why Arunadhiti Roy seems so problematic to most people.with all her tendency of moving towards the persona of the goddess.
Thanks for the comments. The historian Partha Chatterjee too is critical of popular cinema in furthering the feminine cult. That is the critical perspective. Many thinkers, following the cultural studies perspective seek and locate an empowering meaning in popular culture.
I wonder what you make of it.
I think we cannot ignore and become blindfolded about popular culture. It definitely shows us a way to live and our lives. Like how Susan Sontag had written that movies taught us that it was cool to wear raincoats even when it’s not raining. But that is only possible if the popular culture at least for cinema, that I’m concerned, reflects something. Else what is the point of talking about different mass-media that reflects our popular culture but is no different from the mannequins in showroom. They may have new dresses to wear, but their faces are the same and the real voices unknown. Though they reflect glamor of the dresses they adore, and that is what we see mostly reflected.
In recent years, there has been a surge in the cultural studies on Bollywood and how it reflects different aspects of our own social, economic and political standing. But such cultural insight in the large pool of things ignores the uniqueness of the medium per se, and in the larger aspect ignores the redundancy of these films. So a culture expert could talk about the different elements of ethics and codes within the films of Johars and Chopras but its fine for one film, two films, three films, but what happens by the time we reach their twentieth film. Since the world could have changed around them but they could still be stuck with the Punjabi aunty, the Punjabi song and the woman of chastity or how about people “take an exception” and write a thesis, if cinema in the larger context was just about phrasing of moment that the purpose itself is lost. They tend to even ignore or look at the expression as a whole.
Nitesh: You say “But such cultural insight in the large pool of things ignores the uniqueness of the medium per se, and in the larger aspect ignores the redundancy of these films.”
Could you elaborate on this further please? I want to make sure I have understood you well.
check out my blog to discuss this further… fiercepothead.blogspot.com
but arundathi roy does not open her (bad) mouth when it comes to mumbai blasts killing 100s and does not comment on the killings of hindus in kashmir, bangladesh and pakistan. she is secular (sic) within definition of our country. hence she is famous
Bah humbug.
It is almost certain that some males might be threatened by Roy’s masculine feminism (to coin a phrase to describe her articulateness, her independence, her attractiveness, etc.) — India is, after all, at least a few years behind the West in reaching a level of comfort with feminism — but the main and simple reason why thinking people — male AND female — dislike her is because she just isn’t the deep and insightful thinker her pretty writing can initially give one the impression she is. I didn’t follow her past forays in turning people off, but her diatribe re. 26/11 has convinced me the emperor — or the empress in this case — has no clothes on.
I remember reading her saying she’s going to kiss off politics — sometime after the Narmada dam thang. She should’ve done that, because with politics she seems to be afflicted with a leftist pathology that she can’t control. Can’t someone suggest another good topic for her to write her encore novel on? She was wonderful with Small Things!
@ReignForrestThanks for caring to comment and welcome to Subaltern Media.
I think it is fair to criticise her writings and Roy’s political positions should not be spared critique. Conversely we should also be mindful of the perils of shooting the messenger.
Before one responds to your critique, could you define masculinity, femininity, feminism, and leftist pathology please?
Fair ’nuff — asking the newbie (me) for explanation of vocabulary.
(But such dialogs can’t go too far in a blog, you know.)
Nonetheless, here goes.
Masculinity, femininity, feminism — these don’t need an explanation here; our semantics are, or are likely to be, rather similar and therefore irrelevant. I’m agreeing with your comments which to me suggest that you’re saying she’s one powerful, capable momma.
I dare say it’s the “leftist pathology” which you may have a real issue with.
What I was trying to say is that I found her position re. 26/11 so patently faulty — appearing to absolve the terrorists (actually, the masterminds; the terrorists were mere boys with minds capable of being molded like putty) and placing the blame on assorted Indian wrongs — that it was clear (to me) that Roy’s psyche has now evolved to the point that she has a pat reaction to ANYTHING in the world AGAINST The Establishment / The Majority / The Powerful — regardless of an underlying basis of mores and morals and rights and wrongs. And she then proceeds to weave that reaction into a pretty morality tale using her formidable powers as a writer.
