Listening To Arundhati Roy

Afternoon Voice

Some year’s back I remember reading a book named "God of Small Things" written by a Delhi based architect turned writer Arundhati Roy. Perhaps the title and the cover page were so attractive that no one can ignore it, also the story and its character were loved and appreciated by its readers. Later I discovered Arundhati Roy has been awarded with Booker Prize, and India started loving her only writer who gave us this title for the first time. But after the 1998 Pokhran nuclear test when Arundhati Roy’s article “End of Imagination” appeared in newspapers, media and non-fiction writers never knew a great critic is born in within India.

Her journey from Fiction to Non-Fiction which was very quick, in spite her admirer was astonished by her article which made them realize whether they should be celebrate about their countries and its neighbors capability of killing million’s, by testing weapon of mass destruction. But today media and hardliner’s have turned against the great writer, whose words and knowledge seems to be accurate in sense of history. Also her knowledge in terms of foreign relations is not taking us towards wrong fundamentals. Her poetic style of writing and in that poetic sense criticizing Big Banks, World Trade Organizations and Monetary Policy really needs accuracy and sense to speak up from a public platform against the most powerful institution's in this world.

Her criticism against Big Dams, Corporate Globalization, Free Market Economy, Nationalism, and Military Industrial Complex puts her readers into deep dark questions. Do we need to think and rethink again and again what we have learned since our birth? Were our thoughts and our freedom was wrong up till now?  Her blind support to Maoist and defining them as "Gandhian’s with the Guns". Or her articles which support’s Afzal Guru’s innocence and challenges Supreme Court Judgment including interlinking of rivers in India, which is a brain teasing work by Miss Roy and is leading her readers to turn towards independent thinkers like her.

In a recent controversy where Arundhati Roy was cornered by corporate media after quoting “Kashmir wasn't an Integral Part of India” in a speech, she was brave enough to face the questions across the nation. Her critique were too pessimist about her words, one of whom I remember Shashi Tharoor's tweets that “Booker prize winner-activist has gone too far to the left and unfortunately chooses to write about those who carry guns". (On her article Gandhian’s with the Guns).

This gives us chance to answer in Miss Roy’s style i.e.  “When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters”, it’s very hard for me to say that our leaders and politicians who believe they are towards the right where we couldn't understand what right they have done up till now. Also when they judge writers, critics, and Independent thinker’s before listening them than its time for all of us to sit back and worry about the future of this great nation.

It is freedom of choice whether one should stay on right or left or too much towards the left or right. But Mr Tharoor has to be reminded once again that we as an Indian have something called free press, by which we can show our dissent in a peaceful manner, which is our constitutional right. Because the words of the finest criticque are not leading us towards violence it is just a peaceful way of showing dissent.