[Reader-list] Arundhati roy has become a joke: Guha

[Rajkamal Goswami]

Aditya's link is broken

this is the correct one to the guha-roy story.

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/1/2010102920101029155404924b7f4ac07/Arundhati-Roy-has-become-a-joke-Guha.html

On 10/29/10, Samvit <samvitr at gmail.com> wrote:
> You are jumping to conclusions again. Let others speak to. The torch
> bearers of Arundhati's legacy need to know that they are not the lost
> (tch, tch i meant "last") word on Indian democracy and social
> structure.  A rickshwallah is a boon to society, they don't need your
> certificate on morality and secularism. You "see" men like me in DU,
> Colaba and in gyms, sometimes try seeing them inside you too.
> No one is proud of what happened in Gujarat but no one should forget
> that it was sequel to mass murder of people on a train. Unfortunately
> for you, the people on that train were not upper caste hindus but
> belonged to a cross section of society.
>
> I, at times, wonder what would have happened if a train of white
> people would have been burnt in the US by blacks. Or if a train full
> of muslims would have been burnt by hindus in Pakstan or Bangladesh.
> Or if a train full of Chines Han would been burnt by Lhobas or the
> Tibetians.
> Please allow people to voice their opinion. This is a forum for free
> speech. It is so ironical, i see the old hats using abusive language
> just to prove their point. A supposed inspiration from Arundhati.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:23 AM, anupam chakravartty
> <c.anupam at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Samvit, now you are using a weary rickshaw wallah's shoulders to fire
>> guns.
>> For your information, there are a bunch of rickshaw wallahs who boldly
>> resisted the RSS-endorsed man slaughter in Gujarat during the 2002 riots
>> by
>> taking their safely passengers to their destinations through burning lanes
>> of Vadodara. I wonder what would you say about the boldness. I want to
>> thank
>> you for dragging Rakhi Sawant as well. She is problematic for a lot of
>> lecherous men of our times. I think I was right when I said I saw you in
>> DU
>> passing comments on women's clothing. You and your kinds in all stratas of
>> the society.
>>
>> Ramachandra Guha also took potshots at himself for your kind information:
>>
>> http://www.siasat.com/english/news/india-now-lacks-thinking-politicians-ramachandra-guha?page=0%2C1
>>
>> New Delhi, October 26: India has been lucky to have a continuous political
>> tradition of high quality original thinking that touched every aspect of
>> human condition but much needs to be done to restore it and make it
>> relevant
>> in today''s context, noted historian and writer Ramachandra Guha has said.
>>
>> "India may be unique in having a long tradition of original political and
>> reflective thinking that has been both continuous and continuously of high
>> quality and touched every aspect of the human condition," he said.
>>
>> Speaking at the fourth Penguin India lecture on "The Indian Political
>> Tradition And Those Who Made It" based on his new book "Makers of Modern
>> India", Guha said here last night that, "The big idea of India owes itself
>> to a remarkable set of men and women who founded and nurtured the Indian
>> political tradition. Like in his book, Guha began with reformer
>> Rajarammohun
>> Roy, describing him as one of India''s first liberal and modernist who was
>> a
>> "precocious pioneer, swimming against the current, both a thinker and an
>> actor, a scholar and social reformer who confronted an orthodox
>> hierarchical
>> and ossified society by Western thought.
>>
>> "He pointed out that unlike today, yesteryear thinkers and makers of
>> Indian
>> political tradition had original, compelling and relevant things to say
>> about democracy, nationalism, economic policy, religion, gender, caste,
>> environment and India''s relations with the world. Giving examples of
>> Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jaiprakash Narayan, M S
>> Golwalker
>> and Ram Manohar Lohia, Guha said, "No politician or social reformer in
>> India''s political society thinks like them anymore.
>>
>> What should worry us is not that we don''t have thinker politicians but
>> the
>> leaders of today are so ignorant of the lineages they claim to represent.
>> He
>> asked whether Congress MP Rahul Gandhi had ever read letters written by
>> Jawaharlal Nehru to chief ministers, whether the BSP leader Mayawati had
>> read Ambedkar''s speeches or whether Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh
>> Yadav could name a single book written by Lohia.
>>
