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The Algebra of Infinite Justice
This collection of Arundhati Roy's early political essays ranges from the iconic 'The End of Imagination' and 'The Greater Common Good' about India's nuclear tests and the dam industry to the equally influential 'The Algebra of Infinite Justice' about the 9/11 attacks and the US government's War Against Terror. Suffused with intelligence and shot through with cold fury, these writings established Roy as a major political thinker whose voice as Naomi Klein says, 'turns our grief and rage into courage'.
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
Arundhati Roy
99 books13.8k followersArundhati Roy is an Indian writer who is also an activist who focuses on issues related to social justice and economic inequality. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays.
For her work as an activist she received the Cultural Freedom Prize awarded by the Lannan Foundation in 2002.
For her work as an activist she received the Cultural Freedom Prize awarded by the Lannan Foundation in 2002.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 160 reviews
June 3, 2022
For a few years now, I have heard everyone - from sections of media to people in my social stream call Arundhati Roy everything from a Naxalite lover to a development hater to a deranged person, the last instance during the happenings in Kashmir. In fact, these days whenever there’s an issue of national interest with a scope for polarised opinions, I find many people asking about her take, just so they can heap more ridicule. And though I have never really been a fan of her award winning work of fiction, I have admitted to myself, and to a few of my friends, that I have found it difficult to objectively fault her arguments. After reading this book, I have realised why it is easy to hate her – she holds up a mirror in front of us, the kind of mirror that tells us how our apathy and desire to follow the path of least resistance is responsible for the larger problems we see around us.
And she does this not just in some moral high ground, philosophising sort of way. She does so with historical perspectives and economical contexts and most importantly, hard data. And therefore, it is not easy to ignore her when she talks about the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the costs of what we call progress and the greater common good, the background games played behind the ‘developmental’ activities we see around us, America’s war against terror, the beginnings of fascism in India and how all of these are linked. The writer in her is in full flow, using sarcasm and wit to telling effect, to (ironically) show the seriousness of the issue. There is something very vulnerable about her when she talks about her dislike for the ‘writer-activist’ label.
So the next time, I hear something said against her, I am going to ask the person if he/she has read this book. They may not agree with her, but at least this will give them perspective and basis their interest, they can look for counter arguments. What I seek from them is exactly what I seek from myself – an acknowledgment of one’s own role in the issues of today and developing the strength to not look away.
And she does this not just in some moral high ground, philosophising sort of way. She does so with historical perspectives and economical contexts and most importantly, hard data. And therefore, it is not easy to ignore her when she talks about the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the costs of what we call progress and the greater common good, the background games played behind the ‘developmental’ activities we see around us, America’s war against terror, the beginnings of fascism in India and how all of these are linked. The writer in her is in full flow, using sarcasm and wit to telling effect, to (ironically) show the seriousness of the issue. There is something very vulnerable about her when she talks about her dislike for the ‘writer-activist’ label.
So the next time, I hear something said against her, I am going to ask the person if he/she has read this book. They may not agree with her, but at least this will give them perspective and basis their interest, they can look for counter arguments. What I seek from them is exactly what I seek from myself – an acknowledgment of one’s own role in the issues of today and developing the strength to not look away.
June 3, 2020
"The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?
Witness the Infinite Justice of new century. Civilians starving to death while they are waiting to be killed.
Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
Genocides can become the subject of opinion polls and massacres can have marketing campaigns.
There is no terrorism like state terrorism."
Roy happens to be one of the very few living writers of today's world with the capacity to call a spade a spade with astonishing clarity and fastidious character. If our world were to have more people like her and less people like the political and business "gods" who rule us, our earth could have been a much better and safer and even saner home for us all!
Witness the Infinite Justice of new century. Civilians starving to death while they are waiting to be killed.
Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
Genocides can become the subject of opinion polls and massacres can have marketing campaigns.
There is no terrorism like state terrorism."
Roy happens to be one of the very few living writers of today's world with the capacity to call a spade a spade with astonishing clarity and fastidious character. If our world were to have more people like her and less people like the political and business "gods" who rule us, our earth could have been a much better and safer and even saner home for us all!
September 17, 2010
Roy’s lexis dazzle through each penned composition voicing a valiant and scathing critique of falsified political institutions and the materialization of Indian fascism.
February 6, 2009
good at writing fiction does not mean good at writing politics
June 6, 2023
This volume compiles Roy’s published nonfiction up to early 2002 (2nd edition)...
Highlights:
--The main new article is “Democracy: Who is She When She’s at Home?”, chronicling India’s failures with “democracy”. This traces the rise of fascistic Hindu nationalism to colonialism’s divide-and-conquer, highlighted by the 1947 British partition of India (by then, haste to retreat and keep colonial hands clean).
--This was followed by the Congress party’s toying with violence for political gain, which escalated into a nuclear standoff with Pakistan; India moved away from international disarmament (Non-Aligned Movement) and into nuclear weapons (1998 Pokhran nuclear tests). The fabulous Vijay Prashad details the context: https://youtu.be/R6PnB7bnLFY?t=226
--Thus, the Congress party sowed the seeds for the open promotion of genocidal violence by the BJP.
--I’ve reviewed the rest of the articles elsewhere:
-on India’s nuclear weapons: The Cost of Living
-on India’s mega dams: The Greater Common Good
-on India’s jobless growth + era of War On Terror: Power Politics
The Missing:
--How can Fascism and the history of grievances be resolved? Roy briefly suggests that banning alone will not reach the effectiveness of voluntary abandonment (after recognition of the never-ending depravity). Public institutions’ unaccountability and media sensationalism must be challenged. In the end, there must be space for alternative voices and imaginations (here, the Indian State is repressing peaceful protests against mass displacements: The Greater Common Good and Walking with the Comrades).
--Roy has elsewhere detailed the stifling of social imagination by global capitalism’s jobless growth (especially in Capitalism: A Ghost Story). The abstractions of global capitalism’s disruptions and humiliations open space for reactionary scapegoating (think Nazism, Global Trumpism) towards visible, vulnerable groups; more from Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/z11ohWnuwa0
https://youtu.be/ZhkA3LVpbxg
--Details on the abstract capitalist crises and unresponsive liberal elites (opening the door to the "populist" Right) in post-2008 Europe:
-And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
-Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment
--Fascism as a phase to protect capitalist private accumulation during crises: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
--Fascism’s techniques borrowed from colonial administration:
-Discourse on Colonialism
-Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide
Highlights:
--The main new article is “Democracy: Who is She When She’s at Home?”, chronicling India’s failures with “democracy”. This traces the rise of fascistic Hindu nationalism to colonialism’s divide-and-conquer, highlighted by the 1947 British partition of India (by then, haste to retreat and keep colonial hands clean).
--This was followed by the Congress party’s toying with violence for political gain, which escalated into a nuclear standoff with Pakistan; India moved away from international disarmament (Non-Aligned Movement) and into nuclear weapons (1998 Pokhran nuclear tests). The fabulous Vijay Prashad details the context: https://youtu.be/R6PnB7bnLFY?t=226
--Thus, the Congress party sowed the seeds for the open promotion of genocidal violence by the BJP.
--I’ve reviewed the rest of the articles elsewhere:
-on India’s nuclear weapons: The Cost of Living
-on India’s mega dams: The Greater Common Good
-on India’s jobless growth + era of War On Terror: Power Politics
The Missing:
--How can Fascism and the history of grievances be resolved? Roy briefly suggests that banning alone will not reach the effectiveness of voluntary abandonment (after recognition of the never-ending depravity). Public institutions’ unaccountability and media sensationalism must be challenged. In the end, there must be space for alternative voices and imaginations (here, the Indian State is repressing peaceful protests against mass displacements: The Greater Common Good and Walking with the Comrades).
--Roy has elsewhere detailed the stifling of social imagination by global capitalism’s jobless growth (especially in Capitalism: A Ghost Story). The abstractions of global capitalism’s disruptions and humiliations open space for reactionary scapegoating (think Nazism, Global Trumpism) towards visible, vulnerable groups; more from Vijay Prashad: https://youtu.be/z11ohWnuwa0
https://youtu.be/ZhkA3LVpbxg
--Details on the abstract capitalist crises and unresponsive liberal elites (opening the door to the "populist" Right) in post-2008 Europe:
-And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
-Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe's Deep Establishment
--Fascism as a phase to protect capitalist private accumulation during crises: Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
--Fascism’s techniques borrowed from colonial administration:
-Discourse on Colonialism
-Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man's Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide
August 30, 2025
The essays collected in "The Algebra of Infinite Justice" established Arundhati Roy, already acclaimed as the wildly successful author of her first novel, The God of Small Things, as an insightful and important voice in Indian political discussions.
