Arundhati Roy responds to reports of possible arrest on charges of sedition
October 26 2010
I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning’s papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.
Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer’s husband and Asiya’s brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get ‘insaf’—justice—from India, and now believed that Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones. In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.
DEMOCRATIC FRONT AGAINST OPERATION GREEN HUNT, PUNJAB HOLDS A MASSIVE CONVENTION AT JALANDHAR!
BUILD A BROAD SPECTRUM OF RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS!
OPPOSE NEO-LIBERAL POLICIES AND SUPPRESSION OF PEOPLES' MOVEMENTS THROUGH ARMED FORCES!
On 17th October, when people were celebrating Dussehra to mark the victory of Good over the Evil, the Democratic Front Against Operation Green Hunt, Punjab, held a massive Convention in Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall, Jalandhar on “War against the people & Role of Democratic Forces.” It was addressed by noted pro-people thinker & Booker Award winner writer Arundhati Roy and Gandhian social activist Himanshu Kumar. Hundreds of people from all walks of life - University Professors, Research Scholars, Students, Artists, littérateur, cultural activists, press-persons, farmers, agricultural & industrial laborers, trade unionists, thinkers etc., participated from all across Punjab & Chandigarh. The Convention Hall having a seating capacity of 900 was overfilled & hundreds of people were left to hear the programme from outside the Convention Hall.
The Convention Hall was tastefully decorated with flex-hoardings having appropriate messages. The theme hoarding had the poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller – ‘FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE COMMUNISTS’, with a painting depicting peoples’ struggle in the background. Two others were having poems by two noted peoples’ poets of Punjab Sant Ram Udasi- MAGHDA RAHIN VE SURJA (Shine O Sun brightly) & Pash- ASIN LARANGE SATHI (Comrade! We will fight). There were quotations from Shaheed Bhagat Singh, ‘HAWA MEIN RAHENGI MERE KHIALON KI BIJLIAN’ (I may or may not live, but my ideas will remain galvanizing the air eternally)
The Convention was presided over by a presidium consisting of Dr. Parminder Singh (Professor Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar), Prof. A.K.Maleri (Ludhiana), Sh. Yash Pal (Retired Teacher and Editor VARG CHETNA), Prof. Ajmer Singh Aulakh (Noted pro-people Punjabi Dramatist), Com Gandharav Sen Kochhar & Sh. Naunihal Singh(both from Desh Bhagat Yadgar Committee, formed to honor the martyrs of Gadar Movement).
Arundhati Roy opened her speech with the remark that the Indian state has been waging a war against its own people in many parts of the country such as North East, Kashmir, Punjab and many other places for the last 60 years using military and the police to ruthlessly suppress them. She paid rich compliments to the poor people and tribals living in the forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra, West Bengal & Maharashtra, who were fighting valiantly to save their lands, forests, water & mineral wealth from being plundered by the world’s richest companies. Preaching non-violence to the tribals of Chhattisgarh is immoral. To those, who accuse the tribals of being violent, she asked: ‘When people are forced to die of hunger, when they are uprooted after depriving them of their lands & livelihood, in the name of development, is it not violence?’ Is it not ironic to advise those, who have empty stomachs and empty pockets, to follow the Gandhian tools of Hunger strike and boycott of foreign goods?
She said that to oppose operation Green Hunt, one need not go and fight in the jungles of Dantewada. Fighting against injustice at our own place is also an important contribution to this cause. Struggles against SEZ and the exploitative Commission Agent (ARHTIYA) system in Punjab are part of the fight against operation Green Hunt. She called upon the intellectuals and toiling sections of the masses to build a broad spectrum of resistance movements against the neo-liberal policies of the State and its onslaught on the peoples’ movements in the form of armed operations such as Green Hunt.
Commenting on the ongoing events in the states under operation Green Hunt, she said that there is a strong link between development and genocide. There is genocide under the façade of development. When the people are uprooted from their lands, culture sources of livelihood, they are doomed to die. In India Crores of people suffer from the AIDS of malnutrition. Malnutrition not only leads its victim to death, but casts its agonizing shadow on the next generations also.
