India’s modern mutinies

Asian powerhouse or failing state? Four reports provide an assessment from the margins of an economic boom

It has often been said of the Indian government that in trying to do too much, it has done too little. Socialist planning in the decades that followed the country’s independence in 1947 created state-owned steel mills, hotels and airlines. It also brought economic isolation and stultifying regulation. Meanwhile, New Delhi had neglected more basic needs such as primary education, public hygiene and women’s health.

Fast-forward and everything would seem to have changed. The growth rate has risen sharply over the past two decades to about 8 per cent and a vast Indian middle class has enticed billions of dollars in foreign investment from western multinationals seeking new consumers. Yet the unfinished economic reforms begun in 1991 have a poor report card in areas where the government must take the lead. The majority of the population still lacks access to a toilet, the average time children spend in school is about four years, and about half of those under the age of five are severely malnourished – a record worse than that of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

India is the land of paradox. And one of its central contradictions is that this most dynamic of economies also has many characteristics of a failing state.

The shadow of inept and iniquitous government looms large in each of the four books under review. A recurrent theme of Mark Tully’s India: The Road Ahead, Siddhartha Deb’s The Beautiful and the Damned, Arundhati Roy’s Broken Republic and Sonia Faleiro’s Beautiful Thing is that for all the progress of recent decades, the country’s growth has been far more corrupt, unequal and disruptive than it needed to be.

Full report here Financial Times

Arundhati 'jealous' of our support: Prashant Bhushan

A day after writer Arundhati Roy cast doubts over Anna Hazare's anti-graft campaign saying the civil society's Jan Lokpal Bill is a ''dangerous piece of legislation'', Supreme Court lawyer and civil society representative Prashant Bhushan claimed that there was some substance in the movement; else all sections of society would not have congregated to support the cause.

Addressing a gathering here, Bhushan refuted Roy's statement and that there were some people, who criticized the anti-corruption crusade, but the movement had garnered mass appeal and that is what mattered the most.

"When she (Arundhati Roy) sees that this campaign is being supported by the media, this is a campaign also being supported by a section of corporates, this is a campaign being supported by the middle class, she starts to say things," said Bhushan.

"She says even the World Bank is supporting this anti-corruption campaign, so how can there be anything good in this?" he added.

Full report here Indian Express

Anna Hazare is not secular: Arundhati Roy

Writer-activist Arundhati Roy has launched a scathing attack on social activist Anna Hazare, the leader of the ongoing anti-corruption movement. She has questioned his secular credentials and further said that the 74-year-old Hazare "supports Raj Thackeray's "Marathi Manoos xenophobia." The article has drawn a barrage of online response. Most are sharply critical of her views.

In an edit page article published on Monday in The Hindu newspaper, she asks, "Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Greyhound further away. He doesn't seem to have a view about the government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India."

Full report here Times of India 

PM daughter agrees with Roy’s stand

Writer-activist Arundhati Roy’s recent polemic on Maoism, development and governance has angered many in the UPA government, but the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh’s daughter, Ms Daman Singh, thinks that her writings are an ‘eye-opener’.

Talking to mediapersons at the sidelines of the Kovalam literary festival here, Ms Singh said: “She is a powerful writer and her writings are an eye-opener. I usually follow all her writings in popular magazines. She has a unique and powerful way of presenting things.”

When asked whether she agreed with Ms Roy’s take on Maoism and her fierce attack on the Centre, Ms Singh quipped, “I agree with some of her views and disagree with others.”

Full report here Deccan Chronicle 

PM’s daughter supports Arundhati

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s daughter Daman Singh feels that the essays of writer-activist Arundhati Roy who has been attacking the Government’s Maoist and other policies are an ‘eye-opener’.

“I follow all her writings in popular magazines. She is a powerful writer and her writings are an eye-opener. She has a unique and powerful way of presenting things,” Daman Singh told newsmen on the sidelines of the Kovalam literary festival here.

When asked whether she agreed with Roy’s views on Maoism and her fierce attack on the government, Daman said, “I agree with some of them and disagree with others.”

