[Reader-list] Reg: The problem with Arundhati Roy

[Rakesh Iyer]

Dear Pheeta

I never said that people on this forum don't indulge in ground work, just
that doing that and sharing those experiences (as some definitely do) seems
to be much better than just being online and saying one thing after another
without any such experience, as some others do.

Of course, at the end of the day, Arundhati does do a service, though
whether can it be done in a better way is of course what I am thinking. But
then, we agree to disagree.

Rakesh

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 12:59 AM, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Rakesh
>
> I am sorry for getting back to you a bit late.
>
> Let me tell you that i find in your response the best example of what i
> appreciate as the "Ethics of Arrival": the ethical necessity to arrive at
> solutions, take positions and not to linger on ad infinitum. One can see in
> you(r response) the zeal to set things right, to get things straight, to get
> the work done: the task orientedness, in short. Much of it has to do with
> your disciplinary training, i am pretty sure.
>
> Now, eulogies apart, i intend to clarify a few things that you have
> ascribed to me and would want to say a few things in response to some of the
> things you have said which i think need a response:
>
> 1) //but then for you facts are the same as ethical positions (or personal
> ethics)//
>
> To my mind, a fact is not a thing-in-itself ( a fact is not khud-a). An
> observer of an event/enunciator/explicator is always already implicated in
> the definition of a fact. A fact and an ethical position of a person
> regarding it are not two separate things for me. They constitute a whole i
> term as 'facthics'. For things to be similar, they have to be separate first
> in order to initiate the process of comparison. Thus, for me " facts are
> [NOT] the same as ethical position (or personal ethics)" because they are
> not separate but one thing for me. Whoever said "there are no facts but only
> interpretations"? Hasn't it become a kinda gospel truth in the sciences that
> our very act of observing the universe brings alterations in it?
>
>
>
> 2)//The second point you make is that Arundhati need not take positions.//
>
> Nowhere in my response do i assert that "Arundhati need not take
> positions." Ironically, she does take positions, ask tough questions and
> destabilise many a reputation (both inside her writerly community and
> outside it). I just said that even if she doesn't have answers to many of
> the questions she has dared to ask it shouldn't matter to us that much. We
> needn't try finding a messiah in Arundhati who shall lead us by holding our
> hands to the holy grail. Arundhati as a phenomenon has acquired a strategic
> and tactical importance by virtue of her celebrity status in engaging with
> conflicts that have troubled this side of the world. She ( her celebrity
> persona ) is doing her bit and we stand in solidarity.
>
>
> 3)//Of course it bothers me, for people to to think they can get away from
> their duties (both constitutionally and more importantly, of a human being)
> by declaring themselves 'mobile republics'. //
>
> Interestingly, by declaring oneself 'mobile republic' one doesn't get away
> from ones responsibilities but instead embraces the larger world community
> and the duties that accrue as a result. One becomes a citizen of the world
> rather than remaining confined within the boundaries of the citizenship of a
> particular country or affiliations of a nation or a community.
>
>
> 4)//If I am appalled at the so-called movement to fight Naxals (Salwa
> Judum), I am equally appalled at the romanticization of the tribal way of
> life. (They need education and health please). //
>
> Romance has its own importance in a discourse as it has in our dreary
> lives. But romanticising doesn't mean denying the tribals their right to
> education (?) and health. But,boy, where are the doctors? and teachers? in
> the tribal areas? (You would say, "Let's go." And i like it!)
>
>
> 5)//she doesn't do research, nor does she lead ground movements or
> participate in them.//
>
> This is going a bit overboard. Now if you expect Arundhati to generate a
> bunch of excel spreadsheets full of data relating to calorie intake in the
> Naxal 'infested' areas and present her findings in a seminar held by
> National Institute of Development and Planning, i think you are knocking at
> a wrong door. She writes well and she's employing her writing skills to do
> something she has a conviction for. I don't think one can really write with
> conviction without doing some background research. It takes something to
> take an informed ethical stand. I know of many bimbos who write equally or
> much better than Arundhati but all they do is spill their existential
> grudges on their blog pages, down a peg of vodka, shake a leg or two in a
> disc and make merry till the dawn breaks. At least Arundhati is making a
> better use of her skills.
>
> The basic problem is that many people who need to speak have been rendered
> incapable by prejudices that run back centuries. If one Ambedkar, a dalit,
> properly educated and a master of English language can make these elites
> shudder in their pants [even Gandhi had to abandon a public dialogue
> abruptly because he didn't know what to do with Ambedkar's terse questions]
> just imagine what would happen when every other dalit starts writing like
> Arundhati. Wouldn't s/he flood the entire world with the tales of injustice
> that the paisawallas have perpetrated for generations. Wouldn't they ask
> them to pay for every injustice? Wouldn't they tear apart this charade that
> the englishwallas have built around our lifeworlds. To my mind it is most of
> these convent educated English speaking elites who are making everybody
> bewkoof. They don't realise that much of what they do, or posses, or claim
> to posses - material and intellectual - accrues by virtue of their facility
> in the English language. Why is it that our English media don't have even 1
> percent dalits? A person who has been fed on English from right after his
> birth to right through his graduation and after ends up as a bullshitter
> news anchor like Arnab Goswami or an ass of an interviewer or columnist like
> Thapar or that hedonist par excellence of a chap called Vir Sanghvi.
>
> I wonder what would have happened if Arundhati had been a Dalit? Doesn't
> some perceptual change occur the moment we ask this question. What is it?
>
> And finally, it would be a mistake to think that all the people who are
> writing on the list don't have ground/field level affiliations. Some of the
> people i know personally do take their time off from practical ground level
> real work to post a thing or two on the list. And if you want to discuss
> your grassroots level experiences on the list everybody welcomes you, its a
> different thing that you find a response or not, but that shouldn't matter
> because there shall always be somebody listening to what you have to say.
> Else, there are many other alternative forums to compare your notes in.
>
> Pheeta Ram
>