[Reader-list] An open letter to Arundhati Roy

[shuddha at sarai.net]

Aditya Raj Kaul. 

I have no quarrel with your forwarding the text that you did, ostensibly
written by 'Pagal Patrakar'. As a piece of juvenilia it will become part of the
evidence of the testosterone fuelled intellectual bankruptcy of the standard
Indian Nationalist response to A.Roy. 

One minor point, but a point, I still think that needs to be made. Amongst the
wisecracks that liberally pepper this 'open letter' is one that reveals a great
deal about the writer. I quote, from Pagal Patrakar - 

"What the fuck is a “Dalit soldier” with a “grave”? I thought Dalits
existed only within Hinduism and Sikhism, where there are no graves."

A. Dalits do not exist only within the Hindu and Sikh fold. A very significant
section of Dalits identify themselves, in emulation of Ambedkar, (and in
recovery of ancestral memories) as Buddhists. And no, Buddhism is not a minor
branch of the greater Hindu family. There is a credible argument (not
necessarily one I share in entirety) that says that the doxa of much of
Hinduism as we know it today, is a weak intellectual response (backed by muscle
power) to the moral and intellectual challenge held out by Buddhism to a
caste-ridden social order. There are also significant numbers of Christians and
Muslims who identify themselves as 'Dalits'. 

B. Even amongst Dalits who are nominally Hindu, burial, not cremation, is the
standard practice, (for most dalit communities) and this has partly, though not
entirely, to do with the untouchability question. Because, to perform the last
rites by cremation of a dalit is to endow them with a ritual purification that
caste Hinduism is generally reluctant to offer. Incidentally, the 'Brahmins'
(ironically called 'Maha Brahmins') who perform the cremation rites of upper
caste are also usually considered to be 'untouchables'by those they serve. 

That the writer you quote laughs off the question of 'Dalit' graves, with, I
daresay, a typical edge of Savarna arrogance and ignorance only goes to show
that he has probably never entered a dalit neighbourhood, let alone let his
shadow be caste on a dalit graveyard. This only confirms my view that the pomp
and circumstance of much of Indian nationalism today is based on an actual
ignorance of the realities of the lives of the majority of Indians. 

Perhaps the reason why someone like Arundhati Roy can no longer bear to share
in this kind of nationalist hysteria is because she knows a great deal more
about the lives of the majority of the Indian people than those who constantly
speak in their name. 

Shuddha





On Sat, 30 Oct 2010 16:51:14 +0530 Venugopalan K M <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
wrote