 Book on parents
Author of the novel Nine by Nine, 46-year-old Daman Singh was in the capital to present her second work Sacred Grove. She said her next work would be a “personal biography” of her parents in which she will present various aspects of their life. Of course, she can’t be critical of them either.

Full report here Deccan Herald

India is a poor super power: Arundhati Roy

Eminent writer and social activist Arundhati Roy on Saturday alleged India is witnessing a war within itself since independence and is actually a poor super power. "Since the country gained independence there have been wars against tribals, dalits and others in several parts of the country leading to violation of human rights," she said.

"Now people are struggling for human rights more than justice," Roy told a conference "Attack on Life, Liberty and Democratic Rights by the State" in Jaipur.

"Cases of police atrocities on dalits and tribals are increasing," she said terming Indian as a "poor super power".

"Our elite say we are a super power. Twenty five per cent of country's total wealth is with a hundred people and they say it is development.

"Tribal land is being acquired for industrialisation and the voice of tribals is suppressed if they protest. Is it a development?" asked Roy.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Midnight’s other children

In the spring of 1997, the literary quarterly Granta published an issue devoted to India’s Golden Jubilee. The tone was cautious but celebratory: on the cover, the country’s name was printed in bright red letters, followed by an exclamation point. Fifty years after partition, an independent India was rapidly establishing itself as an international power. The issue, which consisted largely of contributions from native Indians writing in English, was a testament both to the country’s extraordinary intellectual and artistic richness, and to one of the few legacies of British colonialism that could be unequivocally celebrated by readers in South Asia and the West: a common language. Seventeen years after Salman Rushdie’s shot across the bow with Midnight’s Children, a new generation of Indian writers was, in Granta’s words, “matching India’s new vibrancy with their own.”

In the ensuing years, the American appetite for Indian culture has only grown. Many of the writers who arrived on the scene in the 1980s and ’90s — Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy (whose wildly successful novel The God of Small Things was first serialized in Granta), Amit Chaudhuri — continued to publish fiction and reportage, and a new wave of novelists, including Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, went on to write prize-winning, best-selling books. Readers of Roy, Desai or Adiga — not to mention the viewers who flocked to “Slumdog Millionaire” — have not been spared portraits of Indian life’s miseries (caste-based discrimination, horrific poverty). But the folkloric and redemptive aspects of the stories, already familiar thanks to Rushdie’s magic realism and the more romantic understandings of Hinduism associated with the Kama Sutra, have merely solidified Westerners’ rosy vision of India. These books and films have also complemented the work of writers like Jhumpa Lahiri, who was born in London and raised in Rhode Island and has written vividly about Indian-Americans. The Indian experience, however foreign, has become part of the American experience.

Full report here NYT

The Trickledown Revolution

The law locks up the hapless felon
who steals the goose from off the common,
but lets the greater felon loose
who steals the common from the goose.
                                                             -- Anonymous, England, 1821

In the early morning hours of the 2nd of July 2010, in the remote forests of Adilabad, the Andhra Pradesh State Police fired a bullet into the chest of a man called Cherukuri Rajkumar, known to his comrades as Azad. Azad was a member of the Polit Bureau of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and had been nominated by his party as its chief negotiator for the proposed peace talks with the Government of India. Why did the police fire at point-blank range and leave those telltale burn marks, when they could so easily have covered their tracks? Was it a mistake or was it a message?

They killed a second person that morning—Hem Chandra Pandey, a young journalist who was traveling with Azad when he was apprehended. Why did they kill him? Was it to make sure no eyewitness remained alive to tell the tale? Or was it just whimsy?

Full report here Dawn

'I'm a maverick, can't mediate between Govt and Maoists'

Noted author Arundhati Roy has suggested that a committee of experienced people should be formed to mediate between the Maoists and government but ruled out being a part of it, saying she does not have the "skills" required to be a mediator. "Not really. I would not like to be (a mediator or part of people's committee to mediate between government and Maoists). I don't think I have those skills," she told CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate programme.