>> Finding other world leaders like French President Nicholas Sarkozy, or
>> British Prime Minister David Cameron or even Sri Lankan President Mahindra
>> Rajpakse deficient in original political thinking, he commended US
>> President
>> Barack Obama describing him as "the closest to come to a thinker
>> politician
>> anywhere in the world". Dubbing Obama''s predecessor George W Bush as
>> "anti-intellectual" and "anti-scholarly", Guha said even George W Bush
>> knew
>> something about the American political tradition.
>>
>> The historian-author who has bagged a seven-book deal with Penguin that
>> includes a two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi described the father of
>> the nation as "mother of all battles concerning social reforms.
>>
>> Guha said both Gandhi and Nehru had to confront people with ideologies
>> different from them but they argued cogently.
>>
>> During the lecture, Guha took pot-shots at himself, fellow thinkers and
>> also
>> several ethnic communities in India such as Malayalees, Bengalis,
>> Gujaratis
>> and the Punjabis which left the 700 plus audience in splits. Guha
>> concluded
>> that the Indian political tradition was not merely an obscurely, or
>> antiquarian or of archival interest but one where the multiple legacy of
>> its
>> thinker activist makers was still available to fulfil and redeem the
>> unhonoured and unfulfilled ideals of a "remarkable political experiment in
>> history.
>>
>> ENDS
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Samvit <samvitr at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> “She’s crazy. Arundhati Roy has become a joke, a publicity fiend,” Guha
>>> told
>>> Bangalore Mirror. “She hops from cause to cause, and just look at the
>>> company she’s keeping ... the likes of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, an ultimate
>>> bigot who wants to keep women in purdah and bring in an Islamic
>>> theocracy.”
>>>
>>> ---> My rickshawalla made a comment about her today. He said-" She is
>>> the Rakhi Sawant of the pseudo-intellectuals!!!". It is strange to
>>> know that both the axis of society have the same opinion about her.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Aditya Raj Kaul
>>> <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Arundhati roy has become a joke: Guha*Link* -
>>> >
>>> > http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/1/201010292010102903332299368035e3f/Arundhati-roy-has-become-a-joke-Guha.html
>>> >
>>> > Bangalore Mirror
>>> >
>>> > Nine years after the Booker winner snubbed him, eminent historian
>>> > Ramachandra Guha makes the most of the opportunity to get even with
>>> > her;
>>> > says she’s a publicity fiend.
>>> >
>>> > Almost a decade after an intellectual controversy of V S Naipaul-Paul
>>> > Theroux proportions, Ramachandra Guha claims that his stand against
>>> > Arundhati Roy has been vindicated.
>>> >
>>> > “She’s crazy. Arundhati Roy has become a joke, a publicity fiend,” Guha
>>> > told
>>> > Bangalore Mirror. “She hops from cause to cause, and just look at the
>>> > company she’s keeping ... the likes of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, an
>>> > ultimate
>>> > bigot who wants to keep women in purdah and bring in an Islamic
>>> > theocracy.”
>>> >
>>> > The central government is contemplating slapping sedition charges on
>>> > Roy
>>> > for
>>> > saying that Kashmir is not an integral part of India, but Guha believes
>>> > that
>>> > far more basic issues are involved. There is a reason, Guha says, why
>>> > as
>>> > a
>>> > historian he doesn’t want to get too involved in Kashmir, the Maoist
>>> > insurgency or, for that matter, even conservation movements. Apart from
>>> > the
>>> > obvious hubris of believing that an outsider can ‘speak for’ a
>>> > community
>>> > or
>>> > a victim, Guha thinks it is far more challenging and nuanced from an
>>> > intellectual standpoint to ‘listen to’ or ‘speak to’ victims as opposed
>>> > to
>>> > ‘speak for’ them.
>>> >
>>> > Casting himself firmly on the side of traditional historiography as
>>> > against
>>> > postmodern ones, that celebrate dissent and flux for their own sake,
>>> > Guha
>>> > agreed with Edward Said’s notion that scholarship has to always oppose
>>> > the
>>> > guild mentality that unquestioningly privileges notions like ‘country’,
>>> > ‘citizen’, ‘community’ and the like above everything else. But it is
>>> > also
>>> > the scholar’s task, Guha asserts, to discern when an attack on these
>>> > notions
>>> > are warranted and when not. The current ‘seditious’ charges on Kashmir,
>>> > emanating from certain quarters, in his view, certainly aren’t.
>>> >