So that’s what I meant by her “leftist pathology”.
Again, I’m an (Indian) American, watching from afar, without much understanding of Indian politics and don’t know the extent to which her past political stands (Narmada, et al.) were vindicated or, conversely, proven wrong. So I’m forming my judgment based on the one column about Mumbai and one previous position which I unfortunately do not remember.
Hope to return here in case my post gets responded to.
I think a definition of these terms is necessary for us to start unpacking our words for meaning. In my humble opinion, masculinity and femininity are about gender. And gender is a social construction. This is unlike male and female, which are biological markers. So to me Saba Bhaumik’s essay is appealing because Arundhati Roy threatens the social expectations of a female in an Indian context. Masculinity constructs power on the basis a feudal notion of money, military power, and patriarchy. So it is inaccurate to say that hers is a “masculine feminism”. Women who advance militarism, social controls, and patriarchy (Indira Gandhi, Sushma Swaraj for example), could be considered examples of females who undertake a masculine discourse to be in power.
It appears you take exception with her recent essay “The monster in the mirror” (link). That ten or so men attacked five locations in Mumbai is a fact. That about 200 people died in the attack is a fact. I don’t think we can weasel out of that. But, to borrow Roy’s words, we can always add context. One context is “jihadi pathology”. Fair enough. I will not denounce that. But jihadists do not advertise their whereabouts for us to strike. The idea of “surgical strikes” inspired by many young globalised Indians has consequences. We see how a massively superior (technologically, numerically, and militarily) Israel is unable to control the Palestinian resistance. If they are able to, it is only because big brother US is there to keep trouble away for the Israelis. India does not have any such luck. We are on our own. So the sooner we jettison such foolish ideas the better. So what do we do about these evil boys who are willing to kill and die for nothing. Again, context.
Isn’t it telling that the dominant frame in Indian and Western media has been terror, terrorism, and Pakistan. So when it came to 26 Nov we were saturated by these images and ideas when hundreds of people die every week in the subcontinent. 5000 people die in Mumbai road accidents every year. Over 100,000 farmers have committed suicide over the last decade. The Indian and Western media would rather be more interested in coverage of the Lakme Fashion Week, launch of Tata Nano, films and celebrities as if this is what India was all about.
In the media saturation that characterised the coverage of the Mumbai carnage, which was entirely sympathetic to the victims and to the elite idea of India, we have so internalised the news media frames that our only understanding of the event is what the media has told us. Image after image, word after word reflected impatience, anger, and hysteria. And this is translating into our general attitudes towards anybody who strikes a discordant note. As far as I see, the blame lies with elements in Pakistan and with the establishment in Pakistan, which in turn has to be linked to the role the US has played in poisoning the region in the 80s over Afghanistan.
It is only now we are learning that the blasts in Malegaon and Samjhauta Express was the work of “Hindu” terrorists. If you examined the media coverage of the time, you would have noted that the finger was automatically pointed at Pakistan. This is foolish at best and dangerous at worst.
Shouldn’t we then also clean up our own act before we act on others?
We have to immediately bring to book those responsible for Gujarat 2002. We have to prosecute those who killed the Christians in Kandhamal. We have to prosecute those responsible for the 1984 killing of Sikhs. Kashmir has to be sorted. I am not arguing that if these are sorted the terrorist attacks will go away. That would be foolish. But unless we do not take cognisance of these measures and act with morality, we will lack any authority to take action against Pakistan or elements within it.
Till then, we need to beef up security and hope the adversaries aren’t a step ahead of us
There are two largely unrelated issues here.