"I don't know. I don't think (that) I would be good at it you know. I am a maverick.....I'll try. I don't know how to think about it," she said.

The author was asked whether she would be prepared to be a mediator or a part of any committee formed to mediate between the Maoists and the government.

Full report here Hindustan Times

Ceasefire urgently needed for peace talks: Arundhati

Noted author and Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy on Sunday said a " ceasefire from both sides" ( Maoists and security forces) was "absolutely urgent" for peace talks and the process should involve a group of experienced people who could mediate between the government and the Naxals.

Stating that the government's stand of asking Maoists to abjure violence did not have any meaning when operations against them were going on, Roy said she thought it was absolutely urgent that there should be an "unconditional" ceasefire from both sides.

She, however, ruled out being a part of peace talks, saying she did not have the "skills" required to be a mediator. "I would not like to be (a mediator or part of people's committee to mediate between government and Maoists). I don't think I have those skills... I don't think I am good at it. I am a maverick... I'll try. I don't know how to think about it," Roy told a TV channel in an interview on Sunday, Sep 12.

Full report here Times of India 

Better not Arundhati

It is great news that Booker Prize winning writer Arundhati Roy will be visiting the state in November this year. However, we wish she had much rather come for some event like inaugurating a book fair or giving a inspiring lecture to our college students or writers here in Manipur. The timing and the purpose of her visit has left much to be desired and may be quite disappointing for some section of the people who admire her writings, or have at least heard of her as a well known writer. Very very few people in Manipur today are not swayed by the overwhelming tide of what we may call Manipur’s own brand of nationalism. We in fact have nothing against this nationalistic fervor if it is cordial, decent, and compassionate towards the aspirations of all the people of the state.

However, the popular nationalism as we see it here is dictatorial, threatening and overrides democratic or even human values. It is this backdrop, of a mass preoccupation with and support for a violent nationalism, in which we would like Arundhati Roy and other eminent personalities to view the now so famous ‘struggle’ by Irom Sharmila against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958. As outsiders who know very little about Manipur, people generally tend to look at the Manipuri woman’s hunger strike for the sake of the statistics involved, and not the deep rooted implications behind such a strike. Living in today’s consumerist age as long as the scales are tipping higher everyone tends to applaud, whatever the cause may be. And in Sharmila’s case too most people are just watching the scoreboard like in a game of cricket. But in doing so they are inadvertently harming the country’s interests, Manipur’s interests and also democratic values. This is because in appreciating Irom Sharmila we become party to the numberless Manipuris who have almost literally taken a vow to stand against the Indian polity. It has been accepted that the AFSPA has many loopholes, but like any other law it takes time to change or alter it, especially so when a near full scale war is on here and the country as a whole must be thinking of giving our men in the forces the best advantage in a territory which is hostile in every sense.

Full report here Kanglaonline

Such a long journey

Writing your book is just the first step in the journey to becoming an author. Finding the right agent who can market it in the right places and take care of your interests is the more crucial, and difficult, part… almost like finding god...

Having finished your first novel, you have polished it to the best of your abilities, got rave reviews from your peer group of ‘wanna be' authors, and you think the most difficult part of your journey, of becoming an internationally published author is over. But, it is not. Before you seek an international publisher in mature markets like London or New York, you have to find a literary agent. ‘Finding a literary agent is akin to finding God…..if you believe in God,' says Anees Salim, whose novel Tales from a Vending Machine is slated for release by HarperCollins India later this year.

Agrees Vikrant Dutta, whose debut novel Dark Rainbow is soon to be published by an Indian publishing major. He says, “We have heard legends about Arundhati Roy. Ms. Roy submitted her manuscript of The God of Small Things to Pankaj Mishra of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana fame, who, at that time, was an editor with a publishing house. Impressed with Ms. Roy's writing, Mishra sent it to a few agents and editors in London; and David Godwin was one of them. The rest is the history we all know.” Vikrant further adds, “But, everybody may not be as lucky to have a Pankaj Mishra vouch for them. For lesser mortals, it is a long and tiring voyage. I have been striving to get an agent for the last fours year, but with little success. Then one fine day I decided to send my manuscript to Indian Publishers, and was fortunate to get an offer.” But he strongly feels that to sustain a long-term writing career, one must find an agent.

