Arundhati Roy Supports Separatist Youth in Kashmir
I am just trying to grab your attention with a catchy headline, but indeed she does that – supporting youth who hurl stones at police and armed forces. The reason it is not an appropriate headline is that she does a hell of a lot of other things, to wit:
• Sardar Sarovar Project
• United States foreign policy, the War in Afghanistan
• India's nuclear weaponisation
• Criticism of Israel
• 2001 Indian Parliament attack
• The Muthanga incident
• Comments on 2008 Mumbai attacks
• Criticism of Sri Lanka
• Views on the Naxals

Poor Medha Patkar has been stuck with the Narmada Bachao Andolan (against the Sardar Sarovar Project) for decades now, but Ms Roy has moved on quite a deal in all these years.

Ms Roy’s modus operandi is different: the Muthanga incident, for example went this way… After 48 days, a police force was sent into the area to evict the occupants—one participant of the movement and a policeman were killed, and the leaders of the movement were arrested. Arundhati Roy travelled to the area, visited the movement's leaders in jail, and wrote an open letter to the then Chief Minister of Kerala, A.K. Antony now India's Defence Minister, saying "You have blood on your hands." And moved on to pressing demands of the oppressed elsewhere.

More recently, earlier this month, at a seminar in Delhi named "Azadi – The only way", where Roy took part with Hurriyat Conference leader S.A.S.Geelani and Varavara Rao, Roy said that "Kashmir should get azadi from bhookhe-nange Hindustan". What does that mean? If Hindustan is rich, and not bhookha-nanga, Kashmiris will want to be a part of it? So now – with funds from Pakistan they will make Jannat out of Kashmir? What kind of sh** is this silly girl talking of?

Although it was widely speculated that she could potentially face sedition charges from the center for her remarks in Delhi, as of October 26, 2010, CNN-IBN reported that the Indian government is not likely to take action against her: which is the right approach. She would attract international attention and become the poster girl of free speech and stuff. She is already getting more attention than she deserves, mainly because of her bewitching looks (Beware beware her flashing eyes her floating hair, for she on royalties hath fed and drunk the milk of Booker prize…)

She should be left to be dealt with by the Bajrang Dal: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliate Bajrang Dal has said it will do to writer Arundhati Roy what it has already done to painter Maqbool Fida Husain — teach a lesson. The warning was given by Delhi Bajrang Dal chief Vinod Bansal at a meeting in South Delhi on Wednesday to celebrate the accession of Kashmir to India. Mr. Bansal advised Ms. Roy “not to adopt the path of M. F. Husain misinterpreting the right to freedom of expression…our country has already taught a lesson to Mr. Husain…” I think the Indian state should let Ms Roy and the Bajrang Dal slug it out, and leave the matter there.

Your freedom ends where my nose begins (Anonymous): if separatist Kashmiri youth protest the ‘occupation’ of the valley through peaceful means, there is no issue. They are hurling stones at the armed forces; they are in open revolt with the Indian state; they need to be dealt with as such – enemies within. Does Arundhati Roy have the guts to tell the separatists not to throw stones and carry out their protests peacefully? They will clip her nose, nose ring and all…

The Indian state seems to be the only soft target. Her justification for saying what she said about Kashmir and azadi is ridiculous: she says that is what many Kashmiris are saying. Of course they would say that, but as G B Shaw said, if 50 000 people say something foolish, it is still foolish. In her own words: “I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland..” Aha, she does care for the Kashmiri pundits; does Mr Geelani care too?

She wrote: “I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I travelled 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.” So what does she want the police/armed forces to do, when being stone-pelted? Show the other cheek? And finally: “Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds.” What kind of a writer and what mind is she talking about?

Let her tell her Hurriyat friends to invite Salman Rushdie to share a platform with them, and talk about free speech.