One is how Roy is claimed to be perceived by some Indian males according to Bhaumik. (Sorry, in my previous post, I had lumped Bhaumik and you together.) It is that characterization of what Roy is, and how some Indian males react to her, which is the main focus of his essay. Her 26/11 column is merely one data point with which Bhaumik elucidates his main focus; 26/11 is not his main thrust.
The second issue has to do with the propriety of her response to 26/11 in particular.
About the first issue, if the distinctions you make about your and my definitions of feminity, masculinity, etc., are important to you, then fine, I’ll go by your definitions. If militarism is an integral part of masculinity, then you’re right: Roy is not masculine. Her power — or, if you’re sensitive about that word, too, her strength — derives not from such muscle-flexing, but from the might of the pen, from the presumed force of her convictions and — AND THIS HAS ALSO GOT TO BE TRUE FOR HER TO COMMAND AND RETAIN THAT STRENGTH — the RECTITUDE of those convictions. Bhaumik argues that some Indian males dislike her for wielding this power, this strength. This in its barest essence isn’t much different from the classic case of males in male-dominated, patriarchical societies (which most societies are) resenting the wielding of power by women. And so I agree with Bhaumik that this must be the cause of their resentment for her. To an extent some amout of dislike of Indira, of Sonia, etc., must derive from this.
But Roy’s defenders oughtn’t to shield her from criticism about the correctness of her convictions by using the excuse of that classic male resentment of female independence. I, for one, am criticizing her because her — and apparently your — stand on 26/11 is wrong. It is wrong because she comes close to defending the 26/11 terrorism by providing rationalizations which have little to do with 26/11.
The following are the ways in which she is wrong:
- Surgical strikes in PoK — or a messier war, for that matter — may not be the proper Indian response to 26/11. (You have mentioned America’s support for Israeli responses to Gaza, etc., and have said Indians won’t have America to support them. In addition, Israelis have ALL their young men to do a stint in the armed forces, too. Indians won’t stomach that.) But the wrongness of the advocacy of such strikes by some Indians does absolutely nothing justify the terrorism which gave rise to such advocacy.
- Dragging in these completely irrelevant facts is wrong: “5000 people die in Mumbai road accidents every year. Over 100,000 farmers have committed suicide over the last decade. The Indian and Western media would rather be more interested in coverage of the Lakme Fashion Week, launch of Tata Nano, films and celebrities as if this is what India was all about.” This is a good example of what gets my goat in Roy’s writing. That the Indian democracy is far, far, far from perfect is absolutely no reason for it to tolerate, or not react forcefully to, a single act of terrorism with or without the loss of human lives. And, especially, cross-national terrorism. Those facts you’ve quoted in no way mitigate this, or any particular, terrorism.
- 1984/Sikhs, 2002/Gujarat: Ditto.
- Malegaon, Samjhauta and Hindus: I don’t know the extent of the menace of Hindu terrorism in India. If it is nearly as substantial as that of Islamic terrorism with links to Pakistan (either via Kashmir or otherwise), then of course it ought to be pursued as tenatiously. Indians, I presume, don’t want idiotic mayhem of any pursuasion. I’m even willing to admit that because India is so largely Hindu, the Indian press may be predisposed to underplay stories of Hindu terrorism. But from my reading of the electronic media convinces me that there’s substantial amount of Islamic terrorism in India supported by Pakistani “state actors”. And my point remains that other threats, other lapses do not dilute the urgency of facing it head-on.
- “Elite idea of India”: To deny the very real (if minuscule in comparison with the vast non-elite) India — with its Taj, the in-the-face glitter and materialism of Mumbai, and the economic boom (enjoyed by the top 5% but willy-nilly favorably impacting at least another 30%) — is the very leftist pathology I referred to. An Indian without Roy’s damaged psyche wouldn’t feel guilty and sorry that a non-typical, non-main-stream India was showcased in 26/11. In fact, you should be happy that it was. Without it, American and British pressure on Pakistan (which appears to be bearing fruit) would’ve been far more muted, far more transitory. Too, it wasn’t the CST (VT) that was at siege for 3 days; it was the Taj. I’m not a fan of the Indian media (I don’t know what their vices are — as I said, I’m largely ignorant re. India), but the claim that they ignored the “real” Indians dying at CST in favor of the glitterati at the Taj is silly.