Full report here Hindu

As Sharmila nears the decade old fast mark...

Booker prize winner and fiery activist, who has taken on the establishments questioning their dogmatic approach to issues and one of the few Indians to publicly condemn Pokhran II and III in 1998, Arundhati Roy among other eminent social and human rights activists of the Nation are set to join a five-day long observation beginning November 2 to mark ten years of Irom Chanu Sharmila's lone struggle against the controversial AFSPA.

Main highlights of the observation will include an all community prayer, seminar on peace and social issues and an art exhibition, said Sharmila's elder brother Irom Singhajit who is the managing trustee of the Just Peace Foundation (JPF), the organizer of the event.

Full report here E-pao

'A convergence of interests'

Maoists form only the most militant end of a spectrum of tribal resistance movements, says writer and activist Arundhati Roy. In an emailed interview with Sanjib K Baruah, the Booker Prize-winning author says non-tribal leaders have helped these movements retain a link with the rest of the country, and "development", as envisaged by the government, is not the answer to their woes.Excerpts:

Does India appropriately recognise the traditional rights of the indigenous people?
India has behaved with tribal people like a colonial power. It has disenfranchised them, made them squatters on their own land and criminalised their way of life. They were criminals by default then. They're terrorists now.

Are we at present seeing a tribal upsurge or a Maoist struggle?
Both. Tribal resistance in central India predated Mao by centuries. However today, right now, we are seeing a convergence of interests of Maoist ideology and tribal resistance. A huge majority, maybe more than 90 per cent of the Maoist cadre, is made up of tribal people.

But the Maoists are only one part of the insurrection. They do not represent all tribals, or all resistance movements. They do not even claim to. The character of the current rebellion is diverse, not homogeneous. That diversity is what gives it its strength.

Unlike the Maoists, I don't think that tribal people are fighting to overthrow the Indian state. They don't know what the Indian state is. They are fighting to preserve their homelands, to not be displaced, to not have their mountains and forests and rivers devastated by "development".

The Maoist party's goals are different. The tribal areas are where they hope to consolidate their military strength and launch their revolution. But though they have different goals, different worldviews, different ideas about what development means, they all know they are ranged against the same corporate juggernaut.

Full interview here Hindustan Times

Damning the oriental scene

Reading literature and having a damn good time had become quietly but decidedly uncoupled,” writes Lev Grossman in an essay on the rise of the trashy hybrid novel. He could have been writing about India, where the rise of imitation pulp fiction — the Third World version of Eric Segal, not even the Third World version of Stephen King — and the growth of worshippers at the broad church of illiterature is an alarming but persistent trend. These are four things I’d love to see changing about the Indian literary scene in the next decade.

The Booker: It’s so tempting to pin the Indian obsession with the Booker on Arundhati Roy, whose win in 1997 for God of Small Things sparked off the great Indian Booker gold rush. (Blaming Arundhati is now a small cottage industry in its own right, so she may as well take the rap for the Booker. It’s a more interesting crime than hating the US, sympathising with the Maoists and never writing a sentence if she can get away with a paragraph.)


But the truth is, it’s our fault. If we’re losing interest in the Booker this year because Rushdie didn’t make it to the longlist and there isn’t another Indian/Asian contender, perhaps we need to ask when we became such insular readers. A century ago, the first Indian writers to claim English as one of their own languages read broadly; their imaginations were fired by their counterparts in Russia, Europe and America. A generation ago, Amitav Ghosh chronicled the practice of using the list of Nobel literature laureates as a kind of reader’s guide — a dreary but worthy way of inviting the world onto one’s bookshelves. What we’re seeing today isn’t just a preoccupation with literary success; it’s an unhealthy self-obsession.