The eight essays gathered in this Revised and Updated Second Edition of the book were each written in response to key issues and political initiatives in India shortly prior to the original publication of each essay. Throughout the collection, Roy's passion and values are evident. Her writing is clear, focused, often lyrical, always leading towards her insightful observations. Roy is transparent about her own values, and is analytical about the claims, explicit or implicit, of others. Her commitments are to presenting the perspectives of those affected by top-down governmental actions or actions directed by external forces and to cut through the often obfuscating rhetoric of politicians to make clear how 'the system' is working.
Elsewhere, Roy has expressed that she sees herself first and foremost as a writer, not an activist. Speaking of the second essay in this collection, "The Greater Common Good," she explains that she wanted to see whether her writing skills which had proven so successful with The God of Small Things could be applied in a political context: "For my part, I wanted to test myself, to see whether I could find a language, a writer's language, to write about the Narmada and the tragedy that had befallen it in the way I had found a language to write about Ayemenem and the Meenachil. Could I write about irrigation, agriculture, displacement, and drainage the way I wrote about love and death, or about characters in a novel?" (Mother Mary Comes To Me, pre-publication draft). These essays are proof that Roy found that political language and voice. Although the content of the essays overlaps, each essay is its own elaborate argument, well argued and beautifully written. Although written in the early 21st Century and focused primarily on the Indian situation, the essays continue to resonate today (2025) and as case studies with broad international application.
I'll include below a brief characterization of the focus of each essay:
the end of imagination 1
An essay written and published in 1998, in reaction to India's successful demonstration of its entry into the international nuclear club, detonating its first thermonuclear device. Roy writes humbly as a fiction writer not a nuclear or policy expert. She writes of her horror at India's acquisition of this qualitatively new capacity to annihilate life. She writes out of a sense of urgency to fight the unthinkable use of nuclear weapons. She writes with a clear and steely logic, driven by her equally clearly expressed fear and rage.
the greater common good 43
An essay on: Big Dams in India; the political economy and rhetoric of economic development; defining "the greater common good;' and a closing portion that could stand alone, summarizing how power is wielded to take command.
power politics 143
A case study detailing the process of Third World "underdevelopment" in the name of nurturing local development. An essay showing how (1) an international effort to increase privatization of water control; (2) a pattern of foreign/local business partnerships for "development;" and (3) loans from international credit agencies, intertwined on the ground in India and several key river basins.
the ladies have feelings, so ... 185
An essay on the many contradictions in Indian life, the role of the "writer-activist" in today's Indian society, on the values that are or should be driving Indian governance - globalization? privatization/ corporatization of core social functions? -, and on the implicit debate that should include ordinary "people" who are affected, not just a self-appointed "expert" elite.
the algebra of infinite justice 217
Written in October 2001 in reaction to the September 11 attacks in the USA, Roy provides a perspective from afar, embedding her horror (labeling the attack "unconscionable") in her understanding of America's exercising of its economic and military power around the world for decades prior to the 9/11 events. At the heart of the essay is an American statement and Roy's reaction:
"In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then UN Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was 'a very hard choice', but that all things considered, we think the price is worth it'. Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government.
More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.
So here we have it. ... The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice.
How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?"
war is peace 239
In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by the US-led International Coalition Against Terror, Roy ruminates about war as a response to acts of terror, noting that war as a response is simply an extension and multiplication of terrorism. She reflects on the Iraq situation, the claims by Coalition members that "we are a peaceful people" forced to wage war, the unlikely success of the imposition of peace and freedom by waging war, the justification by governments of the imposition of authoritarian internal practices and the committing of acts of war externally to combat and prevent further 'terrorism.' "Governments across the world are cynically using the prevailing paranoia to promote their own interests" (p. 255) - drawing examples from the Coalition imposition of self-enriching contracts ('we bring peace and supplies, you buy our products, in perpetuity').
democracy 263
March, 2002, in the Indian state of Gujurat - a train full of Hindu pilgrims is burned, killing 58. The initial reports blamed "terrorists." The rumored "terrorists" quickly became presumed "Muslims," and a government-allowed, or government-orchestrated, retaliation resulted in the violent deaths of 800-2,000 Muslims.
In May, 2002, Ms. Roy wrote this essay. Her focus is the rise of nationalism and political division based on Hindu religious identity, especially versus Muslim identity. She provides an in depth look at the horrors of riotous and genocidal violence against fellow Indians.
Roy's analyses reflect her horror at each of the Gujarati deaths, her understanding of the social and political forces that built to this explosion of violence in a purportedly secular, democratic nation and state, her observations on the rise of religious nationalist and fascist politics within the state and Nation. She identifies and describes the coordinating power of the"hydra-headed, many armed Sangh Parivar - the 'joint family' of Hindu political and cultural organizations" (p. 273) that make up Sangha Parivar. I, an American reading this essay in mid-2025, felt oh-so-many resonances reading her description of the whittling away of the institutions of Indian government and of the checks and balances of power at the heart of Indian democracy by this Hindu 'hydra.'
war talk 295
A few years after India and Pakistan established themselves as nuclear club members, including 'premium member' nuclear bomb development, Roy ruminated here about the distorting absurdity this reality brought to the lives of all around her. These absurdities include, for example:
- If Kashmiri border violations and skirmishes become nuclear, the details of losses in life-as-we-know-it in the face of the experiences reported from Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the birds we hear, the flowers we see, the friends we love;
- The rhetoric of politicians posturing as if "nuclear defense" and "nuclear war" is a reasonable (powerful?) strategic option;
- Chastisement from first world nuclear powers about the wrong-headedness of these two third world nations holding such powerful weapons;
- The strengthening in India of the notion that India is a Hindu nation, justifying violence against fellow Indians;
- Under cover of the external cross-border threats, continued foreign assistance (to both sides) that further embeds Western business and external debt in the name of strengthening India (or Pakistan).
The eight essays gathered in this Revised and Updated Second Edition of the book were each written in response to key issues and political initiatives in India shortly prior to the original publication of each essay. Throughout the collection, Roy's passion and values are evident. Her writing is clear, focused, often lyrical, always leading towards her insightful observations. Roy is transparent about her own values, and is analytical about the claims, explicit or implicit, of others. Her commitments are to presenting the perspectives of those affected by top-down governmental actions or actions directed by external forces and to cut through the often obfuscating rhetoric of politicians to make clear how 'the system' is working.
Elsewhere, Roy has expressed that she sees herself first and foremost as a writer, not an activist. Speaking of the second essay in this collection, "The Greater Common Good," she explains that she wanted to see whether her writing skills which had proven so successful with The God of Small Things could be applied in a political context: "For my part, I wanted to test myself, to see whether I could find a language, a writer's language, to write about the Narmada and the tragedy that had befallen it in the way I had found a language to write about Ayemenem and the Meenachil. Could I write about irrigation, agriculture, displacement, and drainage the way I wrote about love and death, or about characters in a novel?" (Mother Mary Comes To Me, pre-publication draft). These essays are proof that Roy found that political language and voice. Although the content of the essays overlaps, each essay is its own elaborate argument, well argued and beautifully written. Although written in the early 21st Century and focused primarily on the Indian situation, the essays continue to resonate today (2025) and as case studies with broad international application.
I'll include below a brief characterization of the focus of each essay:
the end of imagination 1
An essay written and published in 1998, in reaction to India's successful demonstration of its entry into the international nuclear club, detonating its first thermonuclear device. Roy writes humbly as a fiction writer not a nuclear or policy expert. She writes of her horror at India's acquisition of this qualitatively new capacity to annihilate life. She writes out of a sense of urgency to fight the unthinkable use of nuclear weapons. She writes with a clear and steely logic, driven by her equally clearly expressed fear and rage.
the greater common good 43
An essay on: Big Dams in India; the political economy and rhetoric of economic development; defining "the greater common good;' and a closing portion that could stand alone, summarizing how power is wielded to take command.
power politics 143
A case study detailing the process of Third World "underdevelopment" in the name of nurturing local development. An essay showing how (1) an international effort to increase privatization of water control; (2) a pattern of foreign/local business partnerships for "development;" and (3) loans from international credit agencies, intertwined on the ground in India and several key river basins.
the ladies have feelings, so ... 185
An essay on the many contradictions in Indian life, the role of the "writer-activist" in today's Indian society, on the values that are or should be driving Indian governance - globalization? privatization/ corporatization of core social functions? -, and on the implicit debate that should include ordinary "people" who are affected, not just a self-appointed "expert" elite.
the algebra of infinite justice 217
Written in October 2001 in reaction to the September 11 attacks in the USA, Roy provides a perspective from afar, embedding her horror (labeling the attack "unconscionable") in her understanding of America's exercising of its economic and military power around the world for decades prior to the 9/11 events. At the heart of the essay is an American statement and Roy's reaction:
"In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then UN Ambassador to the United Nations, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was 'a very hard choice', but that all things considered, we think the price is worth it'. Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government.