>>> > The highly acrimonious spat between the two writers started after Roy,
>>> > basking in her Booker fame, became a zealot for the anti-big dam cause.
>>> > Then
>>> > followed her opposition to Pokhran II. At that point, Guha in a piece
>>> > titled
>>> > ‘Arun Shourie of the Left’ wrote about how celebrity endorsements of
>>> > social
>>> > or political protest movements were fraught with danger because sooner
>>> > than
>>> > later the celebrity would replace the cause but he offered a seeming
>>> > olive
>>> > branch by saying that Roy and he were ‘objectively’ on the same side.
>>> >
>>> > Roy, in her riposte in the form of an exhaustive interview to a
>>> > national
>>> > fortnightly magazine in Jan 2001, was to dismiss this in no uncertain
>>> > terms,
>>> > criticising Guha’s “suspect politics and slapdash scholarship” and
>>> > concluding that, “We are worlds apart, our politics, our arguments. I’m
>>> > inclined to put as great a distance as possible between the Guhas of
>>> > the
>>> > world and myself.”
>>> >
>>> > Later Guha explained to an interviewer: “There was the worry of someone
>>> > long
>>> > involved with the environmental debate that the simplifications and
>>> > exaggerations of Roy would tend to polarize issues and make meaningful
>>> > environmental reform that much more difficult ...”
>>> >
>>> > Guha, who is busy with the launch of his latest book Makers of Modern
>>> > India
>>> > - “a kind of bridge” between his magisterial India After Gandhi - which
>>> > was
>>> > voted by the Economist and Wall Street Journal as the best book of the
>>> > year
>>> > in 2007, and the two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi he’s working on
>>> > -
>>> > said that “India has this habit of continuously surprising us.” Often
>>> > in
>>> > a
>>> > not-so-good way.
>>> >
>>> > Talking of the three interlocutors for Kashmir, who got the job “just
>>> > because they are close to the dynasty in Delhi”, he said the fact that
>>> > the
>>> > Indian state was not just violent or callous but so incompetent too
>>> > came
>>> > as
>>> > a surprise. “The one Muslim in the team has been appointed for no other
>>> > reason than his surname. The other two don’t even speak Urdu,” he said.
>>> > “Why
>>> > couldn’t they have appointed people who would have commanded respect
>>> > from
>>> > both sides, people who could act as genuine go-betweens. Right away I
>>> > can
>>> > name two - Rajmohan Gandhi and Swami Agnivesh.”
>>> >
>>> > In India After Gandhi, Guha claimed that Indian democracy was
>>> > phifty-phifty,
>>> > with an efficient ‘hardware’ but also with recurring ‘software’
>>> > problems.
>>> > His implicit argument in that book, as well as in Makers of Modern
>>> > India, is
>>> > that despite troubled times, or perhaps especially in troubled times,
>>> > it
>>> > becomes necessary to harp on the strengths of Indian democracy.
>>> >
>>> > He explained that India was an “unnatural nation”, in that it defied
>>> > many
>>> > norms, particularly the one where nation states are founded on a
>>> > ‘wound’.
>>> > India had Partition, as horrible and near-fatal a ‘wound’ as possible
>>> > but it
>>> > was “Gandhi and Nehru’s genius to obscure that wound, to overcome it
>>> > and
>>> > not
>>> > make India a Hindu Pakistan.”
>>> >
>>> > Denying that the Kashmir problem and other mutinies plaguing India were
>>> > a
>>> > result of our founding fathers’ refusal to confront the ‘wound’
>>> > squarely, he
>>> > said that it was presumptuous to ponder if Sardar Patel would have
>>> > handled
>>> > India’s post-Independence destiny differently from Nehru. “We can
>>> > always
>>> > ask
>>> > ‘what if’. But there has to be plausibility also. Patel was a great
>>> > man,
>>> > but
>>> > Nehru was always, always Gandhi’s chosen successor,” he said.
>>> > “Moreover,
>>> > Patel was someone who never appealed to women, south Indians and
>>> > Muslims
>>> > which would have made him a suspect ‘national’ leader. A more
>>> > interesting
>>> > ‘what if’ would be Subash Chandra Bose - what with the man’s charisma,
>>> > his
>>> > visions, his whole unpredictability.”
>>> > _________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Samvit Rawal
>>> 9422037853
>>> -----------------------------------------------------------
>>> To err is human; to forgive, infrequent.
>>>   - Franklin P. Adams
>>> _________________________________________
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Samvit Rawal
> 9422037853
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> To err is human; to forgive, infrequent.
>   - Franklin P. Adams
> _________________________________________
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-- 
Rajkamal