[Reader-list] Arundhati Roy sent to prison today
Shuddhabrata Sengupta
shuddha at sarai.net
Wed Mar 6 16:25:48 IST 2002
Dear All,
(apologies for cross posting to those on both Nettime and the Reader List)
Contempt and Magnanimity - Preliminary Observations on the Conviction of
Arundhati Roy
This morning the Supreme Court of India sentanced Arundhati Roy to symbolic
imprisonment for one day and also asked her to pay a fine, for the offense of
criminal contempt of the Supreme Court of India.
While delivering the judgement, the bench, comrising of Justice G B Pattanaik
and Justice R P Sethi said "Arundhati Roy is found to have committed criminal
contempt of court by scandalising and lowering its dignity through her
statements made in her affidavit"
Justice Sethi, writing the judgement for the Bench, said "the court is
magnanimous and hoped that better sense would prevail on Roy to serve the
cause of art and literatrue, from which path she has wavered by making these
statements against the dignity of the court"
Perhaps the path of art and literature that Justice Sethi recommends is one
that leads to stage managed literary festivals in medieval fortresses in
which geriatric mediocrities hang out their pet Nobel peeves to dry. Truly a
case of the "Writers must write, but they must write this much and no more"
syndrome, that afflicts, the state, a glassy eyed media circus, and the
chattering classes who want their books signed by writers and want them to
toe the line while they sign . The Indian state is a past master at
masquerading as a cultural octopus, simultaneously cajoling, seducing and
pampering writers and cultural practitioners with many tentacles even as it
imprisons others with one of its arms - an overblown and arrogant judicial
apparatus.
Arundhati Roy was whisked straight from the court to the womens prison at
Tihar Central Jail, Delhi, without an opportunity to meet the press or
members of the public, activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan and others who
had assembled outside the court premises. I was present in the court and saw
a cordon of police constables and officers take Arundhati down the corridors
and steps of the court and into the waiting police vehicle.
Incidentally, this is the first and only hearing of the case in which members
of the public, and friends and well wishers of Arundhati Roy have been
permitted to attend. Uptil now, the proceedings, for want of a better word,
have been virtually "in camera".
In a statement read out on Arundhati Roy's behalf by Prashant Bhushan,
advocate of the Supreme Court, she (Roy) asserted that she "continued to
stand by what she had said earlier in her affidavit, and that the dignity of
the court lay in the quality of the judgements that it delivered."
This verdict represents an important setback for free speech in India. While
it is debatable as to whether the 'magnanimity' of the court in delivering a
'symbolic' judgement of one days imprisonment, 'because she is a woman' is
anything short of plainly patronising, the verdict, by the severity with
which it characterizes the task of drawing connections between several
decisions of the supreme court (which is what Roy had done in her affidavit)
as a criminal offense, underscores that we are not living in a free society.
What is the path of art and literature from which the court, the highest
judicial authority in India, asks Roy not to waver from? The verdict is not a
warning to Roy alone. In effect it represents a clear signal to all those who
write, report, create works with images, sounds, data and text, that some
things will not be tolerated in India. Clearly, drawing attention to the
class interests represented by the state and its institutions, such as the
judiciary is a criminal offense. In delivering this verdict, the court has
only exposed the specific class character of the institutions of governance
and the judiciary. This clarifies a great deal of issues. It will no longer
do to suffer under the illusion that there is such a thing as natural,
objective justice that prevails in this Republic, and those who actively
engage in struggles for justice must now re-consider the paths that they must
take. Some of these paths will clearly have to stray from the straight and
narrow of constitutional propriety and the miasma of republican
jurisprudence. If anyone should choose not to see the courts any longer as
the sources of remedy in instances of gross injustice, they will be justified
in their convictions. The whole language of activism is open to
re-negotiation and creative renewal.
However, there are definitely unfortunate immediate aspects to the judgement
and its consequences. Tomorrow, if a person, who is not as well known as
Arundhati Roy is critical of the complete lack of accountability of the
Supreme Court, they had better be prepared for half a year in prison.
Needless to say this path is one down which one walks at the risk of imposing
the severest form of self censorship. It is a path that represents the
shortest distance between repression and silence, sanctified by the authority
of the supreme court. Roy had done what writers should do more often in any
society, which is to point out the equations that underwrite the arithmetic
of power and powerlessenes, which determine how many millions can be
displaced at the whim of the state and corporate interests, and who can
profit from their displacement, and also who can say what, to whom, and when
abotu the consequences of this displacement. If the supreme court in its
wisdom chooses to attend to the criminalisation of free speech, even as it
delivers judgements that wreak havoc and bring violence to the lives of
millions of ordinary people in this country, then clearly we must understand
that the court and the custodians of law and order have a great deal to fear
from free speech in India. It requires nothing other than common sense, and
the ability to say that "two plus two make four" to see that there is a
pattern in the judgements. That there is a relationship between the muzzling
of free speech, and the sanctioning of the raising of the height of the
narmada dam. The enemies of free speech are clearly those who have a great
deal to profit from the displacement of human beings. This is all that
Arundhati Roy has done.
Interestingly, the "truth" of a statement made by any person in a case of
criminal contempt of court is not an 'adequate defence' in law. Which means,
that it matters little as to whether or not it can be demonstrated that the
'motives' which Roy has imputed against the court can stand the test of
truth. They are criminal, even if, and perhaps, especially if, they are true.
In the days to come, as conflicts sharpen, as the nakedness of the violence
of the powerful becomes all the more transparent, there will be more
verdicts, more real and symbolic punishments, and more opportunities for the
powerful to prove how magnanimous they are in their punitive actions.
Clearly there needs to be a public campaign to expose all the dangers to free
speech in India. We could do, for starters with a campaign to change the
repressive measures of the law pertaining to criminal contempt. We could also
do with a vigourous public and open debate about censorship, lack of
transparency, free speech and the politics of information and expression.
The veridct on Arundhati Roy must not be seen in isolation from a general
climate of increased repression, of stringent laws like the IT act and the
Convergence Bill, and the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, all of which
mandate a situation of 'undeclared' emergency and pervasive censorship by a
paranoid state that seems to have a great deal to fear from a free and open
cultural climate in India.
This morning, standing in the corridors of the Supreme Court, waiting for Roy
to come out of the registrars office, after she had been sentanced, I could
find nothing else but this contempt when I looked for a reasonable, human
response to this petty courtroom drama, this little vendetta of censorship
over free speech, that was played out in the chambers of the highest courts
of the land.
I realised that contempt is the only reasonable response one can make to
the magnanimity of power.
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