Arundhati Roy: The goddess of big things
Arundhati Roy's activism is a personality-based social activism, where the focus is on the activist and not on the issue. Naturally, critics focus more on her than on what she says.
Winning the 1997 Booker Prize for her first and only novel 'The God of Small Things' (a work heavily influenced by the literary devices that Salman Rushdie popularized in his early novels) was certainly the turning point in Arundhati's life. The prize gave her an identity and a celebrity status in India and other places where Booker Prize meant something. While the literary world expected her to come up with her next fictional exertion, Arundhati, who in her own words didn't have another story to tell, found her calling in social activism. And given our media's penchant for giving space and spotlight for whatever a 'celebrity' says, the stage was all set for the Booker Prize-winning author (no less!) to make her debut as a celebrity-activist. Although, Arundhati has chosen to fashion herself after Noam Chomsky, the renowned American author-activist, she cannot claim to have the eminence and intellectual powers of the same breed. For, a close look at the 'causes' that Arundhati has chosen, over the years, to associate herself with and lend her Booker Prize aura to, would reveal that they are all causes that guaranteed her immediate spotlight of the media. After her outpouring against India's nuclear test, Arundhati chose to associate with Narmada Bachao Andolan, the social movement against the Sardar Sarovar Dam built across the Narmada river in Gujarat. Soon, she understood that the movement did not have much space for her. Her penchant for hogging the limelight never endeared her to other activists in the movement like Medha Patkar.
Since then, Arundhati has been going hammer and tongs at anything and everything that would give her instant fame and sound-bite. From criticizing the Indian judiciary to supporting those invoslved in the Indian Parliament attack to condemning US' foreign policy in Afghanistan to accusing the Sri Lankan government of genocide to staging a rendezvous with the naxalites, she has been there and done it all, in the process shrewdly ensuring more media coverage for herself than for the issue that she ostensibly supports. Arundhati's recklessness (support to naxal violence and Kashmir secession and contempt of court) is carefully choreographed and always leaves her in a win-win situation. If the government arrests her, for example, for her seditious speech on Kashmir, she becomes international celebrity overnight. If the government doesn't arrest her, she can continue saying what she wants to say and have the media eat out of the palm of her hand.
While Arundhati is certainly free to choose to fly from one issue to another at breathtaking speed and remain a Jane of all big causes, her short-lived and superficial, yet high-decibel approach to complex issues trivializes the very idea of social activism, making people wonder whether she is serious about any one issue and whether she has done her homework before giving a free play to her disdain. The issues that she chooses to associate with are selected carefully to ensure maximum mileage for her. In fact, her silence on a host of other issues is more eloquent than her expressed views on a few issues. This tactic ensures that she doesn't end up ruffling the feathers of her constituency. Her views, doused in a heavy dose of verbiage, are blatantly one-dimensional and nihilistic. Interestingly, while she opposes the system just for the heck of it, she has all along been shamelessly enjoying the fruits of the system. Here is someone in trendy attire and gelled hair talking about the merits of naxalism! And a 2003 newspaper report had it that a hilltop bungalow that her husband owned near Panchmarhi stood on a notified forest land, while she, without batting an eyelid, calls India bhookhe-nange! Where does Arundhati go from here?
More international recognition and awards and the fruits they guarantee? Perhaps. Her more-than-one-decade 'activism' has got her just one international award-the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004-which was interestingly awarded to her, among other things, for her advocacy of non-violence. And this 'advocate of non-violence' has even gone to the extent of defending naxal violence and terrorism. That is some social activism!
Since then, Arundhati has been going hammer and tongs at anything and everything that would give her instant fame and sound-bite. From criticizing the Indian judiciary to supporting those invoslved in the Indian Parliament attack to condemning US' foreign policy in Afghanistan to accusing the Sri Lankan government of genocide to staging a rendezvous with the naxalites, she has been there and done it all, in the process shrewdly ensuring more media coverage for herself than for the issue that she ostensibly supports. Arundhati's recklessness (support to naxal violence and Kashmir secession and contempt of court) is carefully choreographed and always leaves her in a win-win situation. If the government arrests her, for example, for her seditious speech on Kashmir, she becomes international celebrity overnight. If the government doesn't arrest her, she can continue saying what she wants to say and have the media eat out of the palm of her hand.
While Arundhati is certainly free to choose to fly from one issue to another at breathtaking speed and remain a Jane of all big causes, her short-lived and superficial, yet high-decibel approach to complex issues trivializes the very idea of social activism, making people wonder whether she is serious about any one issue and whether she has done her homework before giving a free play to her disdain. The issues that she chooses to associate with are selected carefully to ensure maximum mileage for her. In fact, her silence on a host of other issues is more eloquent than her expressed views on a few issues. This tactic ensures that she doesn't end up ruffling the feathers of her constituency. Her views, doused in a heavy dose of verbiage, are blatantly one-dimensional and nihilistic. Interestingly, while she opposes the system just for the heck of it, she has all along been shamelessly enjoying the fruits of the system. Here is someone in trendy attire and gelled hair talking about the merits of naxalism! And a 2003 newspaper report had it that a hilltop bungalow that her husband owned near Panchmarhi stood on a notified forest land, while she, without batting an eyelid, calls India bhookhe-nange! Where does Arundhati go from here?
More international recognition and awards and the fruits they guarantee? Perhaps. Her more-than-one-decade 'activism' has got her just one international award-the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004-which was interestingly awarded to her, among other things, for her advocacy of non-violence. And this 'advocate of non-violence' has even gone to the extent of defending naxal violence and terrorism. That is some social activism!
Agree with the author. Arundhati knows how to work the press and a group of cronies. She has hit upon a novel idea to stay in the news and make a living. That is the fact.
Such an unbiased and completely balanced approach to the whole issue. I would like to congratulate the author of this article to have been able to live for so long with her/his head up her/his ass.
Look around, observe, learn and analyse !! The world is not such a simple place. Today they are coming for her.... tomorrow it might be you. Who is gonna speak out then?
There is no difference between Arundhati Roy and some Bollywood actresses. They would anything for publicity.
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