Full report here Business Standard

Arundhati Roy among world's 30 most inspiring women: Forbes

India-born head of PepsiCo, Indra Nooyi and author Arundhati Roy have been named by Forbes among the world's 30 most inspiring women, a list that also features Mother Teresa, Oprah Winfrey and Hillary Clinton.

"Role models mean different things to different people--some of us look for guidance in business, some in our personal lives, some of us strive to make the world a better place each day, some admire trailblazers," Forbes said.

Activist Roy comes in third on the list while Nooyi ranks 10.

The '30 Utterly Inspiring Role Models' list has been compiled by ForbesWoman.

Full report here Times of India

Government uninterested in peace: Arundhati Roy

The recent killing of top Maoist leader Azad was an indication that the Government did not want peace, said renowned writer and activist Arundhati Roy in Hyderabad on July 13.

“Azad was a crucial link to the Government through Swami Agnivesh.

Before killing him, the police must have got the clearance from the higher authorities in government,” she said, delivering the lecture on on “Globalisation and Human Rights” at the University of Hyderabad. Roy felt that the government was no more being run by political parties but by corporate capital. “In Chhattisgarh, the government is under the influence of the Tatas, Jindal, Essar, etc., and rides roughshod over the tribals. The situation there is such that if tribal folk do not join the Salwa Judum, they are branded Maoists. Even farmers are not spared...” On Operation Green Hunt, she said: “The government wants to drive away the Adivasis and give away their lands to big corporates. The bauxite found on tribal lands is worth more than $ 4 trillion. With so much money at stake, anyone can be bought.” Globalisation, said Roy, had been the cause of frequent violation of human rights across the country.

Full report here New Indian Express  

Never wallow in victimhood, Roy advises writers

"Never think you are a victim. If you think so, then your enemy will be happy. If you don't, your enemy will be afraid and will even be fascinated by you. That is feminism for me,'' said Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy.

The writer was taking part in a discussion on `Problems of women in contemporary society and role of women writers' organised by the Prajaswamika Rachayitrula Vedika at a programme in Hyderabad on Sunday, July 11.

``Being a victim is a mind set. Some consider themselves to be victims without any problem but some don't despite having a lot of problems. If you feel humiliated, your enemy will be happy,'' she explained.

Professional feminists who organise themselves into NGOs usually don't object to construction of dams, mining and displacement where women are the most sufferers. Be it the Narmada valley or Bastar, the sufferers are mainly women. Because they like to see women in suffering, she said. "I am a badmash kind. I ask something, provoke and make people think. Instead of coming up with boring tracts, do things that make you excited,'' she advised women writers.

Full report here New Indian Express

Arundhati blames Centre for Naxal attack

Writer and Naxal sympathiser Arundhati Roy condemned Monday's attack by Naxals on a civilian bus in which at least 41 people were killed but blamed the government for exposing the tribals to the threat by rebels.

"Media reports say that the Maoists have deliberately targeted and killed civilians in Dantewada. If this is true, it is absolutely inexcuseable and cannot be justified on any count. However, sections of the mainstream media have often been biased and incorrect in their reportage. Some accounts suggest that apart from SPOs and police, the other passengers in the bus were mainly those who had applied to be recruited as SPOs. We will have to wait for more information. If there were indeed civilians in the bus, it is irresponsible of the government to expose them to harm in a war zone by allowing police and SPOs (carriers of the mantle of all the crimes of Salwa Judum) to use public transport," said Arundhati.

Full report here IBNLive

Start talks, stop Green Hunt: Arundhati Roy

Calling for talks between Maoists and the government, writer Arundhati Roy on Saturday, April 24 demanded an immediate ceasefire on both sides, formal halting of the combing operations and Operation Green Hunt, and resettling people who were rendered homeless in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district.

Ms. Roy also demanded that details of memoranda of undertaking signed between the government and mining industries, involving tribal regions, be made public.

She was speaking at a public meeting here on ‘Indian state's War on People and the Assault on Democratic Voices'.

It was organised by the Forum Against War on People, a forum of civil society organisations, parties, individuals and social activists.

Full report here Hindu