The Arundhati Roy thread

[cricket ka bat]

Why would somebody hate Arundhati Roy?!

Maybe because she is full of ****?

[Andy]

People are annoyed that she supports Maoists' date=' whatever they may be.[/quote'] Thank You, didnt know this before.

[thevortex]

People are annoyed that she supports Maoists' date=' whatever they may be.[/quote'] Hmm... I would recommend reading 'Shape of the Beast...' which is a series of interviews with Arundhati Roy. She talks very clearly about this and other subjects which have raised controversies over the years. Do people know that she faced legal charges of 'obscenity' in her home state after her book 'The God of Small things' became popular?!

[Raghav_12]

People are annoyed that she supports Maoists' date=' whatever they may be.[/quote'] Not only maoists, she also supports terrorists in Kashmir. She is agaist "India's occupation" (in her words) of Kashmir as well. She is basically biggest hypocrite you would ever come across who made her name in west by drawing bad images of India over there. However, back to topic- Manjarekar is baiscally a retard and he himself can't accept the fact that even after so mnay years he has not been kicked out of commentary team. Idiot of highest order :haha:

[ina_jawaan]

Some outrageous calumnies against Arundhati Roy here which cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Arundhati Roy wrote a superb, Booker Prize winning novel exploring the nuances and subtleties of social taboos in Kerala - read the book before putting a fatwa on its author. She is a champion of the poor and underprivileged in India - in other words the vast majority. It is true that she has spoken up for destitute peasants who support or join maoist guerrilas because they have nowhere else to turn. She is no supporter of terrorists but she has courageously spoken out against the state terrorism of half a million Indian soldiers occupying Kashmir against the wishes of the local people. It is unbelievably ignorant even to mention her in a thread like this - it just goes to show how petty, vindictive and blindly hateful the the toxin of national chauvinism can be. She is no "hippocrate" but a fearless camnpaigner against hypocrisy in whatever quarters it might be found.

[Andy]

Some outrageous calumnies against Arundhati Roy here which cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Arundhati Roy wrote a superb, Booker Prize winning novel exploring the nuances and subtleties of social taboos in Kerala - read the book before putting a fatwa on its author. She is a champion of the poor and underprivileged in India - in other words the vast majority. It is true that she has spoken up for destitute peasants who support or join maoist guerrilas because they have nowhere else to turn. She is no supporter of terrorists but she has courageously spoken out against the state terrorism of half a million Indian soldiers occupying Kashmir against the wishes of the local people. It is unbelievably ignorant even to mention her in a thread like this - it just goes to show how petty, vindictive and blindly hateful the the toxin of national chauvinism can be. She is no "hippocrate" but a fearless camnpaigner against hypocrisy in whatever quarters it might be found.

:king:

[Raghav_12]

Some outrageous calumnies against Arundhati Roy here which cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Arundhati Roy wrote a superb, Booker Prize winning novel exploring the nuances and subtleties of social taboos in Kerala - read the book before putting a fatwa on its author. She is a champion of the poor and underprivileged in India - in other words the vast majority. It is true that she has spoken up for destitute peasants who support or join maoist guerrilas because they have nowhere else to turn. She is no supporter of terrorists but she has courageously spoken out against the state terrorism of half a million Indian soldiers occupying Kashmir against the wishes of the local people. It is unbelievably ignorant even to mention her in a thread like this - it just goes to show how petty, vindictive and blindly hateful the the toxin of national chauvinism can be. She is no "hippocrate" but a fearless camnpaigner against hypocrisy in whatever quarters it might be found.

Dear friend, I know what I am talking about. I have very much read her book and I'm conviced in no uncertain terms that it social taboos of Malayalam society which she tried to sell in her "booker prize" winning book. It's common knowledge that any piece of art which puts India in bad light, gets better recognition in west and she definitely plays to that theme. She spoke about excesses of India soldiers in Kashmir but that does not mean she should go to the extent of supporting terrorists from other side. Probably you are not aware of her commnets on Mumbai terrorist attacks, which drew wrath of "open-minded" people as well - not only from chauvinists and jingoists. In my views she can very well be tried for sedition, only if India had proper laws for that. If you are "open minded" as you claim to be, then you may go through following links. Booker vs Booker - Rushdie Blasts Arundhati Roy about Mumbai Attacks http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=803b52c5e0e1e4e0f26d431aa3121e1a On Arundhati Roy's comment on Kashmir http://greatbong.net/2008/12/16/the-algebra-of-infinite-fundamentalism/ Will not be posting any more comment on Arundhati Roy issue here. Will stick to cricket.

