Thursday, January 6, 2011

ONE OF A KIND: THE STORY OF ARUNDHATI ROY

Foreword: When I was in eight grade, my father gifted " the god of small things" for my birthday. And thus, Arundhati Roy entered my life. Over the years, her writing has influenced me more than anyone else. In my peace and justice class, I got an opportunity to write about a female peace maker. Using sources on internet, I penned her biography. This is my tribute to the person whom I regard as one of the most eloquent and talented writer of our time.

Since 1997, the world knows Arundhati Roy as the first Indian woman to win the prestigious Booker price for her novel, The God of Small Things. But for the last few years, Roy’s name has been associated more with protest against Indian government and the corporate globalization than with literature. Thus far, her passionate and provocative political essays about social equality and justice have born fruition in the form of seven books that has established a new identity for Roy as a writer cum activist. While many in the literary intellectual circle find it unexpected and uncalled for a fiction writer to not only venture but also linger in the so called dirty world of politics, a flashback into her own upbringing helps us to better understand the roots of her values that has made her the peace activist she is today. 
         Much of who Arundhati is can be traced to her mother’s influence. Mary Roy was a woman ahead of her time. In an India where inter-religious marriages were a social taboo, Roy senior married a man from a different religion and caste. While she was a Keralite Syrian Christian[1], her husband Ranjit Roy was a Bengali Hindu tea planter. A year after Arundhati Roy was born on November 24th 1961, her parents’ filed for divorce, an extremely rare happenings in the Indian 60s. Roy senior was not submissive to old age traditions and took her family back to Ayamanam, her mother’s village in Kerala. Mary Roy went to become a woman’s activist after she won the landmark case that ensured equal rights for woman to their ancestral property.[2] Her mother’s courage is often reflected in the tireless fight for justice that Arundhati rages despite the threats from the Indian government.                                                                                                                                     
Part of Roy’s rebellious nature stems from her own unique education. Arundhati Roy was homeschooled by her mother until she was 10. Mary Roy, unsatisfied with the education system in India started her own experimental school where her daughter was the first student, “I was my mother’s guinea pig”[3]. Pallikoodam is a school that subscribes to leftist and communist ideologies in India[4]. Arundhati Roy has shared that her early experiences made her determined to negotiate with the world on her own.[6] At 16, she left the comforts of home and went to find her own living in Delhi, the capital city of India. She studied at the National School of Architecture and supported herself by taking various jobs in New Delhi[7]. But in 1997, she unexpectedly found herself in midst of international stardom as her first novel, The God of Small Things, won both commercial and critical acclaim. While many saw a startling literary future for Arundhati Roy, the 1998 nuclear testing in India brought the talented writer a political calling.
In 1998, the Indian government carried out a series of test explosions of five nuclear devices provoking Pakistan to follow the suit as well. The success of the tests garnered appraisal from a large scale of Indian society who saw it as a development of nuclear arsenal for the country’s armed forces.  But at an international level, the UN condemned both India and Pakistan for risking the security in the South Asia[8]. Arundhati Roy responded by penning The End of Imagination, an article that attracted worldwide attention[9]. As the voice of a brilliant writer, she spoke with conscience and knowledge and condemned the government of India’s actions, “My world has died. And I write to morn it’s passing”. Her call was not simply in opposition to the overwhelming potential destruction of nuclear weapon. She also eloquently spoke of the environmental cost of such actions and the risks it imposes on the future generations. She criticized the Indian government for carrying out policies based on fear and condemned them for manipulating the Indian citizens by calling the nuclear tests a nationalism test[10]. At the national level, Roy’s clarity served to inform the general public on “the other side of the story” as her persuasive and confident writing helped to gain social awareness. At the international level, her article  made people to rethink as she appealed not only as an Indian but also as a citizen of the world seeking for universal peace.
            Since then, Roy has used the media’s fixation on her to lend voices to many social causes in India, notably for the Narmada Dam project. This is a large hydraulic engineering project involving the construction of multiple dams on the Narmada River. Critics believe that the cost of the dams outweigh the benefits[11]. Arundhati Roy has always been against forced modernization and displacement of indigenous people. In her essay, The Greater Common Good, she lends voice to the villagers whose farms and houses will submerge after the dams will be put in place. This protest has grown from a fight for a river over doubts of an entire political system. Roy’s article and the controversy captured popular imagination as she challenged the nation to think of the actions that their government is undertaking. By using her own talent as a writer, she has raised awareness and support for the people of Narmada.
            Arundhati Roy again came on the headlines of India’s national news when she offered an alternative viewpoint on the Maoists in India. The Maoists in India have been violently opposing the government’s industrialization project in the tribal areas. The Indian PM Manmohan Singh has called them the gravest internal security threat as well.[12] While the news only showed of the violent atrocities Maoists inflicted on the national police, Arundhati went into the jungle and talked with the Maoists. She wrote an article Walking with the comrades where she explained why the Maoists have taken up arms. Indian politicians and public have criticized her for provoking and supporting violence. This has not stopped her from point out the flaws of Indian democracy. Even at an international level, Roy has spoke against the US foreign policy. After the September 2001 attack, she has broadened her field and wrote about the war against terror. She criticized the American government for their violent policy in Afghanistan and has also collaborated with noted thinkers such as Noam Chomsky to oppose Israel’s invasion of Palestine[13].
           Arundhati Roy, to say the least is a controversial figure. While her writings have been applauded, many have reserved to comment on the contents of what she says.  She has drawn criticism from people who doubt the efficacy of her actions on policymakers. Despite her writings and her protests against many of the government action, she lacks the leverage to pose a threat to the authority or power of the state. However, Arundhati Roy has expanded the definition of what a writer is or should be. She has always faced the consequences of her writings but has refused to remain silent. By openly speaking her mind; she has exemplified herself to the other artists, to the citizens of India and the world. While the heads of the state and the policymakers have dismissed her, she has educated the common Indian people of their government action. As the power vested in her as a writer, she has used her writing as a means to reach out to the people. Those who could no longer trust the national media, she has been a source that filters the truth and offer a different perspective on many issues. She has truly challenged India’s democracy and thus in a fundamental manner, she has contributed to creating peace and justice in Indian society. Roy’s work is unique because she does not tell people what to do. She does not think for them. She simply informs the truth to the public and makes them responsible for changes.                                                                                                             
In this tireless process, she has provoked citizens of the state and in particular women to speak their mind. Politics in India is a highly masculinized field where it is generally the men in suits who have the power. But Roy has stood symbolically and also literally to challenge all of those men. In a male dominated society, she has refused to let her identity as a woman stop her from doing what she is and thus, by embracing the womanhood, she has become an example of strength for many young girls in India. She has negotiated herself in a position of choices.[14] Because of her work as a citizen of the world and as a writer, she has been awarded with numerous peace prizes. As of today, Arundhati Roy continues to speak for justice as a woman, a writer, an activist and a human being with a conscience.

[1] The Syrian Christians are a group of ethno religious group based in Kerala who adhere to churches of Saint Thomas tradition. Since settling in Kerala, they have mastered the English language and were among the more affluent social groups.http://www.india-today.com/itoday/27101997/cov.html December 12, 2010
[5] The Maoists in India have been protesting against the government forced urbanization plan on their lands and recently took up arms against them as well. http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738 December 20, 2010
[9] Foreword, John Berger. The Algebra of Infinite Justice. Page XIII Penguin Books India 2001.
[10] The End of Imagination. Page 18. The Algebra of Infinite Justice.
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