“Arundhathi Roy”:http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-roy25apr25,0,4631534.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions in Los Angeles Times
bq. In Kashmir, in a situation that almost amounts to war, an estimated 80,000 people have been killed since 1989. As long as the people who are killed are called gangsters, terrorists, insurgents or extremists, their killers can strut around as crusaders in the national interest and are answerable to no one.
And from “Rediff”:http://us.rediff.com/news/2004/apr/25jk.htm
bq. In a gruesome incident, militants beheaded the wife and daughter of a Special Police Officer in Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said in Srinagar on Sunday. The militants barged into Ghulam Hassan Qureshi’s house in Bazipora village late on Saturday night and beheaded his 30-year-old wife Shaha and 8-year old daughter Misra.
Arundhathi Roy is honoured by “mass murderers”:https://varnam.org/archives/000300.html and has been seen calling “Democracy as a whore”:https://varnam.org/archives/000103.html. She who weeps for the tribals was found to have a hilltop bunglow on “notified forest land”:https://varnam.org/archives/000084.html. From such a person, there will be a heavy silence for the police officers and their families who are murdered by terrorists.
Brutal Silence
Published
And as long as she can say “..are called gangsters terrorists, insurgents or extremists, ..” she doesn’t need to deal with the question of whether they were in reality gangsters, terrorists, insurgents or extremists.
Thought I could never figure out what is great about “God of Small Things”. Now I can’t figure out who the hell wants to waste time listening to such utter blabber – Booker Prize or not, she is an insult to the people killed in Kashmir; and pretty much everywhere else. What an $#@@^&@$&. So far, I’ve not heard her come up with any kind of solutions to all these problems she is unhappy about. Armchair critic and self-styled writer rolled into one is an annoying combination, indeed.
Verbal terrorist strikes again
Can Arundhati Roy sink any lower in her support for all things scummy, horrible and cruel in the world? Not, says JK in this post – varnam: Brutal Silence. This woman is beyond disgusting and I am ashamed to have her pretend to speak up for my country …
Superb linkage JK. Thought of writing a letter to the editor of LA Times?
This is thing — I don’t understand why winning a Booker Prize on LITERATURE is enough of a qualification to air your stupid political views in LA Times of all the news papers! Next thing you know Salman Khan will be writing articles on Wild Life Conservation programs. This madness is never going to stop.
babu –
regardless of what you think of her novel (which i just finished reading and am still undecided on), i am at a loss for why you believe she is an insult to those who’ve died in kashmir. she is calling for some level of accountability, not a damnation of the security forces. what is wrong with this? unbridled killing in the name of nation (or otherwise) is never a good thing.
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dilip –
yes, winning the booker in literature is indeed enough qualification to be published in the times. more so in fact. people are much more interested in reading what she has to say than what you or most others have to say — and this qualifies her opinion for publication. her opinion matters more than yours. the free press has chosen.
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what concerns me here is not so much the disagreement with her views, but rather the vitriol being espoused against her right to express these views. she is a successful writer and as such her opinions get more coverage than ours. it would seem that this is the real issue bothering the audience here.
noam chomsky is an extremely well regarded linguist, and yet he has come to be known as one of the most influential political writers of our time (again, it’s not particularly relevant whether you agree with him or not). having another area of expertise (in roy’s case, literature) does not validate one’s political views, but it doesn’t circumvent them either. more power to her if she uses her celebrity to get her point across. given the opportunity, any person of character would do the same.
I hate to be in the business of spilling “+1” everywhere but FWIW I agree with SAS.
one one occasion though SAS simply turned my argument backwards. I am not saying you should ignore her because she is after all a fancy prose writer. Just because she is an expert in literature does NOT mean she knows what she is talking about on any topic outside her area of expertise. there has to be some standard and accountability if you are going to be allowed willy nilly to publish whatever you want in the front pages of NY Times. your credentials have to be established before you can communicate using the mass media. or at the very least (in this case) you must exhibit a sound grasp of politics and foreign policy.
writers are good at turning whatever half-baked knowledge they possess into articles that have no substance. years ago she was smothered by BG Varghese when she wrote silly half-truths and showed a clear lack of understanding on the issues regarding tribals being displayed because of Sardar Sarovar Dam.
Yazad, I sure am writing a letter to LA Times about the total one sided portrayal of what is happening in India.
SAS: I think she is an insult to people killed in Kashmir because she simply seems to have ignored the fatality count among our soldiers. As in the story JK pointed out about the murder of the Police Officer’s family; will she be calling the murderers as saviours of Kashmiris?
Accountability is a must. I agree. I don’t think this is the way to call for accountability. This is pure vitriol, one sided, arm-chair criticism.
Ms. Roy has every right to her opinion – and I have every right to criticize that opinion. The problem I have with the piece, aside from the rather hyperbolic writing style, is that it focuses on only one aspect of the Kashmir issue. Yes, Indian security forces have committed crimes, but they have also saved people’s lives. Nowhere in this article is said anything about the Kashmiri pandit refugee community, Hindus and Buddhists who have fled the valley, Islamist and other militants who target or murder moderate Muslim politicians who would like to partake in Indian elections, guns or money flowing across the line of control or humans rights abuses in Pakistan administered Kashmir. For a professional writer, context seems sadly lacking.
How disappointing.