Net-net, Roy’s reverence for The Left makes her lose focus and judgment.
@ReignForrest – I don’t have a stand on 26/11. I am a media researcher by profession and my expertise (or conversely depth of understanding) is limited to media texts, textual flows, what different people say, the structures that govern media texts. But that does not mean I cannot take positions (as long as I am not dogmatic about them).
No. That is not a persuasive reading of Roy. Power by its nature is asymmetrical. Her words do not have the same kind of asymmetrical power that masculinity traditionally wields. It does not seek to dominate anybody. Who does she undermine, except the reasoning of the straw discourse of security that societies with guns and missiles have built for themselves.
Again, this is not to be dismissive about the threat faced by nihilist terrorists. There is a response to that and it is techno-managerial. Invest in forensics, digital/electronic/human intelligence and surveillance. That will not make the problem go away, it will only be one layer of security. One has to keep working on other approaches — such as occupying the moral high ground and then taking decisive action.
I am fascinated by your repeated distanciation from India. You take great pains to reiterate that you are not based in India and so do not understand its politics. Yet you only pick and choose one event amongst many to fight your corner. Fair enough. You don’t have to stand up for the 2000 killed in Gujarat. But to say these are not linked is disingenuous. I would hazard to say, sleight of hand.
That you call raising the deaths of a disproportionately large number of people killed in 1984, 2002, 100,000 farmers committing suicide a leftist pathology is instructive. Please provide evidence that one leftist body or individual has not unequivocally condemned the attacks and demanded that the perpetrators be brought to the book.
Now name me one right of centre body that has stood up and said those responsible for 2002, Mumbai riots, Malegaon, Samjhauta should be brought to book. We all know it happened.
Just imagine something like this happening in the US. What would be the consequences.
These are all linked — when a society falls in morality, it loses credibility and support. Obama himself has conceded in as many words.
To come back to the argument, Indian security experts — many of them right of center — lay the blame on US policies. There is overwhelming evidence that the problem will not go away till the US and UK stop supporting Pakistan. Even Salman Rushdie has said so in today’s Times (UK). Why isn’t the right taking that up and demanding from the US and UK that they immediately stop all military aid to Pakistan. Afterall, Rushdie criticised Roy. So his words must hold good.
Couldn’t we then argue that the overexcited individuals baying for action against Pakistan are not willing to go to the logical conclusion of the trail — that is US’ (and the Soviet Union’s) historical role in seeding these nihilistic forces — is evidence of a rightist pathology. It shows how ineffectual we are as a “masculine power” and thus, this article was timely — at least to me.
If one used the term rightist pathology to dismiss political conservatives (I am against usage of this term but it is all that I can think of at the moment), it would sound crude and intellectually shallow. It would appear that because one cannot engage with ideas one uses smears. I think such language — leftist pathology, which reminds me of Bill O’Reilly — should be avoided only because it muddles up our thinking.
I’d just like to jump in here in support of Kishore Budha. ReignForrest, the minute anyone raises the inhuman atrocities against Muslims in 2002 or against Sikhs in 1984, we are told we are “justifying” terrorism. But in fact the reverse is true. Let’s remember that Mumbai was met with the full force of the Indian state and even now is being met with incredible response from the ruling class. Where were the NSG and the commandos when 2000 people were being burned and raped in Gujarat? If the media can say that somehow it is ok to have such vastly different responses to mass slaughter, and that we should all forget the past and focus only on Mumbai, then it is they – not critics – who are justifying terrorism (namely the Gujarat kind). What Roy said in her column very clearly was that she strongly condemns the inhumanity of the Mumbai carnage, but she sees no reason to pardon that of the Gujarat carnage. Yet somehow you see this as “justifying” Mumbai. I find this mystifying. When the elite of India decides that one set of human lives is worth all the resource of the country and another is worth nothing – not even token arrests of the leaders – then they effectively support the massacres. Roy is correct – we can either choose justice for all or civil war.
