Azadi - Arundhati Roy
Sawant and Justice Kolse-Patil have made public statements that they were the main organizers and sole funders ofthe Elgar Parishad, with the aim of rallying people against divisive Hindutva forces. Both have taken fullresponsibility for the event. Yet the police and the government have ignored them completely. The police andgovernment have their reasons.It has been important for recent governments, both the Congress-led UPA and the BJP, to disguise their attackson Adivasis, and now, in the case of the BJP, their attack on Dalits, as attacks on “Maoists” or “Naxalites.” This isbecause all the main political parties have an eye on those Adivasi and Dalit constituencies as potential vote banks—unlike the Muslim constituency, which has almost been erased from electoral arithmetic. By arresting activists andcalling them Maoist or Naxalite militants, the government manages to undermine and insult Dalit aspiration bygiving it another name while, at the same time, appearing to be sensitive to “Dalit issues.” Today, there arethousands of people in jail across the country, poor and disadvantaged people, fighting for their homes, for theirlands, for their dignity—people accused of sedition and worse, languishing without trial in crowded prisons.The arrests of these ten people—now including three lawyers, and seven well-known activists—also serve to cutoff whole populations of vulnerable people from any hope of justice or representation. Because these were theirrepresentatives. Years ago, when paramilitary forces and the government-sponsored Adivasi vigilante army knownas the Salwa Judum went on a rampage in the mineral-rich forests of Bastar, killing people, raping women, andburning down whole villages, Dr. Binayak Sen, then the general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Libertiesin the state of Chhattisgarh, spoke up for its victims. When Binayak Sen was jailed, Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer andlabor union leader who had worked in the area for years, took his place. Professor Saibaba, who campaignedrelentlessly against the paramilitary operations in Bastar, stood up for Binayak Sen. When they arrested Saibaba,Rona Wilson stood up for him. Surendra Gadling was Saibaba’s lawyer. When they arrested Rona Wilson andSurendra Gadling, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, and the others stood up for them . . . and so it goes.The vulnerable are being cordoned off and silenced. The vociferous are being incarcerated. God help us to get ourcountry back.*Delivered at a press conference in New Delhi on August 29, 2018. First published on August 29, 2018, as “#MeTooUrbanNaxal,” in The Wire , Scroll ,and other publications, and then published under this title in New York Review of Books , September 3, 2018.
CHAPTER THREEOur Captured, Wounded HeartsWith his reckless “preemptive” airstrike on Balakot in Pakistan, prime minister Narendra Modi has inadvertentlyundone what previous Indian governments almost miraculously succeeded in doing for decades. Since 1947 theIndian government has bristled at any suggestion that the conflict in Kashmir could be resolved by internationalarbitration, insisting that it is an “internal matter.” By goading Pakistan into a counterstrike, and so making India andPakistan the only two nuclear powers in history to have launched airstrikes on each other, Modi hasinternationalized the Kashmir dispute. He has demonstrated to the world that Kashmir is potentially the mostdangerous place on earth, the flashpoint for nuclear war. Every person, country, and organization that worries aboutthe prospect of nuclear war has the right to intervene and do everything in its power to prevent it.On February 14, 2019, a convoy of 2,500 paramilitary soldiers was attacked in Pulwama (Kashmir) by AdilAhmad Dar, a twenty-year-old Kashmiri suicide bomber who, it has been declared, belonged to the Pakistan-basedJaish-e-Mohammad. 1 The attack, which killed at least forty men, was yet another hideous chapter in the unfoldingtragedy of Kashmir. 2 Since 1990, more than seventy thousand people have been killed in the conflict, thousandshave “disappeared,” tens of thousands have been tortured and hundreds of young people maimed and blinded bypellet guns. The death toll over the last twelve months has been the highest since 2009. 3 The Associated Pressreports that almost 570 people have lost their lives, 260 of them militants, 160 civilians, and 150 Indian armedpersonnel who died in the line of duty. 4Depending on the lens through which this conflict is viewed, the rebel combatants are called “terrorists,”“militants,” “freedom fighters,” or “mujahids.” Most Kashmiris call them “mujahids,” and when they are killed,hundreds of thousands of people— whether they agree with their methods or not—turn out for their funerals, tomourn for them and bid them farewell. Indeed, most of the civilians who were killed this past year are those who puttheir bodies in the way of harm to allow militants cornered by soldiers to escape.In this long-drawn-out, blood-drenched saga, the Pulwama bombing is the deadliest, most gruesome attack of all.There are hundreds, if not thousands, of young men in the Kashmir Valley like Adil Ahmad Dar who have beenborn into war, who have seen such horror that they have become inured to fear and are willing to sacrifice their livesfor freedom. Any day, there could be another attack, worse or less worse than the Pulwama atrocity. Is thegovernment of India willing to allow the actions of these young men to control the fate of this country and the wholesubcontinent? By reacting in the empty, theatrical way that he did, this is exactly what Narendra Modi has done. Hehas actually bestowed upon them the power to direct our future. The young Pulwama bomber could not have askedfor more.Indians who valorize their own struggle for independence from British rule and virtually worship those who led itare for the most part strangely opaque to Kashmiris who are fighting for the same thing. The armed struggle inKashmir against what people think of as “Indian Rule” is almost thirty years old. That Pakistan has (at one timeofficially and now mostly through non-government actors) supported the struggle with arms, men, and logistics ishardly a secret. Nor is it a secret that no militant can operate in the war zone that is Kashmir if they do not have theovert support of local people. Who in their right mind could imagine that this hellishly complicated, hellishly cruelwar would be solved or even mitigated in any way by a one-off, hastily executed, theatrical “surgical strike,” whichturns out to have been not-so-surgical after all? A similar “strike” that took place after the 2016 attack on an IndianArmy camp in Uri achieved little more than inspiring a Bollywood action film. The Balakot strikes in turn seem tohave been inspired by the film. And now the media reports that Bollywood producers are already lining up tocopyright “Balakot” as the name of their next film project. 5 On the whole, it has to be said, this absurd waltz looksand smells more like “pre-election” than “preemptive.”For the prime minister of this country to press its formidable air force into performing dangerous theatrics isdeeply disrespectful. And what an irony it is, that while this irresponsible nuclear brinkmanship is being played outin our subcontinent, the mighty United States of America is in talks with the Taliban forces, whom it has notmanaged to defeat or dislodge even after seventeen years of straight-out war.The spiraling conflict in the subcontinent is certainly as deadly as it appears to be. But is it as straightforward?Kashmir is the most densely militarized zone in the world, with an estimated half a million Indian soldiers postedthere. In addition to the Intelligence Bureau, the Research and Analysis Wing, and the National Intelligence Agency,
- Page 3 and 4: AZADIFREEDOM. FASCISM. FICTION.