She said while the Naxals are fighting a protracted war against the capitalist system and big corporates, the Indian state was fighting war against its own people. She suggested having diverse methods of resistance in a wider struggle to challenge oppressive policies of the state.
She said the Green Hunt began in Punjab earlier than Chhattisgarh, with the advent of “Green Revolution”. Green Hunt is infact the phenomenon to deprive the people of their land and the resources attached to it such as water, forests, mines etc. Green Revolution and the farmers’ suicides in its aftermath is pointer to this. About 1,80,000 debt trapped farmers have committed suicides in the country. She deplored the Punjab Govt for having branded the 17 organization of farmers and agri-labourers as Naxalite front organizations. Those who raise their voice against injustice are branded as Naxalite. If the rulers continued to follow the policies of privatization & liberalization, then they shall have to deploy army in the whole country. In two decades of neo-liberal policies, the number of people below poverty line have increased manifold, while 100 people own 25 percent of national wealth.
She said the Indian democracy has become shallow. Democracy doesn’t mean mere periodic elections. Democratic rights of the people are being trampled under the foot. Indian Constitution has lost its meaning as the judiciary, media & Parliament have all been made to serve the corporates and monied people. Media is in the hands of corporates. Courts have gone beyond the reach of common man and have become a tool to endorse neo-liberal anti-people policies of the State.
There was a lively discussion on her speech and she answered most of the questions raised by the participants.
Noted Gandhian Himanshu Kumar, who had gone on a cycle-yatra of Rajasthan, Gujrat & Maharashtra, after addressing 16 conventions against Operation Green Hunt throughout Punjab on the invitation of the Democratic Front, shared his assessment of the situation prevailing in those states. He said the situation was explosive everywhere. There were many Dantewadas in the making due to anti-people policies of the rulers. He said in Gujrat, the Forest Rights Act envisages grant of land up to 10 acres on lease to tribals in the forest areas. But Modi Government has not granted even an inch of land to them. But the same Govt has gifted away 1,02,000 acres of land to 176 corporate houses. A functioning university has been closed to provide land to Tata’s Nano plant. A hundred people of this country control 25 percent of its wealth. Our Prime Minister says the people are becoming violent. But the question is why after six decades of independence, there is violence. Are only the Naxalite responsible for this violence?In fact the development model, being implemented by the rulers is resulting in the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer. Development has become synonymous with depriving the poor of their livelihood resources, such as land, water, forests, mineral wealth etc., to fill the coffers of the rich. It will definitely breed violence. Instead of following the principles of social justice and equity, we are following the law of jungle, where might is right. This situation has to be changed. Quoting Gandhi & Vinoba Bhave, he said that if injustice and inequity persists in the society, violence is inevitable, because the victims of injustice & inequity cannot be expected to take the things lying down; they will definitely revolt to change the system, to assert their rights. He said injustice must not be tolerated. It should be resisted at all costs. Non-violence should never become an excuse to run away from the fight against injustice.
Both the speakers were presented with the portraits of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, a poster with Pastor Niemoller’s poem, and a set of three books- ‘History of Gadar Party’, ‘History of Naujwan Bharat Sabha’ & ‘Dialogue with the Revolutionaries’. Mrs. Veena wife of Himanshu Kumar, who spent 18 years with him at Dantewada, serving the tribals was also honored.
After the convention Arundhati Roy held an interaction with Research Scholars & students from three universities of Punjab & prominent historians in the Gadar Museum Hall. She along with Himanshu Kumar & his family and Sanjay Kak, went around the museum evincing keen interest in the revolutionary history of Punjab, particularly the Gadar movement.