More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.
So here we have it. ... The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice.
How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?"
war is peace 239
In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq by the US-led International Coalition Against Terror, Roy ruminates about war as a response to acts of terror, noting that war as a response is simply an extension and multiplication of terrorism. She reflects on the Iraq situation, the claims by Coalition members that "we are a peaceful people" forced to wage war, the unlikely success of the imposition of peace and freedom by waging war, the justification by governments of the imposition of authoritarian internal practices and the committing of acts of war externally to combat and prevent further 'terrorism.' "Governments across the world are cynically using the prevailing paranoia to promote their own interests" (p. 255) - drawing examples from the Coalition imposition of self-enriching contracts ('we bring peace and supplies, you buy our products, in perpetuity').
democracy 263
March, 2002, in the Indian state of Gujurat - a train full of Hindu pilgrims is burned, killing 58. The initial reports blamed "terrorists." The rumored "terrorists" quickly became presumed "Muslims," and a government-allowed, or government-orchestrated, retaliation resulted in the violent deaths of 800-2,000 Muslims.
In May, 2002, Ms. Roy wrote this essay. Her focus is the rise of nationalism and political division based on Hindu religious identity, especially versus Muslim identity. She provides an in depth look at the horrors of riotous and genocidal violence against fellow Indians.
Roy's analyses reflect her horror at each of the Gujarati deaths, her understanding of the social and political forces that built to this explosion of violence in a purportedly secular, democratic nation and state, her observations on the rise of religious nationalist and fascist politics within the state and Nation. She identifies and describes the coordinating power of the"hydra-headed, many armed Sangh Parivar - the 'joint family' of Hindu political and cultural organizations" (p. 273) that make up Sangha Parivar. I, an American reading this essay in mid-2025, felt oh-so-many resonances reading her description of the whittling away of the institutions of Indian government and of the checks and balances of power at the heart of Indian democracy by this Hindu 'hydra.'
war talk 295
A few years after India and Pakistan established themselves as nuclear club members, including 'premium member' nuclear bomb development, Roy ruminated here about the distorting absurdity this reality brought to the lives of all around her. These absurdities include, for example:
- If Kashmiri border violations and skirmishes become nuclear, the details of losses in life-as-we-know-it in the face of the experiences reported from Hiroshima and Nagasaki - the birds we hear, the flowers we see, the friends we love;
- The rhetoric of politicians posturing as if "nuclear defense" and "nuclear war" is a reasonable (powerful?) strategic option;
- Chastisement from first world nuclear powers about the wrong-headedness of these two third world nations holding such powerful weapons;
- The strengthening in India of the notion that India is a Hindu nation, justifying violence against fellow Indians;
- Under cover of the external cross-border threats, continued foreign assistance (to both sides) that further embeds Western business and external debt in the name of strengthening India (or Pakistan).
June 2, 2015
I am not a left-winger. I have chopped off my right wing as well few years back. Standing at the center and tilting either way as the situation demands is hypocrisy, in my opinion.
So I just stand away from the line and observe.
In short, I don't have a stand. And that gives me an opportunity to view all in sort of an unbiased way.
But, Arundhati Roy has a stand. Left of most. And she throws brickbats at anyone who stands right of her.I needed to understand why she is hurling these bludgeons. So I picked up one of her collection of essays. Though dated (almost a decade old), it introduces a good amount of her thoughts.
I don't agree with some of her opinions, and need to verify some of the mindboggling data she provides, but I must admit that I admire her skill and power of penning those uncomfortable questions in poetic manner that have the potential to unsettle the firm. I loved the way she writes.
The biggest complaint I have with all these essays are that though she questions the intent and rationale of the acts of the authority and elaborates on the misgivings and catastrophic aftermaths, she never provides a solution. That in my opinion, makes the essays just an uncomfortable confrontation, but never a intellectual exposition.
In "The end of Imagination" Mrs. Roy expounds the evils of even holding a nuclear bomb even if there is no sight of a war. Deterrence Theory is just a nonsensical excuse.
"The greater common good" describes, substantiated with gory figures, the little benefit that a big dam brings and the bigger issues it creates like uprooting the local inhabitants from their bases and throwing them into misery and ultimately inhuman death.
In "Power Politics" she is against the commoditization of the basic necessities like water and electricity and attacks vehemently the politics around it.
"The Ladies have feelings, so..." (the best written one of the lot) justifies why and how she turned from a Booker winning fiction writer to a radical social activist.
"The algebra of infinite justice" and "War is Peace" make a mockery of the American war against terror exposing the hypocrisy behind it.
In "Democracy" Roy rips apart the farcical democratic governance system by citing the state run pogrom during the post Godhra incident.
Finally, in "War Talk" she summarizes her haphazard emotional outbursts against all the things that is going wrong in the present world - war, state-run-terrorism, corruption, dams, etc etc.
OK. As I stated earlier, some of her points are just cries of agony that can create a stir in mind, but shouldn't be taken on face value (how can one be judgemental by listening just one side of the story), but I want to reiterate that I started respecting her as a writer.
So I just stand away from the line and observe.
In short, I don't have a stand. And that gives me an opportunity to view all in sort of an unbiased way.
But, Arundhati Roy has a stand. Left of most. And she throws brickbats at anyone who stands right of her.I needed to understand why she is hurling these bludgeons. So I picked up one of her collection of essays. Though dated (almost a decade old), it introduces a good amount of her thoughts.
I don't agree with some of her opinions, and need to verify some of the mindboggling data she provides, but I must admit that I admire her skill and power of penning those uncomfortable questions in poetic manner that have the potential to unsettle the firm. I loved the way she writes.
The biggest complaint I have with all these essays are that though she questions the intent and rationale of the acts of the authority and elaborates on the misgivings and catastrophic aftermaths, she never provides a solution. That in my opinion, makes the essays just an uncomfortable confrontation, but never a intellectual exposition.
In "The end of Imagination" Mrs. Roy expounds the evils of even holding a nuclear bomb even if there is no sight of a war. Deterrence Theory is just a nonsensical excuse.
"The greater common good" describes, substantiated with gory figures, the little benefit that a big dam brings and the bigger issues it creates like uprooting the local inhabitants from their bases and throwing them into misery and ultimately inhuman death.
In "Power Politics" she is against the commoditization of the basic necessities like water and electricity and attacks vehemently the politics around it.
"The Ladies have feelings, so..." (the best written one of the lot) justifies why and how she turned from a Booker winning fiction writer to a radical social activist.
"The algebra of infinite justice" and "War is Peace" make a mockery of the American war against terror exposing the hypocrisy behind it.
In "Democracy" Roy rips apart the farcical democratic governance system by citing the state run pogrom during the post Godhra incident.
Finally, in "War Talk" she summarizes her haphazard emotional outbursts against all the things that is going wrong in the present world - war, state-run-terrorism, corruption, dams, etc etc.
OK. As I stated earlier, some of her points are just cries of agony that can create a stir in mind, but shouldn't be taken on face value (how can one be judgemental by listening just one side of the story), but I want to reiterate that I started respecting her as a writer.
August 28, 2007
This woman seems to have too much pop corn in her head. Looks like she can present really good left-libral arguments, but she is more of a showman.
January 21, 2019
I don't disagree with anything Arundhati says here. It's not that. It's just that these essays mourn too much, grieve too much, complain too much, provide no solutions, and very little new information.
They are stuck in a limbo between sentimentalizing loss (while completely failing to make it feel tangible - because the author does all the grieving for you) and trying to do reportage (while providing little to no new information, perhaps due to how dated these essays are). I guess the goal was to make your heart ache so much you leave everything and take the next train to the Narmada Valley. If it was, it feels like one big hit-and-miss operation.
They are stuck in a limbo between sentimentalizing loss (while completely failing to make it feel tangible - because the author does all the grieving for you) and trying to do reportage (while providing little to no new information, perhaps due to how dated these essays are). I guess the goal was to make your heart ache so much you leave everything and take the next train to the Narmada Valley. If it was, it feels like one big hit-and-miss operation.