[thevortex]

Dear friend, I know what I am talking about. I have very much read her book and I'm conviced in no uncertain terms that it social taboos of Malayalam society which she tried to sell in her "booker prize" winning book. It's common knowledge that any piece of art which puts India in bad light, gets better recognition in west and she definitely plays to that theme. She spoke about excesses of India soldiers in Kashmir but that does not mean she should go to the extent of supporting terrorists from other side. Probably you are not aware of her commnets on Mumbai terrorist attacks, which drew wrath of "open-minded" people as well - not only from chauvinists and jingoists. In my views she can very well be tried for sedition, only if India had proper laws for that. If you are "open minded" as you claim to be, then you may go through following links. Booker vs Booker - Rushdie Blasts Arundhati Roy about Mumbai Attacks http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=803b52c5e0e1e4e0f26d431aa3121e1a On Arundhati Roy's comment on Kashmir http://greatbong.net/2008/12/16/the-algebra-of-infinite-fundamentalism/ Will not be posting any more comment on Arundhati Roy issue here. Will stick to cricket.

How many books of hers have you read? Like I said - all that you say appears so on the surface. But there is more to it than the surface certainly.

[ina_jawaan]

Dear friend' date=' I know what I am talking about. I have very much read her book and I'm conviced in no uncertain terms that it social taboos of Malayalam society which she tried to sell in her "booker prize" winning book..[/quote'] Dear friend you have my sympathies if you tried to read her book/s - given the problems you have stringing a sentence together.

[Raghav_12]

Dear friend you have my sympathies if you tried to read her book/s - given the problems you have stringing a sentence together.

Dear friend, if my proof reading skills are bad that doesn't necessarily mean that my reading skills are bad as well. Instead of talking to the point you are picking on my sentence formation, which actually reflects how hollow your arguments were. You can very much continue living in elated ego of being very good at sentence formation but that doesn't change facts about Arundhati Roy.

[ravishingravi]

Why would somebody hate Arundhati Roy?!

She is a fundamentalists. That is enough for me to keep distance. Although, I admire her as a writer

[yoda]

A better question is....why would someone like a person who hates their country so much?!

[ravishingravi]

i had posted this earlier http://greatbong.net/2008/12/16/the-algebra-of-infinite-fundamentalism/ http://greatbong.net/2010/05/20/the-invisible-war-continues/ "I salute the people of Dantewada who have stood up against such a mighty state." Arundhati Roy after the massacre of CRPF personnel by Maoists "Despite the deadliest Naxal attack ever in nearby Dantewada now, the resolve of these men and women to join the police force remains unaffected — to some extent driven by the few options available to them in the vastly forested tribal district, but to a large part motivated by anger against Naxalites, their empty promises and the reign of terror they have come to symbolise. They are even willing to risk the wrath of the Maoists that may follow. [From the Indian Express"

[ravishingravi]

Some outrageous calumnies against Arundhati Roy here which cannot be allowed to go unanswered. Arundhati Roy wrote a superb, Booker Prize winning novel exploring the nuances and subtleties of social taboos in Kerala - read the book before putting a fatwa on its author. She is a champion of the poor and underprivileged in India - in other words the vast majority. It is true that she has spoken up for destitute peasants who support or join maoist guerrilas because they have nowhere else to turn. She is no supporter of terrorists but she has courageously spoken out against the state terrorism of half a million Indian soldiers occupying Kashmir against the wishes of the local people. It is unbelievably ignorant even to mention her in a thread like this - it just goes to show how petty, vindictive and blindly hateful the the toxin of national chauvinism can be. She is no "hippocrate" but a fearless camnpaigner against hypocrisy in whatever quarters it might be found.