At the end of the convention the participants passed resolutions with raised hands demanding an end to Operation Green Hunt; withdrawl of military and para-military forces from the tribal areas; disbanding Salwa Judam & such other fascist organizations; recognizing the rights of tribals over their forests, lands, water and natural resources; stopping SEZ and uprooting of tribals in the name of development; roll-back neo-liberal policies of privatization, globalization & liberalization; repeal black laws such as Armed Forces Special Power Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act etc.; stop false encounters and implication of innocent people in false criminal cases; revoke the ban imposed on CPI Maoist and its front organizations; allow the pro-people press-persons and democratic organizations to visit tribal areas; hold judicial inquiry in the killing of Maoist leader ‘Azad’ in a fake encounter; stop the conspiracies to foist false cases on Arundhati Roy, Himanshu Kumar, Nisha Biswas, and other noted intellectuals; punish the murderers of peasant leader Sadhu Singh Takhtupura and Pirthipal Singh Alisher and the killers of peasants at Khanna Chamiara in Punjab; Stop implicating leaders & activists of mass organizations of farmers, agri-labourers, employees, unemployed youth in Punjab & other states in false criminal cases and torturing them; Close all the interrogation centers such as the one at Amritsar known as Joint Interrogation Center.
This is the Punjabi translation of an article by Arundhati Roy published in the magazine "OUTLOOK", which we are sharing with our readers. We are thankful to Sh. Buta Singh for getting this article translated in Punjabi and to Sh. A.S.Alam for getting it set in unimukhi font.
By Trevor Selvam 28 March, 2010 Countercurrents.org
(Recently a lengthy article titled 'WALKING WITH THE COMRADES', written by noted writer Arundhati Rai was published in OUTLOOK. In this article she described in detail her experience of visits to Dantewada and other places currently covered by Operation Green Hunt. It was widely appreciated, but some people, particularly on the Internet, spewed venom against Arundhati Roy after reading it. Here we are publishing a reaction to it by Trevor Selvam which appeared on Countercurrents.org )
For the past few years, I have seen the hate that has been spewed out at Arundhuti Roy. There are various categories of Indian men and women who do not like her. Let us deal with the men first, as their hatred (camouflaged or obvious) for an intelligent female writer is nearly reflexive. Women on the other hand do not seem to have their hate mongering so mordant and merciless and generally do not spew out sexist hatred.
So, by all accounts she is a bitch, a cunt, a Muslim arse-licker and so much more. Who are these people who have such wonderful things to say about her? In the beginning I would not bother to read the responses and letters to various articles on the web. Now, I do scan through them, unpalatable as most of them are. Because they reflect on the psyche of the nation. They mirror the incredible mental descent and cultural depravity of a post-Bollywood, web-savvy class, cut off from historical precedent, unaware of India’s socio-economic past, unaware of rational, sensible discourse and debate, ignorant about India’s own philosophical traditions, let alone world history-- about colonization and the genocide against aboriginal people. What vitriol, filth and misogyny runs through the veins of these Indians! When Sarojini Naidu, Aruna Asaf Ali, Mridula Sarabhai and other women spoke and wrote essays about their feelings about the people of India not a single misogynist invective was hurled at them. Today, when Medha Patkar, Vandana Shiva, Arundhuti Roy, Nandini Haksar and even Sania Mirza reflect on their experiences, Indian men of the above variety unleash their religious, sexual, tribal, super-nationalist, obscurantist prejudices immediately.
So, first there are the flag waivers and false-pride upholders of the Bharat Shining Bajrang Brigade. No matter what, for these people, there are certain aspects about their notion of India that immediately induces a knee-jerk response. And they have been toilet trained from birth to have this Pavlovian response. They must defecate on intelligent, conscious, articulate women who bring the facts out bluntly. With them you don’t bring up issues like India’s miserable record after 62 years of independence in literacy, social hygiene, health, body mass index of 80% of the population, female survival rate, diarrheal deaths, farmer suicides, mass deforestation (except in Maoist areas as agreed upon by the GOI) human development index (in the sub Sahara category), mass increase in poverty, (please do not compare with China or Brazil—because China doctors the numbers, no matter what and Brazil is a flash in the pan!! Even though the UN and the Economist have praised their performance in these areas in the last five years). So for them, Arundhuti Roy is a bitch. And they say so in responses to blogs, websites, newsline sites etc. They have no use for her. Rather than deal with the irrefutable facts and the content of what she raises, they end up fermenting in an anti-intellectualist bog. Responses sprinkled with undertones of religious and communalist hatred are rolled out. Like Barack Obama had to deal with his middle name of Hussein, Arundhuti has to deal with Suzanna. Like the USA has its pot bellied, red-necked, tea party activists shouting “nigger socialist” at Obama, India’s pan-chewing inarticulate Modi-men call her a Christian-Commie bitch.