@Shankar Gopal: Over 2 million people were displaced in the 2008 floods in Bihar due to the Kosi embankment breach. That news fast disappeared from the news pages. We continue to see page after page, hour after hour on television reminding us about terrorism? Is it because news is a commodity (Link and Link). Thus only those ideas that can be sold will dominate news spaces. No harm with that. In keeping with liberalism, we argue that individuals, business organisations, journalists should have the freedom to publish whatever they want.
But the problem occurs where a trope such as public good — that is the idea of the universal — is invoked in those news reports when it deals with issues that only affect a privileged few. As you have rightly reminded, Arundhati Roy first and foremost condemned the attacks and then went on to suture the incident within the wider fabric of history and politics of the region.
Bernard Henry-Levy gave a recent talk at the New York Public Library where he talks about the 2005 rioting in France and provides a similar historical and political context. But if you examined the media discourse during the time it was one filled with incredulity. Even today, the dominant public understanding of the rioting are the frames of pointless and meaningless violence.
As a media researcher one is interested in the media discourse and wider society. The Mumbai attacks highlight once again the perils of a ratings driven mass media, which are the result of large news organisations. Costs are cut, journalists have little knowledge/skills/time/resources to put things in perspective.
I re-present an earlier argument of mine:
The terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India Nov 26 served to highlight the importance of transmission over communication. What do we mean by this? The terrorists, by engineering sustained carnage, provided a media spectacle that delivered us transmission and populism. The Indian and international media unwittingly became a tool that transmitted, for the terrorists, a romantic view of jihad, while the Indian, Pakistani, and international media indulged in political populism that veered to the dangerous. So, for the terrorists the media transmission served as a useful recruiting advert for would-be jihadists while for those on the right and the left it served to transmit their political viewpoints. For example, Barkha Dutt unwittingly stated on a live talk show, “let us all agree to give up some freedoms”. She was furthering the consensus building of an idea that required nuanced debate and discussion. Unfortunately, her objective at a debate got coopted by reactionary voices – a panel of Mumbai elites — who foregrounded her pronouncement with calls such as “let us carpet bomb Pakistan”.
Hate for Arundhathi is quite the natural reaction any media-savvy Indian need to consciously afford, if not unconsciously habited.
The patriarchy for her noble ignorance, if not utter disregard to its feudal wield of power, through its imposing of culture, nationhood, customs, religion, traditions and code of conduct. As someone rightly pointed out, her refusal to “display” the “forced respect” to the patriarchy, preventing her from being spared like Aiswarya or another god-fearing liberated chick.
The intelligentsia for he politics, yes for her unashamed declared leftism, that too from a woman, which even the intelligent male finds unaffordable.
Maybe it is more than hate seeing someone with bones, mostly associated with masculinity, which they forfeited while embracing the rewards of acceptance from the media.
Arundhathi only needs to declare that she is “not a leftist”, to be spared from the intelligentsia. She can still stick to her leftist stands, but never should endorse it publicly as leftist. She stand to gain the intelligentsia and the media on her side.
Sure arundhati roy could be the Kali, the globalised face of the goddess which has become fashionable as kitsch art with models like Heidi Klum… i think there is a slight danger here of being subjugated into accepting controlled choices vis-a-vis being contrarian at any cost, just for the heck of it…with people like Asihwarya there are little pretensions as we can all see from the views expressed here but the problem lies in such women like Roy who for most epitomise the Indian emancipated face of feminism or ecofeminism…i fear she is just another telegenic or photogenic commodified face of activism…i am very suspicious of people who in their ferver of struggle and strife are so quick to move on from one cause to another, almost like helicopter totting politicians moving from one political canvassing to another…case in point her presence in Singur…leave alone that i find her essays very ill researched, does she have any clue about the socio-political landscape of Singur before commencing on her “activism” for the people of the area?…
@soho: Your critique that she is not researching her essays could be a valid one. But you will need to provide evidence to that effect. To the point of her being a celebrity, I think there is a slightly danger of using that label as a critique of her attachment to various causes. Celebrities or politicians attach themselves to causes because it has clear links to returns. So, celebrities take up causes because it keeps them in the news. Unless Roy has some kind of deep rooted desire to crave attention, I don’t see her benefiting from the attachment to causes. She is not writing books, she is not a television or film personality, she is not even a politician. So what explains her politics?
