[Reader-list] Statement by Arundhati Roy

[Pheeta Ram]

Dear Tapas

Actually the statement was sent to me by somebody. I forgot to check if it
had already been published online; that's why there was no link. Thanks for
reminding me the etiquettes of responsible online publishing.
I shall take care next time.

Pheeta Ram


On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 6:42 AM, Tapas Ray [Gmail] <tapasrayx at gmail.com>wrote:

> Pheeta,
>
> Thanks for this. I think it would be good if we gave the links along
> with any material from online sources that we might be posting. This
> one's is <
> http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/arundhati-roys-statement-on-possible-sedition-case-62566
> >.
> As for offline sources (e.g., printed books, etc.), a mention of the
> source, as complete as possible, would be very helpful.
>
> Thanks again.
>
> Tapas
>
>
> On 27 October 2010 02:10, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:
> > STATEMENT BY ARUNDHATI ROY
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > Arundhati Roy
> >
> > October 26 2010
> > _________________________________________
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