Then there are the other men and some women, who say they have a problem with her politics! They write the blogs. They are guest columnists. They say she is “sleepwalking”, “moonwalking”, that she is romanticizing tribals, that she is exploiting her Booker fame and going where she does not have acumen and others do! She is pushing the boundaries of journalism, rushing to immature conclusions, raising issues that should not be discussed or have been thrashed out in the annals of deconstructionist academic journals or need to be understood in the terminology of Eurocentric terminology from a hundred years gone by. They talk about the “rumours of Maoism,” the discourse of counter-terrorism, warning about not being influenced by the discourse of insurgency and substitutionalist rhetoric, because it has become sophisticated and unlike the times of Birsa Munda and Sidhu Kanu. In those times when the Brits called anyone “badmash” they were really meaning peasant militants and “dacoit village” meant a community that was in a mood of resistance. Today, they warn, there is a Maoist discourse that overshadows the tribal voice. So, whatever you hear, even if you have been there and talked to ground level tribal activists and villagers, it is still coloured by Maoist rhetoric. Who is whitewashing whom? The Adivasis have become automatons in the hands of the Maoists! Like the blue skinned avatars with long tails, they need urban-skinned, wheel chair bound (many skirmishes in many journals!) what-nuts to show the way! Because, there is no unfiltered tribal discourse anymore. It is all elite discourse. And all this is expertly analyzed and blogged-out from Delhi and Mumbai (without venturing out once to Maoist guerrilla zones) while holding on dearly to obscurantist and pedantic rhetoric from the time of Leon Trotsky. If there is any group or cult that latches on to a Marxist nameplate and lobs stones and pebbles from collapsing rooftops at the masses below, it is this variant. They have a handful of disconnected souls, desperately seeking a space on the “negotiating table with PCC” through statements of disunity, discovering the theory of “sandwiches”, appearing regal-like on TV panels with the nutjob circus of Arnab and Barkha and through their hobbit-like blogs.
And for these folks, suddenly, unconditional non-violence has become gospel. It is somewhat pedestrian, is it not, to suggest that violence must be a last resort? Do these folks really believe that the Maoist organizers have a pathological need to initiate violence? Do they really think that the last few years of active and physical dispossession instituted by the state and police forces, have been carried out with benign persuasion? Do these folks really comprehend the nature of the sadness and deprivation that Adivasis have had to contend with for decades, before there was some sort of organized resistance which led to some minimum gains, which they now want to defend? Sometimes, if it were not for the complicated academic language they use, their logic is no different from that in the mainstream media, whose definitions of violence, “caught in-between”, democracy, upholding the recourse to legal institutions seem paranormally identical. It is like there is no difference between the rant of the Times of India and the refined sardonic comments of those who want to cut down Arundhuti Roy in their fussy, chintzy blogs. They want to call her a bitch too. But they won’t. So they say she moonwalks and sleepwalks; like an imbecile, like a whiny errant spoilt girl, like a non-academic truant who has not studied their gospels on Permanent Revolution.