> In bad taste, and also sexist!
> (Condolence)
> Like to share (the) 'only' worry here:  why should one feel this
> t..r...a....s.....h worth writing/reading/sharing ?!
> 
> Oct 27, 2010 at 8:44 PM, Aditya Raj Kaul <kauladityaraj at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > An open letter to Arundhati Roy
> >
> > October 27, 2010<
> > http://blog.fakingnews.com/2010/10/an-open-letter-to-arundhati-roy/>
> > by Pagal Patrakar <http://blog.fakingnews.com/author/pagalpatrakar/>
> >
> > Link - http://blog.fakingnews.com/2010/10/an-open-letter-to-arundhati-roy/
> >
> > Hey woman,
> >
> > Congrats, you are back in news! You were trending on Twitter and featured
> > in
> > Google trends. And thanks, you made many guys look up dictionary.com to
> > understand what sedition meant. You are really of some use!
> >
> > Well, I read your
> > statement<
> >
> >
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Arundhati-s-statement-from-Srinagar-Full-text/A
> > rticle1-618034.aspx
> > >,
> > and I loved it because it was not a fucking 30,000 words essay! Anyway, I
> > had some reactions, please find them below (in bold and in red, adjectives
> > that you prefer?):
> >
> > Kashmir, Oct. 26:* *I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir.  *(Wonderful, you
> > are going places woman, wished you had cared to write something from Bihar
> > or UP; people are suffering due to neglect and bad politics there too, but
> > wait, stay where you are.)* 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.  *(LOL! You read and believe newspapers? But I guess that’s what
> > you do when you wake up in the morning – take up a newspaper and find if
> > your name appears anywhere. If not, you plan how it can.)* I said what
> > millions of people here say every day. *(Millions of people say benc**d in
> > India every day, that doesn’t sanction that term any “social
> > acceptance”)*
> > I
> > said what I, as well as other commentators, have written and said for
> > years.
> > *(Absolutely, you have NEVER said or written anything NEW. You just pick up
> > issues, after reading the morning newspapers, and join the
> > bandwagon.)*Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches
> > will see that they
> > were fundamentally a call for justice. *(Sorry, I didn’t really care to
> > read
> > the transcript of your speeches. Can you make them a bit shorter? I’ve an
> > attention span problem.)* I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir
> > who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world;
> > *(Oh,
> > Kashmir is an area under military occupation? Thanks, will update my
> > general
> > knowledge and Wikimapia, but wait, how come you were allowed there? Don’t
> > all democratic rights cease to exist in an area under military occupation?
> > Or were you an “embedded activist” like those embedded journalists of
CNN
> > in
> > Iraq during the Gulf War?)* for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy
> > of
> > having been driven out of their homeland; *(Really? Or are you fucking
> > kidding me?)* for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited
> > on
> > garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; *(What the fuck is a “Dalit
> > soldier” with a “grave”? I thought Dalits existed only within
> > Hinduism and
> > Sikhism, where there are no graves. Oh okay, next you are writing a 300,000
> > essay on why Dalits are neither Hindu/Sikh/Christian/Muslim nor Indian, and
> > why the need justice and liberty from the tyrannous Brahminical Indian
> > state?)* 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. *(Oh great, so this whole country is under some
> > kind of occupation – police state – what the fuck, you opened my eyes,
> > where
> > is the red flag?)*
> >
> > 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. *(Yes, “last year”, and you are visiting the place
> > “now”
> > because your heart bleeds for a common Kashmiri.) * I met Shakeel, who is
> > Nilofer’s husband and Asiya’s brother.  *(Wait a minute; you were also
in
> > Delhi a couple of weeks back. Did you meet any Kashmiri Pandit, for whom
> > you
> > claimed to be seeking justice in the earlier paragraph?)* 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.  *(Have you seen the Bollywood movie Gulaal? You can
> > sit in such circles almost in each part of this country and listen to cries
> > of Azadi from imagined powers. There are Brahmins in this country, whom you
> > think control everything, who feel “trapped” in the modern state that
is
> > implementing reservations for everyone except them.)* I met young stone
> > pelters who had been shot through their eyes. *(Did you meet that Indian
> > policeman who lost his eye after a 5 kg stone hit his eye?) * 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. *(I once traveled with a Hindu in
> > Ahmedabad, who told me how Muslims had created an “acid pool” in
“their
> > area” and used to throw Hindus in them during riots; there have been many
> > riots in Ahmedabad, not just during 2002, for your kind information. Of
> > course I didn’t believe him and went out to write an essay or even a fake
> > news article. I don’t believe people easily and form opinions. If the
> > state
> > can’t be trusted blindly, that doesn’t mean I’d trust every other
> > non-state
> > actor blindly. Oh, non-state actor!)*
> >
> > In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of
wanting
> > India to break up.  *(Yes, there are idiots who take you seriously.)* On
> > the
> > contrary, what I say comes from love and pride.  *(ROFLMAO!)* 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.
> > *(But
> > you are fine and your conscience is not disturbed if someone does the same
> > to people and force them to say that they are NOT Indians?)* It comes from
> > wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one.
*(“just”
> > one
> > or “just one”? People like you are surely not going to let this society
> > be
> > “just one”. It would be broken into Dalits, Tribals, Muslims, Brahmins,
> > Christians, Poor, Rich, Women, etc. I want my society and country to be
> > “just one” for god’s sake!)* Pity the nation that has to silence its
> > writers
> > for speaking their minds. *(Yes, yes, pity the nation that produces such
> > writers. Today I’m proud of Chetan Bhagat, seriously.)* 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. *(Yes, I’d pity the nation only if you
> > were
> > “actually” jailed, and you won’t be, dear, because this is a country
that
> > doesn’t need your pity.)*
> > _________________________________________
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> 
> You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a
> nation, you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the
> foundations of caste will crack and will never be a whole.
> -AMBEDKAR
> 
> 
> 
> http://venukm.blogspot.com
> 
> http://www.shelfari.com/kmvenuannur
> 
> http://kmvenuannur.livejournal.com
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