September 24, 2020
This book has hit my privilege so hard and I absolutely love it. Well researched, witty and very well written. I'm in love with Arundhati Roy. From nuclear wars to Big Dams to privatisation of resources, she has attacked it all by spitting hard facts. If you want those rose tinted glasses to be taken off, pick this book up.
June 16, 2021
I read God of small things a few years ago. I was impressed by the style of it. A story where everything is revealed as and when it is required. A chronological run of things was turned into something more beautiful, a master tale by a non-chronological telling of events. It was beautiful.
It has been years since when wanting to know more about Ambedkar and a not so mainstream view of Gandhi that I picked up The Saint and The Doctor. It brought into view, in first few pages, the political heart of Miss Roy. I had tasted blood and I was hungry for more. I ordered almost all the collections of her political essays. This is a collective review, more of a reaction, that these essays inspired in me.
Reading her on issues like the nuclear tests, the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, the war on Iraq, the Gujarat pogrom, the India shining, the new Economic policy, the Big Dams, the Maoists being the single biggest internal security threat, on capitalism, on water in rivers, trees in forests, minerals in mountains etc., I cannot help but feeling that this was the analysis that I had been wanting to read all those years ago while I was growing up, while these were still current affairs.
Miss Roy says somewhere in these books that her writing from the start has always been about power - about the confrontation of the powerful and the powerless. Reading her, only ones indoctrinated deep into the Ivy league and their proxies’ system cannot be sympathetic to the people she writes about. What happens in India in the name of development is nothing short of colonisation by other means.
And almost every institution available to the resisting masses has been shut right at their faces. The legislature and executive cannot work without the money from corporates - the MOUs that state and central governments sign to privatise India’s rivers, minerals, forests are secret so that the junta cannot even know what the terms of their disenfranchisement, their servitude are. The courts (yes including the Supreme Court) on occasion has vested interests or submits to the conscience of the masses to gives its judgements, or in the case of big dams allows the construction to go ahead just because government has already began construction and costs have been incurred. The Media is owned by the same corporate houses or itself has diversified into the companies that have stake in exploiting the natural resources and the people, so obviously it sings the same songs its master tells it. Writing about media in the era of commander-ship of Modi seems just too much to ask for anyway.
At one point Roy says that in India we have turned the idea of non-violent resistance on its head - we have made it non-violent repression. Its unlike what is done in other countries like China or Indonesia where governments mow down its people. In India, due to systemic division of society into horizontal layers with no inter-mingling, the government can turn its back on the few layers at the bottom - Adivasis and the Dalits and increasingly the Muslims and nobody notices and the wild dance of Union and Progress continues. The Indian middle class is kept in their cylos by the not-so-hidden nexus of big media and big corporates and they more often than not are sufficient to make public perception and get the politicians on to the other side.
The facts remains that India is home to more poor people than the most of the Sub-Saharan Africa combined. And the irony is that the State instead of worrying about its poverty, its education and health fights them in the broad day light and Indian middle class (me and you) are expected to clap when news of some victory comes (a Maoist killed in the jungles of Chattisgarh). The Indian police force, corrupt as it is, does its business (rape, kills, steals) with impunity in these parts of Central India. This is the story that must be told, hundred times over, over and over again.
If you want to know about India, at a particular time and about a particular place, read 15 days of newspapers, the best of them - the times, the Hindu, the Indian Express - read them inside out, their editorials and their columns and then read Roy. And still if you have not been battle hardened graduates of Ivy leagues you will find stories there - of love and loss - of hills loved as deities and of forests respected as provider of all means. So I ask you to read Roy with an open mind and allow her to challenge you. To challenge you on your notions of development and progress. What development and whose progress? To help in your quest just keep one single question in mind - has there been a model of capitalism anywhere which can provide respectable employment to all with all the new technologies and even if everyone turn into monstrous consumers?
Yes there are no answers to the question - what then is progress to the likes of Roy (and me) - but it surely is not this. The way USA came into being on the near extermination of natives or American Indians. Do we want the same for India and then for the rest of the world - the South American and African countries? Why can’t a people who have found a way of living - satisfied in their villages and forests - be left alone. Can we really say that we understand life more than they do? Most of the people I know if left for a day in the forest will come screaming back knowing not what to do and scared to the bone for their life.
There is a general consensus amongst the people who are genuinely on the left in India (Roy, Sainath) that the world is run by the consortium of world bank, IMF, WTO and some rich countries trying to take advantage because there is real money in poverty. The next step for anyone having read Roy is to read and understand about this nexus. So there I am headed next.
These series of political essays also made clear to me the kind of responsibility and the level of acumen and tact one needs to have to deal with issues of welfare of all people everywhere. This kind of burden can easily crumble one. This is almost paralysing. To get out of it, I think one can only surmise that all the responsibility cannot lie on one person; it needs to be shared by those who understands or rather who are capable of understanding but turn their backs on real issues. One must understand that if they so happen to be privileged due to historical and geographical accidents then they absolutely cannot shrug off responsibility because it will eventually catch up to them if not now then probably by next generation or one after that.
The political project of Roy (this is what I gather to be so from these essays which are now at least 10 years old) is a form of globalisation of dissent. This, she says, is the only thing worth globalising and is an appropriate response to the current idea of globalisation. I must admit that my understanding of globalisation before reading Roy was a typical middle class Indian understanding that it is about trade becoming freer, opening of free markets to companies and people from other nations and I did not think about it in that grave a light. I argued that since economy is now global so must the politics be made global that there be a global government to regulate global capital. Though I was aware that there was some kind of nexus between big corporates and local national governments but I didn’t know that it is to such an extent that national governments deliberately sell their nations wealth at discount to these corporates.
My understanding was naive. In a memorable scene from Godfather III when Vincent tells Don Lucchesi that he doesn’t understand finance and politics. Don Lucchesi explains it with an analogy to guns. Finance is the gun and politics the art to know when to pull the trigger. That the connection between finance and politics is so played out in broad daylight comes as a bit of surprise. This metaphorical gun has been hijacked by some vested interests who do not hesitate to use it against their people - how else can you explain the fact that their own governments sign contracts of their own disempowerment and servitude? This is lethal and would turn Earth into more ugly fragments than it already is.
Out of my limited understanding, I would at least want to know what we are up against. So the MOUs which are secret documents must be public - what right does a government has to sell all its nation’s mines and natural wealth over to a small consortium of companies displacing and dispossessing its own people. Its colonialism and imperialism all over again. I am not against business or capitalism. I think capitalism as far it is a pursuit of excellence must be given space to flourish. But I am whole heartedly for a more solid state that guarantees every citizen some basic amenities and rights and which are not harmed in any way by any of the excesses of corporates or governments. Let any kind of economic system - socialism, communism, capitalism, gram swaraj or whatever - be based on this solid foundation.
Right now it seems finance is the gun and the boardrooms control the triggers because the politicians do not have the backs, have vested interests, are indulged in petty image management and are afraid of the flight of the capital or investment. These boardrooms and their international facilitators - the WTO, the world bank, the IMF are where the real power is concentrated and we must demand they be unmasked and show their true face. I know they are scared and that’s why they hide. Tomes have been written about mob mentality and public anger and no one in their right mind would give in to that. But the intent of all must be made clear for it is then only the real politicians who have their backs in place can work, can negotiate compromises, can come to a solution. This is the only way forward for all those who have an incentive for avoiding more wars and more ugliness.
[I have to add that interlacing all the content is not a grave and deeply sad prose, there is wit and humour, lots of it. So reading her is quite enjoyable. Most of anything her ability to find humour in the darkest of places is most impressive.
Also, a personal aside. My first job was in an office of about 40 people and I was stiff bored. To pass time I declared myself to be the intern of only HR we had there. It was fun. I was quite an intern - I am not sure about my main role but I performed well on my internship. I mention this because if Miss Roy reads this review then let it be my formal application for internship or apprenticeship in her quarters. I don’t have her contact details so I leave the letter here. I think if I try hard enough I can find a way to contact her but I still have got tons of reading to do. So.]
It has been years since when wanting to know more about Ambedkar and a not so mainstream view of Gandhi that I picked up The Saint and The Doctor. It brought into view, in first few pages, the political heart of Miss Roy. I had tasted blood and I was hungry for more. I ordered almost all the collections of her political essays. This is a collective review, more of a reaction, that these essays inspired in me.
