Demonocracy

I have mixed feelings about her.

It was many cycles of learning, re-learning, and unlearning ago that I first heard her speak. Eloquent. Sheer magic with words that simply left me dazzled and wanting more. Then came the gradual, almost imperceptible signs of her betrayal. Arundhati Roy is more than the sum of words of her first political essay on Narmada dam. Her passion for the those left behind in the meteoric rise up the economic ladder by urban India is enlivening. Her ideas for social justice not so. That's because I have rarely found her offering ideas. She hides behind a snippet of offerings as to what could be done citing lack of "expertise" - after all, she is only an "author". But ask her about what should not be done, and from the same non-expert sprouts voluminous advise faster than one can digest the polysyllabic words used to convey the thoughts. Yes, it's intimidating.

But I am grateful to her for bringing to me the deeper awareness of social problems lurking behind the chrome-and-glass BPO industry of India. Her fight is against the Indian government, Indian court system, Indian corporations. But, it is hard to separate my India from these things because the people form these governments (she would agree with the title of this post), the people petition and obey the courts, the people are hired by the corporations. In the end, the clear denouement is a clear stance against India -- that's a non-starter from my end. Yet, the social injustice that she stands for is precisely the cause that my budding activist heart yearns to correct. Therein lies my dilemma. Object strongly to her or love her. There is no in-between.
(link: "India is not a democracy" - chat with Amy Goodman, Democracy now!)