I think this post conveys exactly why Arundhat Roy's self loathing fundamentalism has an audience abroad especially. It is fair to say that those who are not looking out for India's interest find a lunatic like her as a champion in their cause. It is also ironic how people who support her position because it is inline with their position wrt India talk about criticizing her "blindly". And it also helps that she is a booker award winner who can string two sentences together which now puts her in league of "intellectuals" as oppose to a mullah making similar comments who would have been overlooked as just another fanatic. "Many of you would be wondering why are we devoting so much time to Arundhuti Roy, whose influence in India is marginal at best and non-existent at worst. The problem is that what she says does have an influence on the “foreign” audience because Ms. Roy, through clever marketing, has positioned herself as “India’s voice of dissent” helped no doubt by her undoubted ability to string together sentences into an entertaining paragraph, a quality that the Mullahs and the Saffron crazies sorely lack. [she currently is on the front page of Huffington Post]. While it may be argued that so extreme are her positions that much of her propaganda has marginal effect as she mostly “preaches to the choir”, some of her bluster does get into the international mainstream, gets quoted and then becomes part of “general knowledge” about India." "For one, fundamentalists like Ms. Roy are guided by a very rigid, unyielding ideology that becomes the prism through which they interpret all events. Anything that the prism does not illuminate is assumed not to exist. The ideology of a fundamentalist is typically simple. Of course the fundamentalist, especially if he/she is also an intellectual, would like you to think that there are many subtle nuances and complications in his/her world view and it has been arrived after much deliberation, but that alas is all part of the game of delusion. The simplicity arises from a black-and-white identification of villains —-for the religious fundamentalist the villain is anyone who does not accept his God(s) as their savior(s). For Roy, the principal evil agents are the “oppressors”—— USA, UK, Israel ,India, and corporations (not specifically in that order) with her animus being directed specifically towards upper-class so-called “Brahminical” Hindus and the party that she thinks represents them—the BJP. She does recognize other agents of malevolence like Islamic fundamentalists but their actions are implicitly justified as “reactions” to the depredations wrought by the oppressors. So the massacre at Mumbai is regrettable but is an inevitable result of “partition” (a legacy of the West–one of the “bad men” in her pantheon of villains), the oppression of minorities in Kashmir, Gujarat 2002 and supposed institutionalized prejudice against minorities in India. (things for which another of her “bad men” India can be blamed for) In making this argument, she betrays another defining characteristic of the fundamentalist—–violence that damages the “evil men”/the “other” always has a justification, typically of the sort “The evil men through their evilness brought it upon themselves”. A fundamentalist has tunnel vision in that he/she can only see the sins of those he/she hates. There is no concept of applying the same standards fairly to everyone. So while India is castigated ad nauseum as having suppressed and discriminated against its minorities , almost no attention is given to the far more egregious and unapologetic genocide of Hindus in neighboring Pakistan and Bangladesh and in Kashmir (though if left to her, that would also be a neighboring country). If a few Hindus mirrored the crime of the Kasabs and sailed to Bangladesh to take “revenge” for the government-sanctioned rapes and murders of Hindus by killing innocents in Dhaka would Ms. Roy be so accepting of their motivations as she has been for the Pakistanis? Would she then just make a passing condemnation of Hindu fundamentalists and keep the lion’s share of her wrath for the government of Bangladesh for their treatment of Hindus?" http://greatbong.net/2008/12/16/the-algebra-of-infinite-fundamentalism/ So, let there be no doubt, she is no Noam Chomsky opposing her home state. She has been found out time and again.Maybe it would help people would follow news, rather than just stick their heads in her books to form a political opinions.

[yoda]

Has she done anything other than protest all her life? :giggle:

[Laaloo]

There's a reason why only pakis like here.

[Ram]

This notion that anyone who questions the govt’s actions, who protests the govt’s policies or goes against conventional wisdom is somehow anti-nationalist and a traitor is one the most bandied about lie ever. When Arundati Roy is seemingly sympathetic to Naxals, then she is supposedly committing treason, according to the fake ‘nationalists’ around, the same ‘fake’ nationalists who pontificate their wisdom from the comforts of their air-conditioned offices and comfortable couches. The logic is, no matter how wrong and misguided it is, everyone has to toe the institutional line. Anyone who questions it is providing ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy, when the irony is that the so called ‘enemy’ is our own people, fighting for their survival and rights. The most hypocritical part of all this that same folks who demonize her and call anti-nationalist are the same folks who emigrated out of India and probably havent moved a fingernail for their country.