Reading her on issues like the nuclear tests, the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, the war on Iraq, the Gujarat pogrom, the India shining, the new Economic policy, the Big Dams, the Maoists being the single biggest internal security threat, on capitalism, on water in rivers, trees in forests, minerals in mountains etc., I cannot help but feeling that this was the analysis that I had been wanting to read all those years ago while I was growing up, while these were still current affairs.
Miss Roy says somewhere in these books that her writing from the start has always been about power - about the confrontation of the powerful and the powerless. Reading her, only ones indoctrinated deep into the Ivy league and their proxies’ system cannot be sympathetic to the people she writes about. What happens in India in the name of development is nothing short of colonisation by other means.
And almost every institution available to the resisting masses has been shut right at their faces. The legislature and executive cannot work without the money from corporates - the MOUs that state and central governments sign to privatise India’s rivers, minerals, forests are secret so that the junta cannot even know what the terms of their disenfranchisement, their servitude are. The courts (yes including the Supreme Court) on occasion has vested interests or submits to the conscience of the masses to gives its judgements, or in the case of big dams allows the construction to go ahead just because government has already began construction and costs have been incurred. The Media is owned by the same corporate houses or itself has diversified into the companies that have stake in exploiting the natural resources and the people, so obviously it sings the same songs its master tells it. Writing about media in the era of commander-ship of Modi seems just too much to ask for anyway.
At one point Roy says that in India we have turned the idea of non-violent resistance on its head - we have made it non-violent repression. Its unlike what is done in other countries like China or Indonesia where governments mow down its people. In India, due to systemic division of society into horizontal layers with no inter-mingling, the government can turn its back on the few layers at the bottom - Adivasis and the Dalits and increasingly the Muslims and nobody notices and the wild dance of Union and Progress continues. The Indian middle class is kept in their cylos by the not-so-hidden nexus of big media and big corporates and they more often than not are sufficient to make public perception and get the politicians on to the other side.
The facts remains that India is home to more poor people than the most of the Sub-Saharan Africa combined. And the irony is that the State instead of worrying about its poverty, its education and health fights them in the broad day light and Indian middle class (me and you) are expected to clap when news of some victory comes (a Maoist killed in the jungles of Chattisgarh). The Indian police force, corrupt as it is, does its business (rape, kills, steals) with impunity in these parts of Central India. This is the story that must be told, hundred times over, over and over again.
If you want to know about India, at a particular time and about a particular place, read 15 days of newspapers, the best of them - the times, the Hindu, the Indian Express - read them inside out, their editorials and their columns and then read Roy. And still if you have not been battle hardened graduates of Ivy leagues you will find stories there - of love and loss - of hills loved as deities and of forests respected as provider of all means. So I ask you to read Roy with an open mind and allow her to challenge you. To challenge you on your notions of development and progress. What development and whose progress? To help in your quest just keep one single question in mind - has there been a model of capitalism anywhere which can provide respectable employment to all with all the new technologies and even if everyone turn into monstrous consumers?
Yes there are no answers to the question - what then is progress to the likes of Roy (and me) - but it surely is not this. The way USA came into being on the near extermination of natives or American Indians. Do we want the same for India and then for the rest of the world - the South American and African countries? Why can’t a people who have found a way of living - satisfied in their villages and forests - be left alone. Can we really say that we understand life more than they do? Most of the people I know if left for a day in the forest will come screaming back knowing not what to do and scared to the bone for their life.
There is a general consensus amongst the people who are genuinely on the left in India (Roy, Sainath) that the world is run by the consortium of world bank, IMF, WTO and some rich countries trying to take advantage because there is real money in poverty. The next step for anyone having read Roy is to read and understand about this nexus. So there I am headed next.
These series of political essays also made clear to me the kind of responsibility and the level of acumen and tact one needs to have to deal with issues of welfare of all people everywhere. This kind of burden can easily crumble one. This is almost paralysing. To get out of it, I think one can only surmise that all the responsibility cannot lie on one person; it needs to be shared by those who understands or rather who are capable of understanding but turn their backs on real issues. One must understand that if they so happen to be privileged due to historical and geographical accidents then they absolutely cannot shrug off responsibility because it will eventually catch up to them if not now then probably by next generation or one after that.
The political project of Roy (this is what I gather to be so from these essays which are now at least 10 years old) is a form of globalisation of dissent. This, she says, is the only thing worth globalising and is an appropriate response to the current idea of globalisation. I must admit that my understanding of globalisation before reading Roy was a typical middle class Indian understanding that it is about trade becoming freer, opening of free markets to companies and people from other nations and I did not think about it in that grave a light. I argued that since economy is now global so must the politics be made global that there be a global government to regulate global capital. Though I was aware that there was some kind of nexus between big corporates and local national governments but I didn’t know that it is to such an extent that national governments deliberately sell their nations wealth at discount to these corporates.
My understanding was naive. In a memorable scene from Godfather III when Vincent tells Don Lucchesi that he doesn’t understand finance and politics. Don Lucchesi explains it with an analogy to guns. Finance is the gun and politics the art to know when to pull the trigger. That the connection between finance and politics is so played out in broad daylight comes as a bit of surprise. This metaphorical gun has been hijacked by some vested interests who do not hesitate to use it against their people - how else can you explain the fact that their own governments sign contracts of their own disempowerment and servitude? This is lethal and would turn Earth into more ugly fragments than it already is.
Out of my limited understanding, I would at least want to know what we are up against. So the MOUs which are secret documents must be public - what right does a government has to sell all its nation’s mines and natural wealth over to a small consortium of companies displacing and dispossessing its own people. Its colonialism and imperialism all over again. I am not against business or capitalism. I think capitalism as far it is a pursuit of excellence must be given space to flourish. But I am whole heartedly for a more solid state that guarantees every citizen some basic amenities and rights and which are not harmed in any way by any of the excesses of corporates or governments. Let any kind of economic system - socialism, communism, capitalism, gram swaraj or whatever - be based on this solid foundation.
Right now it seems finance is the gun and the boardrooms control the triggers because the politicians do not have the backs, have vested interests, are indulged in petty image management and are afraid of the flight of the capital or investment. These boardrooms and their international facilitators - the WTO, the world bank, the IMF are where the real power is concentrated and we must demand they be unmasked and show their true face. I know they are scared and that’s why they hide. Tomes have been written about mob mentality and public anger and no one in their right mind would give in to that. But the intent of all must be made clear for it is then only the real politicians who have their backs in place can work, can negotiate compromises, can come to a solution. This is the only way forward for all those who have an incentive for avoiding more wars and more ugliness.
[I have to add that interlacing all the content is not a grave and deeply sad prose, there is wit and humour, lots of it. So reading her is quite enjoyable. Most of anything her ability to find humour in the darkest of places is most impressive.
Also, a personal aside. My first job was in an office of about 40 people and I was stiff bored. To pass time I declared myself to be the intern of only HR we had there. It was fun. I was quite an intern - I am not sure about my main role but I performed well on my internship. I mention this because if Miss Roy reads this review then let it be my formal application for internship or apprenticeship in her quarters. I don’t have her contact details so I leave the letter here. I think if I try hard enough I can find a way to contact her but I still have got tons of reading to do. So.]
May 27, 2021
In all seriousness, Arundhati Roy is my hero. She tells it like it is and speaks truth to power like whoa. I feel so inspired and energized when I read her work.
April 25, 2014
From "War Is Peace":
"Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements—or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognised government. The bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet another act of terror against the people of the world. Each innocent person that is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians who died in New York and Washington."
* * * * *
"When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, "We're a peaceful nation." America's favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of Prime Minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."
So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is Peace.
Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire."
Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with—and bombed—since World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53); Korea (1950-53); Guatemala (1954, 1967-69); Indonesia (1958); Cuba (1959-60); the Belgian Congo (1964); Peru (1965); Laos (1964-73); Vietnam (1961-73); Cambodia (1969-70); Grenada (1983); Libya (1986); El Salvador (1980s); Nicaragua (1980s); Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998); Yugoslavia (1999).And now Afghanistan.
* * * * *
Certainly it does not tire—this, the Most Free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate, humiliate and subjugate—usually in the service of America's real religion, the 'free market'. So when the US government christens a war 'Operation Infinite Justice', or 'Operation Enduring Freedom', we in the Third World feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world's weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear.
They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in modern history, and have sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshipped, almost deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban just isn't in the same league.