Unless we want to label her a mad person and want to sideline her, instead of engaging with her writings, the former choice being disastrous from a civilisational point of view. Societies that have marginalised or silenced dissent have crumbled. I will concede your criticism about her celebrity status by modifying it slightly. I think she resists the dominant wisdom on many issues and she should be a starting point — and not the end point for India to understand its dissenting voices.
Okay, we’re getting ad hominem already. I’m not sure what “fair enough” and “disingenuous / sleight of hand” in the same breath are supposed to indicate. But bringing up Gujarat/2002 to Mumbai/2008, and presuming I tolerated Gujarat, tells me it is you, not me, that sees Indian politics as a strict Left and Right dichotomy.
I never poohpoohed Gujarat when it happened. I was as incensed by the butchery of Gujarat and of the unconscionable behavior of government officials, including Modi (whom I’ve described as the Butcher of Gujarat), as I am of Mumbai. And I remain aghast at the fact that he’s likely to continue to gain ascendancy in Indian politics (aided by the apparent fact of his prodigious economic prowess in Gujarat and his apparent lack of corrupt-ness — again, this is what I have inferred from my undisciplined, sporadic forays on the internet).
My reason for harping on my non-Indian-ness is simply that I know my understanding is very limited, based as it is on occasional internet browsing. For example, the categories Left and Right (as they relate to India) were unknown to me until a couple of years ago when I started browsing. As you may know, those terms are hardly used in America (vs. liberal and conservative) and even when they are they may not mesh easily with their Indian counterparts.
Another reason to pointedly distance myself from the Indian situation when talking to Indians is that Indians appear to associate a support of a Rightist cause with being in the BJP camp and a support of a Leftist cause with being in the Congress camp (similar to the presumption of liberal:conservative::Dem:Rep in American politics). And while I’m getting only mildly familiar with Left and Right in India, I’m even less familiar with how those party affiliations might make me look. So I try to make it clear “where I’m coming from” in order to insinuate my “free agent” status.
1984 — is that the Sikh massacres? 100,000 farmers? If I have somewhere called the bemoaning of these attrocities leftist pathology, then I must’ve done it in my sleep. Please point me to my quotes and I’ll retract them.
What I’m calling leftist pathology is Roy’s (and now apparently yours) putting all these deliberate (1984, 2002) and undeliberate (farmers’ suicides) acts of heinous inhumanity and callousness (one might also add the heavyhanded treatment of Kashmiris) along with Mumbai/2008 all in one big package and tying it on the neck of some illusive notion of India and absolving all the culprits. Or at least the culprits on the Left. “Modi killed innocent women and children; the army is doing the same in Kashmir (and FORCING people to go to the polls!); so Mumbai happened (in the passive tense)!” — is an argument I do not buy. Mumbai happened because 10 impressionable young butchers and their evil masterminds made it happen. A is connected to B is connected to C, and Mumbai is connected to Gujarat is connected to Ayodhya is connected to Kashmir is connected to 1857 is connected to 1066 is connected to when a Muslim amoeba was swallowed by a Hindu paramaecium fifty million years ago is an argument which seems pathologically leftist to me.
@ReignForrest: First “leftist pathology”; now “ad hominem” attacks.
