[Reader-list] Fwd: INTERVIEW WITH ARUNDHATI ROY

[Asit Das]

With all her well prepared questions, Sagarika Ghose goes absolutely
nowhere.
http://www.zcommunications.org/arundhati-roy-terms-maoist-attacks-like-chhattisgarh-as-counter-violence-by-arundhati-roy


Arundhati Roy Terms Maoist Attacks Like Chhattisgarh As Counter-Violence
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By Arundhati Roy <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/arundhatiroy>

Source: Firstpost.com<http://www.firstpost.com/india/arundhati-roy-terms-maoist-attacks-like-chhattisgarh-as-counter-violence-820173.html>
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

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In the aftermath of the Maoist attack on the Congress Yatra in Chhattisgarh on
Saturday, activist and writer Arundhati Roy points out in an interview to *
CNN-IBN*that the Maoists have no choice but to indulge in ‘counter
violence’.

Here is Roy’s interview with *CNN-IBN* Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghosh:

Arundhati Roy. AFP

*Sagarika Ghose:* You wrote your article ‘Walking with the comrades’ in The
Outlook before Dantewada happened. In the aftermath of the Dantewada, do
you still stand by the tone of sympathy that you had with the Maoists cause
in that essay?

*Arundhati Roy:* Well, this is an odd way to frame before and after
Dantewada happened because actually you know this cycle of violence has
been building on and on. This is not the first time that a large number of
security personnel have been killed by the Maoists. I have written about it
and the other attacks that took place between the years 2005-2007. The way
I look at is often you know people make it sound that oh on this side of
people, who are celebrating the killing of CRPF jawans and that side of the
people who are asking for the Maoists to be wiped out. This is not the
case. I think that you got to look at the every death as a terrible
tragedy. In a system, in a war that’s been pushed on the people and that
unfortunately is becoming a war of the rich against the poor. In which rich
put forward the poorest of the poor to fight the poor. CRPF are terrible
victims but they are not just victims of the Maoists. They are victims of a
system of structural violence that is taking place, that sort to be drowned
in this empty condemnation industry that goes on which is entirely
meaningless because most of the time people who condemn them have really no
sympathy for them. They are just using them as pawns.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Who then will break the cycle of violence? The state
argues that the reason why the state has to cleanse the area or sanitize
the area is because whenever it initiates development works on bridges or
starts school; those are blown up by the Maoists. Is it that the cycle of
violence according to you can only be broken by the states and if the state
pulls back is that what you believe?

*Arundhati Roy:* There is some simple sort of litmus test for that, is it
the case that there are hospitals, schools, low malnutrition and lot of
development in poor areas where there aren’t any Maoists? That’s not the
case. The fact is even if you look at the studies that have been done by
doctors in a place like Bilashpur. What Vinayak Sen describes as
nutritional aids is happening. When you go into the schools, you see that
they are used as barracks. They are built as barracks so as to say that
Maoists blow up schools and they are against development is a bit
ridiculous.

*Sagarika Ghose:* But you condemn state violence and the charge against you
is that you don’t condemn Naxals violence and also you don’t condemn
Maoists violence. In fact you rationalise it and even romaticising
violence? That is a charge made against you and in fact if I can read from
your essay where you have written that, “I feel I want to say something
about the futility of violence but what should I suggest they do? Go to
court, a rally, and a hunger strike that sounds ridiculous; which party
they should vote for, which democratic institution they should approach?
You seem to be saying that non-violence is futile?

*Arundhati Roy:* This is a strange charge on someone who is writing about
non-violence and non-violence movement fro 10 years now. But what I saw
when I went into the forests was this – that non-violence resistance though
it has actually not worked; not in the ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ and not
even in many other non-violence movements and not even in the militant
movements. It has worked in some parts of the movement. But inside the
forests it’s a different story because non-violence and in particularly,
Gandhian non-violence in some ways needs an audience. It’s a theater that
needs an audience. But inside the forests there is no audience when a
thousand police come and surround the forest village in the middle of the
night, what are they to do? How are the hungry to go on a hunger strike?
How are the people with no money to boycott taxes or foreign goods or do
consumer boycotts?

They have nothing. I do see the violence inside that forest as a ‘counter
violence’. As a ‘violence of resistance’ and I do feel terrible about the
fact that there is this increasing cycle of violence that the more weapons
the government arms the police with those weapons end up with the Maoist
PLGA. It’s a terrible thing to do to any society. I don’t think that there
is any romance in it. However I’m not against romance. I do feel it’s
incredible that these poor people are standing up against this mighty state
that is sending thousands and thousands of Para-military. I mean, what they
are doing in those forests against those people with AK-47 and grenades.

*Sagarika Ghose:* But Maoists have AK-47 too? They have pressure bombs too?

*Arundhati Roy:* They snatched it from cops.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Should people like you for not been raising their voices
against the cycle of violence or should you actually been trying to find
out rationalization for it because your been called as ‘apologists for
Maoists’. BJP has called you the “sophisticated face of naxalism’. If you
don’t raise your voice against their violence and simply say it as a
morally acceptable, as a morally legitimate counter to the state then are
you not actually failing as member of a civil society?