* * * * *
With all due respect to President Bush, the people of the world do not have to choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of human civilisation—our art, our music, our literature—lies beyond these two fundamentalist, ideological poles. There is as little chance that the people of the world can all become middle-class consumers as there is that they'll all embrace any one particular religion. The issue is not about Good vs Evil or Islam vs Christianity as much as it is about space. About how to accommodate diversity, how to contain the impulse towards hegemony—every kind of hegemony, economic, military, linguistic, religious and cultural. Any ecologist will tell you how dangerous and fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like having a government without a healthy opposition. It becomes a kind of dictatorship. It's like putting a plastic bag over the world, and preventing it from breathing. Eventually, it will be torn open.
* * * * *
Consider the fact that the world has not yet found an acceptable definition of what 'terrorism' is. One country's terrorist is too often another's freedom fighter. At the heart of the matter lies the world's deep-seated ambivalence towards violence. Once violence is accepted as a legitimate political instrument, then the morality and political acceptability of terrorists (insurgents or freedom fighters) becomes contentious, bumpy terrain. The US government itself has funded, armed and sheltered plenty of rebels and insurgents around the world. The CIA and Pakistan's ISI trained and armed the mujahideen who, in the '80s, were seen as terrorists by the government in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan...
This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be. But is war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all of us?"
* * * * *
Then there's that other branch of traditional family business—oil. Remember, President George Bush (Jr) and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their fortunes working in the US oil industry.
Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.) America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil...
In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the major media networks, and, indeed, US foreign policy, are all controlled by the same business combines. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect this talk of guns and oil and defence deals to get any real play in the media...
And what of the rest of us, the numb recipients of this onslaught of what we know to be preposterous propaganda? The daily consumers of the lies and brutality smeared in peanut butter and strawberry jam being air-dropped into our minds just like those yellow food packets. Shall we look away and eat because we're hungry, or shall we stare unblinking at the grim theatre unfolding in Afghanistan until we retch collectively and say, in one voice, that we have had enough?"
* * * *
From "Algebra of Infinite Justice":
In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know, massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.
Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know (because they don't appear much on TV).
Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "International Coalition Against Terror", mobilised its army, its airforce, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.
What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country, reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, its Cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks...
* * * * *
For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade the American public that America's commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things—to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?
It must be hard for ordinary Americans so recently bereaved to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around, eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office-goers in the days and weeks that followed the attacks.
America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try and understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own...
* * * * *
Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission—Operation Infinite Justice—it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice for whom? Is this America's War against Terror in America or against Terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of 5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that?
In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that all things considered, "we think the price is worth it." Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the 'massacre of innocent people' or, if you like, 'a clash of civilisations' and 'collateral damage'. The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?"
* * * * *
Afghanistan's economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map—no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with landmines—10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in.
Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As supplies run out—food and aid agencies have been asked to leave—the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the Infinite Justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death, while they're waiting to be killed.
In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of Afghanistan), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends.
In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the Communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mujahideen were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam.(The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself).
By 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mujahideen ordered farmers to plant opium as 'revolutionary tax'. The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between 100 and 200 billion dollars, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.
In 1995, the Taliban—then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists—fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls' schools, dismissed women from government jobs, enforced Sharia laws in which women deemed to be 'immoral' are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government's human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians.
After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead.
The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet Communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neo-capitalism and corporate globalisation, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to be the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America."
"Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militia, people's resistance movements—or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognised government. The bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York and Washington. It is yet another act of terror against the people of the world. Each innocent person that is killed must be added to, not set off against, the grisly toll of civilians who died in New York and Washington."
* * * * *
"When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, "We're a peaceful nation." America's favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of Prime Minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."
So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is Peace.
Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire."
Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with—and bombed—since World War II: China (1945-46, 1950-53); Korea (1950-53); Guatemala (1954, 1967-69); Indonesia (1958); Cuba (1959-60); the Belgian Congo (1964); Peru (1965); Laos (1964-73); Vietnam (1961-73); Cambodia (1969-70); Grenada (1983); Libya (1986); El Salvador (1980s); Nicaragua (1980s); Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998); Yugoslavia (1999).And now Afghanistan.
* * * * *
Certainly it does not tire—this, the Most Free nation in the world. What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate, humiliate and subjugate—usually in the service of America's real religion, the 'free market'. So when the US government christens a war 'Operation Infinite Justice', or 'Operation Enduring Freedom', we in the Third World feel more than a tremor of fear. Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
The International Coalition Against Terror is largely a cabal of the richest countries in the world. Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all of the world's weapons, they possess the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction—chemical, biological and nuclear.
They have fought the most wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in modern history, and have sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and despots. Between them, they have worshipped, almost deified, the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling sins, the Taliban just isn't in the same league.
* * * * *
With all due respect to President Bush, the people of the world do not have to choose between the Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of human civilisation—our art, our music, our literature—lies beyond these two fundamentalist, ideological poles. There is as little chance that the people of the world can all become middle-class consumers as there is that they'll all embrace any one particular religion. The issue is not about Good vs Evil or Islam vs Christianity as much as it is about space. About how to accommodate diversity, how to contain the impulse towards hegemony—every kind of hegemony, economic, military, linguistic, religious and cultural. Any ecologist will tell you how dangerous and fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like having a government without a healthy opposition. It becomes a kind of dictatorship. It's like putting a plastic bag over the world, and preventing it from breathing. Eventually, it will be torn open.
* * * * *
Consider the fact that the world has not yet found an acceptable definition of what 'terrorism' is. One country's terrorist is too often another's freedom fighter. At the heart of the matter lies the world's deep-seated ambivalence towards violence. Once violence is accepted as a legitimate political instrument, then the morality and political acceptability of terrorists (insurgents or freedom fighters) becomes contentious, bumpy terrain. The US government itself has funded, armed and sheltered plenty of rebels and insurgents around the world. The CIA and Pakistan's ISI trained and armed the mujahideen who, in the '80s, were seen as terrorists by the government in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan...
This is not to suggest that the terrorists who perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not be hunted down and brought to book. They must be. But is war the best way to track them down? Will burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it escalate the anger and make the world a living hell for all of us?"
* * * * *
Then there's that other branch of traditional family business—oil. Remember, President George Bush (Jr) and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their fortunes working in the US oil industry.
Turkmenistan, which borders the northwest of Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.) America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil...
In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the major media networks, and, indeed, US foreign policy, are all controlled by the same business combines. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect this talk of guns and oil and defence deals to get any real play in the media...
And what of the rest of us, the numb recipients of this onslaught of what we know to be preposterous propaganda? The daily consumers of the lies and brutality smeared in peanut butter and strawberry jam being air-dropped into our minds just like those yellow food packets. Shall we look away and eat because we're hungry, or shall we stare unblinking at the grim theatre unfolding in Afghanistan until we retch collectively and say, in one voice, that we have had enough?"
* * * *
From "Algebra of Infinite Justice":
In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know, massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.
Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know (because they don't appear much on TV).
Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "International Coalition Against Terror", mobilised its army, its airforce, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.
The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.
What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country, reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, its Cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks...
* * * * *
For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade the American public that America's commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things—to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)?
It must be hard for ordinary Americans so recently bereaved to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around, eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office-goers in the days and weeks that followed the attacks.
America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try and understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own...
* * * * *
Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission—Operation Infinite Justice—it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice for whom? Is this America's War against Terror in America or against Terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of 5 million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that?
In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then US Secretary of State, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that all things considered, "we think the price is worth it." Madeleine Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.
So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilisation and savagery, between the 'massacre of innocent people' or, if you like, 'a clash of civilisations' and 'collateral damage'. The sophistry and fastidious algebra of Infinite Justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mujahideen for each dead investment banker?"
* * * * *
Afghanistan's economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map—no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with landmines—10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in.
Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As supplies run out—food and aid agencies have been asked to leave—the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the Infinite Justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death, while they're waiting to be killed.
In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of Afghanistan), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends.
In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the Communist regime and eventually destabilise it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mujahideen were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam.(The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself).
By 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilisation reduced to rubble. Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mujahideen ordered farmers to plant opium as 'revolutionary tax'. The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between 100 and 200 billion dollars, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.
In 1995, the Taliban—then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists—fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls' schools, dismissed women from government jobs, enforced Sharia laws in which women deemed to be 'immoral' are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government's human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians.
After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead.
The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet Communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neo-capitalism and corporate globalisation, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to be the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America."