[The Outsider]

LOL! Every few weeks we end up discussing her over and over again. She can't even make logically cognitive arguments anymore - it wasn't always the case, and she has become a completely delusional nutcase now. Indistinguishable from the likes of SIMI, Bajrang Dal, Shiv Sena. Best would be to just let her ramble on and not give her too much attention. Can't be bothered writing about her again. Here are some earlier posts of mine on her : http://indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=1087459&postcount=7 http://indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=1087639&postcount=9 http://indiancricketfans.com/showpost.php?p=834530&postcount=6

[ravishingravi]

This notion that anyone who questions the govt’s actions, who protests the govt’s policies or goes against conventional wisdom is somehow anti-nationalist and a traitor is one the most bandied about lie ever. When Arundati Roy is seemingly sympathetic to Naxals, then she is supposedly committing treason, according to the fake ‘nationalists’ around, the same ‘fake’ nationalists who pontificate their wisdom from the comforts of their air-conditioned offices and comfortable couches. The logic is, no matter how wrong and misguided it is, everyone has to toe the institutional line. Anyone who questions it is providing ‘aid and comfort’ to the enemy, when the irony is that the so called ‘enemy’ is our own people, fighting for their survival and rights. The most hypocritical part of all this that same folks who demonize her and call anti-nationalist are the same folks who emigrated out of India and probably havent moved a fingernail for their country.

The question is not of having an opinion against the state. The question is about being a fundamentalist. Even the most hardline cynics would not have even remotely thought of Kashmir when the 26/11 attack took place, but Roy with her uncanny consistency saw a connection between Military action in Kashmir to justify 26/11. Another instance "I salute the people of Dantewada who have stood up against such a mighty state. Arundhati Roy after the massacre of CRPF personnel by Maoists Despite the deadliest Naxal attack ever in nearby Dantewada now, the resolve of these men and women to join the police force remains unaffected — to some extent driven by the few options available to them in the vastly forested tribal district, but to a large part motivated by anger against Naxalites, their empty promises and the reign of terror they have come to symbolise. They are even willing to risk the wrath of the Maoists that may follow. [From the Indian Express]" She supports an organization whose aim is to overthrow the state. She is an anti-national, not for a "specific" opinion against the state, but a rigid anti-national position on a whole host of issues. Egs:-Kashmir. First to jump on the military's role but very smartly leaving out the predicament of Kashmiri pandits and the great support provided by our beloved neighbours. I am very critical of the state. Atleast I would like to believe so, but fundamentalists serve no purpose in any meaningful discussion.

[CSK Fan]

The question is not of having an opinion against the state. The question is about being a fundamentalist. Even the most hardline cynics would not have even remotely thought of Kashmir when the 26/11 attack took place, but Roy with her uncanny consistency saw a connection between Military action in Kashmir to justify 26/11. Another instance "I salute the people of Dantewada who have stood up against such a mighty state. Arundhati Roy after the massacre of CRPF personnel by Maoists Despite the deadliest Naxal attack ever in nearby Dantewada now, the resolve of these men and women to join the police force remains unaffected — to some extent driven by the few options available to them in the vastly forested tribal district, but to a large part motivated by anger against Naxalites, their empty promises and the reign of terror they have come to symbolise. They are even willing to risk the wrath of the Maoists that may follow. [From the Indian Express]" She supports an organization whose aim is to overthrow the state. She is an anti-national, not for a "specific" opinion against the state, but a rigid anti-national position on a whole host of issues. Egs:-Kashmir. First to jump on the military's role but very smartly leaving out the predicament of Kashmiri pandits and the great support provided by our beloved neighbours. I am very critical of the state. Atleast I would like to believe so, but fundamentalists serve no purpose in any meaningful discussion.

Very well said