*Arundhati Roy:* No, I’m not. Because I think it suits the status-quo to
have everybody saying…this is terrible and all. So just let’s just keep on
without taking it into account the terrible structural violence that
actually is creating a ‘genocidal situation’ in those tribal areas. If you
look at the levels of malnutrition, if you look at the levels of absolute
desperation there; any responsible person has to say that the violence will
stop when you stop pushing those people. When you have a whole community of
tribal; which by the way, is a population larger than the population of the
most countries, is actually on the brink of survival, fighting for its own
annihilation. I can’t equate their reactions, their resistance to the
violence of the state. I think it’s immoral to equate the two.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Let’s bring you to the other point in your essay, where
you are particularly harsh on Gandhi. You said party founder Charu Majumder
has kept the dream of revolution real and present in India. Imagine a
society without that dream, for that alone we can’t judge him too harshly.
Especially not while we swaddle ourselves with Gandhi’s pious humbug about
the superiority of non-violent way and its notion of trusteeship. You also
say do you know what to do if we come under fire….Do you think Gandhi is a
figure to be mocked?

*Arundhati Roy:* I think there are something about Gandhi, which do
deserved to be mocked and I think there are something about him which
deserve a great deal of respect. Particularly, his (Gandhi’s) ideas of
consumption, minimalist and sustainable living. However, let me read what
he said in his thing of trusteeship. This is a quote of his notion of
trusteeship, “the rich man will be left in possession of his wealth of
which he will use what he reasonably requires for his personal needs and
will act as a trustee for the remainder to be used for the good of the
society”. I think that is one statement which can be mocked. I have no
problem mocking it.

*Sagarika Ghose:* In a lecture in US in March at the Left forum you said
‘India is a fake democracy’ that ties in with your justification or your
quasi-justification of violence to some extent. Do you feel that because
Indian democracy is ‘fake’ there is no hope that Indian democracy can holds
out to the Maoists?

*Arundhati Roy:* No, certainly I feel that India is a oligarchy where it
does work as a democracy for the middle classes and the upper classes.

*Sagarika Ghose:* But it’s a fake democracy?

*Arundhati Roy:* Yeah, because it doesn’t work for the mass of the people
it’s a fake democracy. So you have institution which has been hollowed out,
you have institution to which poor have no access and when you look at the
institution of the democracy, look at the elections, at the court, at the
media and you look at the judiciary. You have a very dangerous system
building. If you increasingly excluding a vast section of the poorer people
in this country and that’s why I say it fake. It works for some and it
doesn’t work for others depending on where you want to place your feet;
your politics is defined. If you stand in Greater Kailash; sure it’s a
great and vibrant democracy but if you stand in Dantewada- it is no
democracy at all. You have a Chief Minister who basically said that those
who don’t come out of the forests and live in Salwa Judum camps are
terrorists. So looking after your chickens and tending to your fields is a
terrorist act? Is that democracy?

*Sagarika Ghose:* If you have to come up with a solution to this. What
would your solution be? What would be your way to break the deadlock?

*Arundhati Roy:* Well there are two things. First on a philosophical level
I would say that I don’t believe that the imagination that has brought to
the planet to this crisis is going to come up with an alternative. So the
least we can do is to stop and enlighten those who we think of as keepers
of our past but could be people who have the wisdom for the future.

But on “Operation Green hunt”, I would like to say three things, I think
government should come clean on all these MoUs, infrastructures projects;
declare them and tell us what they are and freeze them for now. Insist that
all the villagers that have been pushed out, we are talking of hundreds and
thousands of people be rehabilitated. Guns need to be pulled back.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Every country uses mineral resources to grow. Growth is
something our country needs. The present dispensation in Maoists, earlier
they used to deal with Posco; the rate of compensation was 30 Lakh per year
that they used to pay to the Maoists. Now its no deals all bets are off.
Are you advocating that all projects from all those areas should wind up
and go?

*Arundhati Roy:* You see what’s happening now with that the privatization
of the mining industry that there is a very sort of false understanding
that mining is going to push up growth. It will push it up in strange way
which has nothing to do with the real development. But if you look at the
royalties that the government gets e.g for iron ores Rs 27 for 5,000 tonnes
profit for the private company. We are paying without ecology of other
people’s economy. So it’s a myth of this thing called growth.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Are you willing to mediate between the Maoists and the
government because they have put your name as well as Kabir Suman to
mediate. But you declined. What are you afraid of? Why don’t you go ahead
and mediate?

*Arundhati Roy:* I’m afraid of myself. These are not my skills. I don’t
trust myself. If you are a basket ballplayer you can’t be a swimmer. So I
think there are people who would do a good job but I don’t think I’m one of
them. But I think one question we have to ask is whom do we mean when we
say Maoist? Who does the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ want to target? Because for
this there has been a discrete separation been made that here are the
Maoists and here are the tribal. On the other hand some people say Maoists
represent the tribal. Neither of which is true. The fact is that the about
99 per cent Maoists are tribal. But all tribal are not Maoists, still
numbers turn into tens and thousands of people who would officially call
themselves Maoists. Among them 90,000 women belong to women organisation.
10,000 belong to the cultural organisation. So are they all going to be
wiped out?