March 21, 2020
This was good. I'd already read another book by Roy which talks about a similar issue on the subject of dams in India so a lot of the content i had heard of before reading this book. The main point that Roy raises is that they have been multiple dams built in India over the last 60/70 years and the space that those dams have been built in has resulted in the forced relocation of hundreds maybe thousands typically lower caste individuals In India. Often these individuals would have had their land bought off them for an extremely nominal amount and they were made to sign documents when they couldn't even read or write. Often they would take a print of your thumb and put it on a paper and hand over some money. Worth a quick read as it's quite a short book.
Here are my best bits:
• Is corporate globalization about the eradication of world poverty or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?
• It's the old Brahmanical instinct . Colonised knowledge, built 4 walls around it , and use it to your advantage. The manusmriti , the Vedic Hindu code of conduct, says that if a Dalit over hears a shloka or any part of the sacred text, he must have molten lead poured into his ear. It isn't a coincidence that while India is poised to take her place at the forefront of the information revolution, millions of her citizens are illiterate.
• Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behaviour. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They Bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizers. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness.
• Is India Indian?
• In several resettlement sites, people have been dumped in rows of corrugated tin sheds there are furnaces in summer and fridges in winter. Some of them are located in dry River beds that, during the monsoon, turn into fast flowing drifts. I've been to see some of these sites. I've seen film footage of others: shrivelling children, perched like birds on the edges of charpais, while swirling waters enter their tin homes. frightened, fevered eyes watched pots and pans carried through the doorway by the current, floating out into the flooded fields, thin fathers swimming after them to retrieve what they can.
• Perennial canal irrigation raises the level of the water. As the water moves up through the soil, it absorbs salts. Saline water is drawn to the surface by capillary action , and the land becomes waterlogged. The logged water to coin a phrase, is then breathed into the atmosphere by plants, causing an even greater concentration of salts in the soil. When the concentration of salts in the soil reaches 1%, that soil becomes toxic to plant life. This is what's called salinization.
• As a writer, one spends a lifetime journeying into the heart of language, trying to minimise, if not eliminate, the distance between language and thought. Language is the skin on my thoughts.
• To be a writer, a supposedly famous writer, in a country where millions of people are illiterate is a dubious honour. To be a writer in a country that gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, that invented the concept of non violent resistance, and then, half a century later, followed that up with nuclear tests is a ferocious burden.
• There is a very real danger that this neoteric seduction can shut us up far more effectively than violence and repression ever could. We have free speech. Maybe. But do we really have free speech? If what we have to say doesn't sell, will we still say it? Can we? Or is everybody looking for things to say that sell? could writers end up playing the role of Palace entertainers? Or the subtle 21st century version of court eunuchs attending to the pleasures of our incumbent CEOs? You know, naughty, but nice. Risque perhaps but not risky.
• The September 11th attack was a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by bin Laden and delivered by his couriers but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America's old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia , the 17,500 killed when Israel backed by the US invaded Lebanon in 1982 , the 10s of thousands of Iraqis killed in operation desert storm , the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting israel's occupation of the West bank. And the millions who died in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, chili, Nicaragua, El Salvador , the Dominican Republic and Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists who the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.
• When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, we're a peaceful nation. Americas favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, echoed him and said we are a peaceful people. So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.
Here are my best bits:
• Is corporate globalization about the eradication of world poverty or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote controlled and digitally operated?
• It's the old Brahmanical instinct . Colonised knowledge, built 4 walls around it , and use it to your advantage. The manusmriti , the Vedic Hindu code of conduct, says that if a Dalit over hears a shloka or any part of the sacred text, he must have molten lead poured into his ear. It isn't a coincidence that while India is poised to take her place at the forefront of the information revolution, millions of her citizens are illiterate.
• Nuclear weapons pervade our thinking. Control our behaviour. Administer our societies. Inform our dreams. They Bury themselves like meat hooks deep in the base of our brains. They are purveyors of madness. They are the ultimate colonizers. Whiter than any white man that ever lived. The very heart of whiteness.
• Is India Indian?
• In several resettlement sites, people have been dumped in rows of corrugated tin sheds there are furnaces in summer and fridges in winter. Some of them are located in dry River beds that, during the monsoon, turn into fast flowing drifts. I've been to see some of these sites. I've seen film footage of others: shrivelling children, perched like birds on the edges of charpais, while swirling waters enter their tin homes. frightened, fevered eyes watched pots and pans carried through the doorway by the current, floating out into the flooded fields, thin fathers swimming after them to retrieve what they can.
• Perennial canal irrigation raises the level of the water. As the water moves up through the soil, it absorbs salts. Saline water is drawn to the surface by capillary action , and the land becomes waterlogged. The logged water to coin a phrase, is then breathed into the atmosphere by plants, causing an even greater concentration of salts in the soil. When the concentration of salts in the soil reaches 1%, that soil becomes toxic to plant life. This is what's called salinization.
• As a writer, one spends a lifetime journeying into the heart of language, trying to minimise, if not eliminate, the distance between language and thought. Language is the skin on my thoughts.
• To be a writer, a supposedly famous writer, in a country where millions of people are illiterate is a dubious honour. To be a writer in a country that gave the world Mahatma Gandhi, that invented the concept of non violent resistance, and then, half a century later, followed that up with nuclear tests is a ferocious burden.
• There is a very real danger that this neoteric seduction can shut us up far more effectively than violence and repression ever could. We have free speech. Maybe. But do we really have free speech? If what we have to say doesn't sell, will we still say it? Can we? Or is everybody looking for things to say that sell? could writers end up playing the role of Palace entertainers? Or the subtle 21st century version of court eunuchs attending to the pleasures of our incumbent CEOs? You know, naughty, but nice. Risque perhaps but not risky.
• The September 11th attack was a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by bin Laden and delivered by his couriers but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America's old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia , the 17,500 killed when Israel backed by the US invaded Lebanon in 1982 , the 10s of thousands of Iraqis killed in operation desert storm , the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting israel's occupation of the West bank. And the millions who died in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, chili, Nicaragua, El Salvador , the Dominican Republic and Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists who the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.
• When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said, we're a peaceful nation. Americas favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, echoed him and said we are a peaceful people. So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.
November 13, 2012
This book has probably, some of the best collection of essays, I have ever read. I don't know why people (read humans, not right winged fools) hate her, when her observations are supported by hard facts !You don't worship a writer, you follow what you think is supported by facts and has a deduction you agree with. That she's one sided everyone knows,that she gets very emotional is also known, but that's passion, and so what ? Well lemme put it in her own words, in one of her essays 'the end of imagination'..
'To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength,never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.'
'To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength,never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.'
November 13, 2014
She's a hell of a writer #1. If after writing "The God of Small Things" she had remained "just" a novelist she would have been treasured. But winning the Mann-Booker prize gave her the platform to write political essays. "Algebra of Infinite Justice" is a collection of some of them. Although it's pretty India-centric, and a bit dated, coming soon after 9/11, her politics is clear. Whenever in doubt she sides with the exploited. The US, George Bush and cronies (including Tony Blair) come in for their fair share of criticism. I can see why politicians hate her. She calls it as it is.
June 7, 2013
This book has a lot to teach people about the way the world works. It explained a lot of things about power and corruption that I didn't understand and Arundhati Roy is a wonderful author and teacher. Her writing is passionate and powerful and will change the way you think about the world. This is one of her most powerful books and should be a must read for every human being on this planet.
August 3, 2020
A searing collection of fascinating essays from the Booker Prize winning author. Covering a broad gamut of socio political issues this collection sizzles and spews forth transparency, tenacity and temerity
January 4, 2012
I have only three words to write- 'please read it'. She is a innate writer.
June 24, 2013
I did not like the way she has haphazardly picked up issues and without doing proper research has given random opinions
December 7, 2015
Prefers invective to analyses.
I was halfway through the book admiring her rhetoric before I began looking for evidence. And found none.
I was halfway through the book admiring her rhetoric before I began looking for evidence. And found none.
January 5, 2018
A collection of political essays highlighting and presenting a digestible account of the then situations in India and the world, well there's not much difference even now after 15 years or so. The only distinction being the then CM of Gujarat and the director of Godhra riots became the PM of India and Bush is replaced by Trump! Leaving this aside, well it is hard not to write anything political about book of political essays. She [Arundhati Roy], the author is a gem of a person. An author-activist, which she is and justifies it so brilliantly by taking a side in a world where people keep opinions only if there's a 'profit' involved. An original thinker she layer by layer peels the democratic illusions of an onion masquerading as world's largest democracy, India. No democracy is perfect, it is like a marriage and you need daily adjustments but such adjustments can be done when they're appealed at some point of time, this book is that appeal. I urge any and every individual willing to grasp the idea of a democracy, the functioning of one and perhaps the largest in the world, to learn the bittersweet truths about it. It [The book] helped me question a lot, search a lot. I watched a few videos and learnt about these developments from scratch. I guess that's the object of a book of this kind, to move a reader and urge him/her to take action. Thank you, Arundhati Roy for such an insight.