- Page 5 and 6: Published in 2020 byHaymarket Books
- Page 7 and 8: Table of ContentsIntroduction1. In
- Page 9 and 10: the police, attacked Muslims in wor
- Page 11 and 12: historian had tried to suggest; it
- Page 13 and 14: (literally) seduce Jesus at a party
- Page 15 and 16: me in ways I could never have imagi
- Page 17 and 18: He has a formidable repertoire of c
- Page 19 and 20: couplet by him—one of Mulaqat Ali
- Page 21 and 22: services. The graveyard becomes a p
- Page 23: The opposition has demanded a joint
- Page 27 and 28: declares that he has left the decis
- Page 29 and 30: nevertheless. Stories about the mas
- Page 31 and 32: §The God of Small Things , publish
- Page 33 and 34: CHAPTER FIVEThe Silence Is the Loud
- Page 35 and 36: there were any doubt earlier, it sh
- Page 37 and 38: “You must say it then,” I said.
- Page 39 and 40: India is not really a country. It i
- Page 41 and 42: —the Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtri
- Page 43 and 44: York Times, and the Washington Post
- Page 45 and 46: and hard and intractable.The Indian
- Page 47 and 48: salaries. Once again, prejudice is
- Page 49 and 50: CHAPTER SEVENThe Graveyard Talks Ba
- Page 51 and 52: Kanhaiya Kumar, the charismatic you
- Page 53 and 54: Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India are
- Page 55 and 56: people with a profile, like me—wh
- Page 57 and 58: The Chief Minister with cold eyes a
- Page 59 and 60: the official story. Based on wisps
- Page 61 and 62: have the requisite documents—incl
- Page 63 and 64: It lost anyway. So then there was p
- Page 65 and 66: one is no different. It is a portal
- Page 67 and 68: NotesINTRODUCTION1 . Anumeha Yadav,
- Page 69 and 70: kashmir/articleshow/70583869.cms .1
- Page 71 and 72: 1 . See chapter 6.2 . Roy, Ministry
- Page 73 and 74: Azadi, 1 -2, 43BJP and, 143Kashmir
Sawant and Justice Kolse-Patil have made public statements that they were the main organizers and sole funders of
the Elgar Parishad, with the aim of rallying people against divisive Hindutva forces. Both have taken full
responsibility for the event. Yet the police and the government have ignored them completely. The police and
government have their reasons.
It has been important for recent governments, both the Congress-led UPA and the BJP, to disguise their attacks
on Adivasis, and now, in the case of the BJP, their attack on Dalits, as attacks on “Maoists” or “Naxalites.” This is
because all the main political parties have an eye on those Adivasi and Dalit constituencies as potential vote banks—
unlike the Muslim constituency, which has almost been erased from electoral arithmetic. By arresting activists and
calling them Maoist or Naxalite militants, the government manages to undermine and insult Dalit aspiration by
giving it another name while, at the same time, appearing to be sensitive to “Dalit issues.” Today, there are
thousands of people in jail across the country, poor and disadvantaged people, fighting for their homes, for their
lands, for their dignity—people accused of sedition and worse, languishing without trial in crowded prisons.
The arrests of these ten people—now including three lawyers, and seven well-known activists—also serve to cut
off whole populations of vulnerable people from any hope of justice or representation. Because these were their
representatives. Years ago, when paramilitary forces and the government-sponsored Adivasi vigilante army known
as the Salwa Judum went on a rampage in the mineral-rich forests of Bastar, killing people, raping women, and
burning down whole villages, Dr. Binayak Sen, then the general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties
in the state of Chhattisgarh, spoke up for its victims. When Binayak Sen was jailed, Sudha Bharadwaj, a lawyer and
labor union leader who had worked in the area for years, took his place. Professor Saibaba, who campaigned
relentlessly against the paramilitary operations in Bastar, stood up for Binayak Sen. When they arrested Saibaba,
Rona Wilson stood up for him. Surendra Gadling was Saibaba’s lawyer. When they arrested Rona Wilson and
Surendra Gadling, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, and the others stood up for them . . . and so it goes.
The vulnerable are being cordoned off and silenced. The vociferous are being incarcerated. God help us to get our
country back.
*Delivered at a press conference in New Delhi on August 29, 2018. First published on August 29, 2018, as “#MeTooUrbanNaxal,” in The Wire , Scroll ,
and other publications, and then published under this title in New York Review of Books , September 3, 2018.
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