Couldn’t “leftist pathology” be considered an ad hominem attack? Please demonstrate how you have engaged with Arundhati’s ideas rather than dismissing her off. Another comment poster Soho too engages in attacking Roy rather than actually debate her specific points. I think to say anybody criticising you in return is engaging in “ad hominem” attacks smacks Bill O’Reilly-esque to me.
Please bear in mind that in discourse and rhetoric when one uses “you” it refers to your arguments and the position one comes from, not you as an individual. You (and Soho) haven’t even identified yourself to be attacked. How you choose to represent yourself if your prerogative, but I urge you to not derail this argument by making such baseless accusations.
And the Congress is not a Leftist party. It is a right of centre party. There is no party in India that is Leftist. Even the Leftist CPI(M) (the irony of it all) is more of a centre party. The same way that Democrats are not Leftists. Democrats are centrists.
I think the problem here is that we (not you, since you assume any critique as ad hominem attack) as a society use language so loose and fast facts, ideas, ideologies, truthfulness become difficult to grasp and understand. Our understanding of the social and political world is not based on facts, but on the way the facts are presented (or selectively not presented). In communication theory, one would refer to as Agenda Setting and Framing. You attempt to frame the issue by discrediting Roy and the thesis is that Mumbai is an isolated incident. Fair point. We will always disagree on this point because you would like to neatly compartmentalise every issue. Your arguments (not mine) are that events are not linked in history.
Mumbai happened because some “impressionable”…. good point. What was used to impress them? Gujarat, Kashmir, the systematic negligence and marginalisation of Muslims in India, and now Gaza. And what gave rise to the modern Jihadi ideology in South Asia? No prizes for guessing that right… US foreign policy. Who continues to provide them arms and training and cover? US foreign policy. Yes, the 26/Nov attacks on CST and the hotels in Mumbai are isolated — by shortsighted and national-self interest driven US foreign policy. I think it is giving the rightwing in India too much credit to say that they may have contributed to the conditions that led to the US attacks.
Let us now go back to your argument about x being connected to y being connected to Z being connected to Hindu swallowing…
You will continue to assert that they are not linked. Your line of reasoning is very similar to the American foreign policy, which rather than going into the root causes of the problem continues to use a hammer to crack open a walnut. IMHO, the central issue as far as I see is that your view has been given so much oxygen by the mainstream media that it is time dissent is heard. Not for leftism or rightism, but for the sanity of all humanity.
Yes, let me cut to the chase.
In American politics, I’m a flaming liberal and, for example, watch FOX only a few minutes a month either as inoculation against the forces of evil or as intellectual pornography. But I do buy the argument that:
Whatever the ROOT cause of 9/11 (and I heartily admit to all our decades of belligerence as a bully of the world), it doesn’t absolve the evil of 9/11 and requires a unilateral rooting out of the specific — not abstract ROOT stuff — individuals and groups who did it. (Note, not “who ‘made it happen’” — That’s too passive and tends to describe these phenomena as some sociological, anthropological certitude, thus absolving the perpetrators.)
(I don’t imply by the above that we should carpet bomb Afghanistan or destroy that civilization — so don’t go imputing that merely from the fact of my stance to your right. Nor my ingenuousness. Nor my sleight of handedness.)
And I see Mumbai/2008 a parallel situation.
If this perspective is anathema to you, then THAT is the line which divides you and me.
@ReignForrest: Yours will be the last word in this thread. Thanks for your patience and participation in the debate.
For one, i abhor fundamentalism of all kinds, i do not want any crazy idiot to decide when and how i go. I agree with may things she say, but the school teacher type sermons irritate me to no end. We have many issues to grapple with and the media coverage is often very elitist, but that still does not make 26/11 any less tragic. ..i would like to state that these attacks were nothing to with religion, but just pure hatred….People like Roy are in manty ways responsible for giving idiots and thugs like Togadhia and his ilk to lament about hindus being mistreated. Killing innocents is a henious crime and deserves maximum punishment.. and as for linking these attacks to kashmir or Gujarat is an insult to the many victims that these genocides have thrown up….