August 29, 2018
Brilliant narrative. Bold views. Engaging topics. A complete page turner.
Arundhati Roy expresses her views on some of the essential topics we need to question in the world. What keeps the book to-the-point and interesting is the way how facts, emotions and opinions are blended with one another.
Speaking of the author's opinion, one might not agree with all the sides the author takes in this work of non-fiction. However, the book compels the reader to question the various significant events in the present world. It helps us to develop an insight and raise objections to those in power instead of believing directly what they are trying to say to hide what lies beneath the veil.
A beautiful and well-researched piece of work. A must read.
Arundhati Roy expresses her views on some of the essential topics we need to question in the world. What keeps the book to-the-point and interesting is the way how facts, emotions and opinions are blended with one another.
Speaking of the author's opinion, one might not agree with all the sides the author takes in this work of non-fiction. However, the book compels the reader to question the various significant events in the present world. It helps us to develop an insight and raise objections to those in power instead of believing directly what they are trying to say to hide what lies beneath the veil.
A beautiful and well-researched piece of work. A must read.
January 5, 2023
I give it 3.5, this is not really her best works, I supposed. These writings along with other collections of essays by her are most definitely inspiring but it also can be a bit boring since it did touch upon each issue only briefly. I bought it because I study non-proliferation studies and the first essay on this book is her comments on India nuclear test in 1998. It is emotional - as one would expected. I strongly believe that if you’re in advocacy or related field, you will love this book.
I should note that if I were to rate solely on her first essay, the one on nuclear test, I will definitely give it 5 stars. So I guess there is also elements on personal interests involved.
I should note that if I were to rate solely on her first essay, the one on nuclear test, I will definitely give it 5 stars. So I guess there is also elements on personal interests involved.
April 2, 2020
"Der Gott der kleinen Dinge" wollte ich schon lange einmal lesen, nun kam mir aber diese Sammlung mit Essays zuvor und vielleicht war das auch gut. Denn leider sagt mir Roys Schreibstil gar nicht zu.
Sie schreibt über sehr wichtige Themen. Über Geschehnisse, von denen ich bisher keine Ahnung hatte. Also eigentlich beste Voraussetzungen, dass ich das Buch mit Interesse lesen würde. Hätte ich auch, wäre die Autorin sachlich geblieben.
Leider tut sie das nicht. Sie wird zynisch, teilweise ironisch, lässt sich von Emotionen überfluten. Das geht für mich in Romanen, aber wenn es um Informationsvermittlung geht, ist es mir lieber, wenn sich die Verfasserin an die Fakten hält und nicht irgendwelche Bemerkungen in Anführungszeichen einbaut.
Doch so kam mir Roy einmal zu oft wie ein eingeschnappter Teenager vor. Ja, ihre Themen sind es wert, sich darüber zu echauffieren. Aber das darf sie ruhig dem Leser überlassen. Aber ein eingeschnappter Teenager verliert für mich leider jegliche Glaubwürdigkeit.
Also erstes und wohl auch letztes Buch der Autorin, das ich gelesen habe.
Sie schreibt über sehr wichtige Themen. Über Geschehnisse, von denen ich bisher keine Ahnung hatte. Also eigentlich beste Voraussetzungen, dass ich das Buch mit Interesse lesen würde. Hätte ich auch, wäre die Autorin sachlich geblieben.
Leider tut sie das nicht. Sie wird zynisch, teilweise ironisch, lässt sich von Emotionen überfluten. Das geht für mich in Romanen, aber wenn es um Informationsvermittlung geht, ist es mir lieber, wenn sich die Verfasserin an die Fakten hält und nicht irgendwelche Bemerkungen in Anführungszeichen einbaut.
Doch so kam mir Roy einmal zu oft wie ein eingeschnappter Teenager vor. Ja, ihre Themen sind es wert, sich darüber zu echauffieren. Aber das darf sie ruhig dem Leser überlassen. Aber ein eingeschnappter Teenager verliert für mich leider jegliche Glaubwürdigkeit.
Also erstes und wohl auch letztes Buch der Autorin, das ich gelesen habe.
February 11, 2024
a chilling read in the lead up to the indian general elections. crazy to see how descent into reactionary nationalist politics has been so clearly documented for the past few decades
May 14, 2022
Thought provoking essays
July 19, 2019
Roy is very vocal about what she feels is right. That’s very brave. A good virtue.
But in her essays, I realised that some of her ideas were quite idealistic. Regarding nuclear weapons or management of dams, she has some extreme views.
But in any case, roy is always worth a read. Her writing style and ideas beyond the time are amazing.
She gives a perspective.
Good job!
But in her essays, I realised that some of her ideas were quite idealistic. Regarding nuclear weapons or management of dams, she has some extreme views.
But in any case, roy is always worth a read. Her writing style and ideas beyond the time are amazing.
She gives a perspective.
Good job!
April 20, 2025
Reading Arundhati Roy never feels theoretical, even though she's talking about fiercely conceptual abstractions like power struggle and inequality, because the lived realities of the people in her stories are accessible, especially to people of the Global South. This collection is yet another masterpiece demonstrative of her storytelling.
End of Imagination is home to one of my favorite excerpts from Arundhati Roy:
And for that alone, I'm 5-starring this book.
End of Imagination is home to one of my favorite excerpts from Arundhati Roy:
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insinificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To see joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.
And for that alone, I'm 5-starring this book.
December 17, 2007
Though her writing may appeal primarily to left-wing intellectuals, this book is one every individual should have on his or her bookshelf. Her longest essay in this book, The Greater Common Good, focuses on large dam construction, but covers many issues of philosophical interest. Why take away from one and give to another? A utilitarian could make the argument that we should strive for the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but who is receiving the greatest good? We know that it is true that dams harm the environment in a variety of different ways -- e.g. waterlogging. Taking this into consideration along with the sheer costs and the number of people who suffer from dam building, is the utilitarian argument really valid? It seems to me, that it is in fact not even a utilitarian argument.
Arundhati Roy would agree. In this book, she explains that in most development projects throughout India, apart from the Sardar Sarovar project that has received so much attention, the displaced have no records, and they leave virtually no trace at all (Roy 104). This makes it nearly impossible for us to tell exactly or even approximately how many millions of people are suffering from the results of dam construction. Apart from this, according to Roy, the government of India has not issued a post-project evaluation on any of the 3,600 dams it has constructed (Roy 59). How, then, are we to know what good the dams are doing, if they are doing any good at all? Is it really worth it to not know, at the cost of the people?
Many other interesting topics are addressed in this book, and her unique writing style is sure to get a reaction out of you, whatever political beliefs you may hold. I guarantee that by the end of the first short essay you'll either be screaming "yes!" with passion in your voice, or banging your fists on the table in anger. Only a writer as good as Roy is capable of that.
Roy's beautiful, eloquent, and powerful writing style encourages many people in the West to consider issues they may have never considered otherwise. Roy's life has been devoted to the service of humankind, and I am forever in admiration of her strong, passionate spirit.
Read it, or miss out.
Arundhati Roy would agree. In this book, she explains that in most development projects throughout India, apart from the Sardar Sarovar project that has received so much attention, the displaced have no records, and they leave virtually no trace at all (Roy 104). This makes it nearly impossible for us to tell exactly or even approximately how many millions of people are suffering from the results of dam construction. Apart from this, according to Roy, the government of India has not issued a post-project evaluation on any of the 3,600 dams it has constructed (Roy 59). How, then, are we to know what good the dams are doing, if they are doing any good at all? Is it really worth it to not know, at the cost of the people?
Many other interesting topics are addressed in this book, and her unique writing style is sure to get a reaction out of you, whatever political beliefs you may hold. I guarantee that by the end of the first short essay you'll either be screaming "yes!" with passion in your voice, or banging your fists on the table in anger. Only a writer as good as Roy is capable of that.
Roy's beautiful, eloquent, and powerful writing style encourages many people in the West to consider issues they may have never considered otherwise. Roy's life has been devoted to the service of humankind, and I am forever in admiration of her strong, passionate spirit.
Read it, or miss out.
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