*Sagarika Ghose:* What is your message to Home Minister P Chidambaram? What
kind of message would you like to give him? Do you think he is fighting
this war for ego?

Arundhati Roy: I think he is fighting for hue brisk and fighting with an
imagination that is chained to the corporate companies that he wants served
to Enron to Vedanta, to all the companies that he has represented. I’m not
necessarily accusing him of being corrupt but I’m accusing him of having an
imagination that is driving this country into a very serious situation and
it’s going to effect all of us.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Are you worried about the case that has been filed
against you? There has been a complaint filed against you under
Chhaatisgarh Special Powers Act (CSPA) and police are investigating on that
for lending your support to the Maoists after your article. Are you worried
about the state prosecution?

*Arundhati Roy:* Obviously I would be a goon not to be worried. But I won’t
be the first one they have gone after. I think what they are trying to do
is to sell out a warning to the people because I feel they want to
intensify this war. I think we are going to see drone attacks on the
poorest people of this country. Moreover they want to cordon off the
theater of war and trying to warn people who might have a different view
from that of the government not to go in the air.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Why do you think your writings are as controversial as
they are. Why does India love to hate Arundhati Roy? Why does there are so
much hate mail directed at you? Why do people think you say things that
people don’t agree with? Why are you the writer that India loves to hate?

*Arundhati Roy:* I think it is very presumptuous of you to represent India.
I feel the opposite. Like somebody, who is embraced wherever I go whether
it is to Orissa or Narmada; it is just the people with the voice, the
people with a huge stake in the things I’m writing about where that stake
is threatened – that hate me. But if I did feel that whole of India hated
me; I have been doing something terribly wrong. As a political writer I be
crazy to carry on what I’m doing? The fact I I feel very deeply loved,
that’s the real issue.

*Sagarika Ghose:* But do you think there is a problem. Do you think the
government, the media, the kind of dominant culture is targeting
intellectuals, is targeting people like human right activists? Is this
dangerous?

*Arundhati Roy:* Of course this is very dangerous. I read one article that
says Dantewada comes to Delhi in the charge against Kobad Ghandy. People
union for democratic rights….all institutions are being called front
organizations.

There is this manic barricade like accusation to any one who has a
different view that they are Maoists. Hundreds of people who are not known
have been picked up and jailed. There is whole bandwidth of people’s
movement from the non-violent ones outside the forests to the arms struggle
inside the forests which have actually held of this corporate assault,
which I have to say has not happened in anywhere else in the world.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Let me just ask you what a viewer wrote to me, “ when I
see a 16-year-old with a gun, I would feel scared and mourn that. Why would
Arundhati Roy when she looks at a 16-year-old look with a gun celebrated
and say she is so beautiful, she has a lovely smile”?

*Arundhati Roy:* Because if I saw a 16-year-old being raped by a CRPF man
and watching her village being burnt and watching her parents being killed
and submit to it. I would mourn that. When I see one standing up and say I
‘m going to fight this. I would feel terrible. I think it’s a terrible
thing to come to that. But it’s better than having her accept her
annihilation.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Let me read out some of the criticisms that have been
made against you fellow thinkers and activists, who said “ she equates
their cynical quest for power with genuine demands, rights and concern of
the people who live in the forests. She give new meaning to the binary
logic something which she ridiculed George W Bush for. She is at the moment
a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. And another par lance is that she would be
described as an embedded journalist”. How do you react to this criticism?

*Arundhati Roy:* I think embedded is not in itself a bad thing, it depends
on who your are embedded with, whether you are embedded with the media or
with the corporate? Or are you embedded with the side that sees itself in
resisting this. Here I don’t refer to the Maoists. Who are the Maoists? Of
course the Maoists ideologues are that it is there aim to overthrow the
Indian state when people who form there fighting forces don’t know what the
Indian state is? But surely there is a coincidence of aims and the moment;
both are using each others. I want to say that Maoists are not the only
people who are trying to overthrow the Indian state; whereas Indian state
has been thrown already by the ‘Hindutva’ project and by the corporate
project.

*Sagarika Ghose:* So you believe that Constitution has ceased to exist?

*Arundhati Roy:* I believe it’s been deeply weakened.

*Sagarika Ghose:* Do you think of ever giving up India and living up in
somewhere else?

*Arundhati Roy:* Absolutely not. For me that’s the challenge, that’s the
beauty, that’s the wonder because the people in this country are staging
the India’s most difficult struggle anywhere in the world. I feel so proud.
I really salute them on what’s going on here. As I belong to here even if
CSPA wants to put me into jail and I’m not going to live in Switzerland.


-- 
Siddhartha

__._,_.___