In the beginning they said, that Naxalites have not given up the tactics of annihilation, although if they bothered to read carefully through the documents of the Maoists, the old annihilation politics had long ago been dispensed with. In those days, small groups of individuals, invariably with college cadre forming a sizable section would swoop down on a local jotedar or landlord without initiating any mass movement or mass activity in the region. The idea was that “action” would create mass initiative and interest. Today, the Maoists reportedly use execution only after there has been a verdict passed in the Local government (Janathan Sarkar). Of course, one could be totally cynical about such exercises, but would that not be a flagrant case of urban elitism? Sometimes, the tribal community has been far more insistent on instituting violent retribution than the guerrilla units themselves. Whenever an informer is executed, especially those who have been responsible for killing Maoists and tribal sympathizers by bringing in the police and the COBRA/EFR/CRPF, the media and their “left” wing democratic proselytizers have ridiculed the process of arriving at such “peoples’ court” decisions, without investigating on the ground. The incident becomes the politics, and the perfunctory analysis of the incident becomes the planted discourse. No effort is made to find out what was behind the incident. That cadres and leaders of the CPI(M) operate as police informers and “dalals” is not a major mystery for the people in these areas. But, for these “left” wing bloggers, who until yesterday denied the existence of aboriginal people ,(only 8% of the population thanks to centuries of genocide against them), “now tribals are killing tribals.” Then they started writing articles that said “It will be hard to find a single Bhattacharya, Banerjee, Mukherjee, Basu or such like among the dead.” Well, that has also started happening. As of yesterday a top Maoist squad leader Bikram alias Abhisek Mukherjee — a former Jadavpur University student—was killed along with three other rebels in an encounter with COBRA commandos in Hathilot forest of Jangalmahal’s Lakhanpur on Thursday night. Either way you are damned. Whether it is Adivasis or non-Adivasis. Even crocodiles, if they could, would sue for the usage of their non-existent tears by such charlatans.
In the beginning they said, that these Maoists do not seem to build any mass movements. It is all secretive and militarist. Then articles started appearing about twenty years of sustained land distribution, cooperative farming, tax collection and distribution, medical clinics, irrigation programs, alternative energy and environmental programs, literacy campaigns, mobile health clinics and the participation of ten of thousands of people. Pictures started appearing of mass gatherings (never mind Arundhuti Roy’s pictures of the Bhumkal celebrations). Do mass movements have to be urban trade union organizations, petition campaigns and “Maidan Chullo” processions only?
In the beginning they said Maoists do not have any urban presence, they do not have any support amongst city intellectuals. They even ruefully said, it’s not like the old Naxalite days! Belatedly they have started a campaign to attack those intellectuals who have stated their clear cut opposition to the policies of the Indian government and in support of the Maoists. They are discovering that more and more city intellectuals and academics find that it is more important to oppose the government’s proto-fascist tactics than to criticize the Maoists for their failings. So they have started attacking these progressive intellectuals through their blogs, writings and attempted caricatures of the Maoists.
In the beginning they also said the Maoists had no tribal and women leaders and when the State started killing Maoist commanders who were women and tribals, and there were more and more spokespersons of tribal origins speaking through mass organizations, they started saying that they do not have any women in their Politburo!
What Arundhuti Roy has been saying for the past several years is nothing new to the Maoists. For years they have been trying to bring to the forefront (their media consciousness and ability to engage the interest of mainstream journalists, domestic and international, is relatively new) ---is the collapse of the possibilities of bringing about social change in India though regular mechanisms. India does not have the organs to promote social equity anymore. They have collapsed completely since the neo-liberalist drive to convert the entire Indian economy into a “do it or otherwise” coercive entity subservient to a handful of large anti-environmentalist business houses. India’s parliament is a sty, full of criminal millionaires. The Congress Party has been running the Salwa Judum and their new avatar, the SPO force. Who is going to negotiate with those who have knives to the throats of the Adivasis? Who is kidding who about exhausting legal channels for change? Where is the scope for challenging national laws that permit USA-like detention without trial systems? Even the Supreme Court’s verdict to produce missing Adivasis within 24 hours has gone completely ignored. Where is the mechanism for implementing seriously the various commissions on minority status and women’s status? Everyone knows that passing bills in Assembly and Parliament are symbolic gestures.
One can dispute many of the tactics of the Maoists and one can critique many of their actions, but it is time for India’s intellectuals to comprehend that diminishing and ridiculing the stand taken by Arundhuti Roy will be a permanent scar on the evolving history of this nation. She is merely stating that the regular channels for genuine change in India are exhausted. Someone has to state this very clearly. That those who are attempting alternate methods are being violently suppressed. And it is their story that she wants to tell. It is time for all the alternative left and democratic opposition to come together on a common platform (even if they disagree on many issues) and jointly oppose this horrendous Green Hunt that is in full swing now, before full scale massacres start happening.
