My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction

by Arundhati Roy

Two decades of commentary by the New York Times–bestselling “An electrifying political essayist . . . uplifting . . . galvanizing.” —Booklist   From the Booker Prize-winning author of such works as The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, My Seditious Heart collects nonfiction spanning over twenty years and chronicles a battle for justice, rights, and freedoms in an increasingly hostile world. Taken together, these essays are told in a voice of unique spirit, marked by compassion, clarity, and courage. Radical and superbly readable, they speak always in defense of the collective, of the individual, and of the land, in the face of the destructive logic of financial, social, religious, military, and governmental elites.   “Her lucid and probing essays offer sharp insights on a range of matters, from crony capitalism and environmental depredation to the perils of nationalism and, in her most recent work, the insidiousness of the Hindu caste system. In an age of intellectual logrolling and mass-manufactured infotainment, she continues to offer bracing ways of seeing, thinking and feeling.” —Pankaj Mishra, Time Magazine  Praise for Arundhati   “Arundhati Roy combines her brilliant style as a novelist with her powerful commitment to social justice in producing these eloquent, penetrating essays.” —Howard Zinn   “One of the most confident and original thinkers of our time.” —Naomi Klein   “The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering. Her pointed indictment is devastating.” —The New York Times Book Review

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, India, History, Economics, Social Justice

1170 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2019

About the author

Arundhati 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.

Reviews

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compilation of Roy’s best nonfiction over 20 years… I’m all caught up!

--Well, what can I say. With the best books, I always feel humbled experiencing the mental tapestry crafted over many years by the author, a synthesis of lineages of thoughts culminating in a work of many lifetimes. It is a wondrous moment where we transcend the dimensions of time and our own brief dance with it.
--Roy has expressed her joy of writing fiction (which I have not yet read; yes, I do neglect fiction), while she treats nonfiction as urgent arguments. These topics are indeed urgent and grim, and yet Roy’s words and wit cut through all obstacles to find the humanity in the struggles.

--The title essay “My Seditious Heart” (2016) reviews the rise of Hindu fascism and concludes with the conflicts and resistance in the higher education system, where student activists are building new anti-caste, anti-capitalist alliances inspired by B.R. Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Birsa Munda, Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, etc.

--I’ve reviewed the rest separately:
-1999 The Cost of Living (on India’s nuclear weapons)
-1999 The Greater Common Good (on India’s mega dam displacements)
-2002 Power Politics (start of War On Terror)
-2002 The Algebra of Infinite Justice
-2003 War Talk
-2004 An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire
-2009 Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers (on genocide)
-2011 Walking with the Comrades (on India’s Maoists)
-2014 Capitalism: A Ghost Story (on India’s corporate jobless growth)
-2016 The End of Imagination
-2017 The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar - Gandhi Debate

[Vartika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Her most important work, collected in a single volume

Arundhati Roy has written two astonishingly original, extraordinary novels, and she has now published a beautiful and brutally honest memoir that grounds her rare literary talent as one deeply – and productively – entwined with the intricacies of her personal and, just as crucially, political life. For well beyond the accomplishments of her fiction, Roy is also known for her radical political activism: she campaigned with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, whose collective power forced the World Bank to withdraw funding for a series of hyper-destructive mega-dams; she spent time with the Naxalite guerillas in the forests of Chhattisgarh, exposing how the government's 'counter-insurgency' was tied with the disposession and exploitation of tribal homelands in the interests of mining corporation; she met with the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden; she has been to jail, has battled long-drawn legal cases, and has amidst it all consistently spoken truth to power against the occupation in Kashmir, the brutalisation of Dalit and minority communities, and the fecund Hindu nationalism that holds India hostage. She remains to this day perhaps our most clear-eyed commentator on the confluence between neoliberalism, imperialism, and the erosion of justice on the global scale.

My Seditious Heart collects the best of her fearless, potent political non-fiction written in the twenty-year period between The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Together, these essays – ranging from critiques of India's nuclear tests and the botched investigation of the 2001 Parliament attacks to the neoliberal enclosure of politics and Hindu nationalism this side of Modi – present the most sobering history of modern India.

As someone whose lifetime is coextensive with the trajectory of post-liberalisation India, I hold this collection as integral to the development of my critical thought. The clarity and concision with which Roy links the IMF's structural adjustment plans and the threat of capital flight with the dimming of welfare and genuine social progress across even those countries born of the most radically egalitarian social movements (take Nelson Mandela's South Africa for example), the impact of NGOs and corporate funding on our understanding of resistance, solidarity, and justice, and the wholesale shift in culture and politics alike from activity to mere symbolism is remarkable; Roy's pronouncements from nearly 30 years ago now are startlingly prescient and could easily have been describing rather than issuing a warning against the present day. Her disassembling of prevalent, manufactured myths – about development, capitalism, terrorism, and even about people propped up as saintly heroes – effectively and systematically undoes the threads of dominant narratives in history and politics.

It isn't that Roy was the first to make these connections – and she certainly wouldn't be the last – but that she draws them together so brilliantly, with bite as well as teeth, with her feet firmly on the ground she writes about. Essays like "The Algebra of Infinite Justice, "Public Power in the Age of Empire", "Capitalism: A Ghost Story", "The Doctor and the Saint: The Ambedkar-Gandhi Debate" and, of course, "My Seditious Heart" are as readable as they are rousing, and lend more to a better understanding of the world than any education possibly could.

[Karthik · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most amazing fact about the book is that the essays in this book which are said to have been written from 2000s almost project the image of present India. Arundhati Roy is a writer who has been gifted with a rare level of clairvoyance that she has been able to perfectly see it through time. A book every logical indian should read.

[Farhana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, to date this is my best book gift and also one of the right kinds that I would actually choose to read! My heart literally leapt for joy at the sight of it 🤗

Somewhere down the line it reminds me of Coldplay's "Trouble in Town" music video featuring Orwell's "Animal Farm". There's this interesting scene on television screen where pig-headed politicians engage in a debate that soon escalates into verbal abuse and physical fight!

"And I get no shelter, and I get no peace
And I never get released"

I think every land kinda enforces & sets up its own Animal Farm and every passing year would resemble 1984 more and more either sooner or later.

Now, coming back to this book, while reading it I really wanted to draw some parallels in the context of my own country - which took me on a detour of reading about neoliberalism in Bangladesh.

So, how does this book feel like and what does Arundhati Roy offer us? There's always this insignificance of self, brutality of life, but if you intend to listen and do not look away, then you may hear the Grasshopper's choir - pulsating, buzzing, hymning with resilience, strength, and full of life's beauty and vulgarity! Arundhati's writing is so full of strength, vitality ~ It's so soulful in the scorching Summer heat, brings you closer to the Earth, humans, and Nature that would immediately help you seek the roots, find, and forge a connection that you might be able to value! 🙂

[Kshitij Chaurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arundhati Roy - the writer with guts. This collected nonfiction written between the time period of publication of her two fictions reflects her intellectual and personal growth as a writer and a concerned citizen.

On the other hand, this book depicts the transformation of India (the world too) from a form of 'democracy' to aristocracy and fascism.

Though she denies to be a voice of the voiceless but her writings and actions provide a ray of hope for Muslims, Adivasi, 'untouchables', women, and other minorities.

One may disagree with her radical and revolutionary voice but one can't deny the influence of her writing power, dedication towards people and anti establishment standpoint.

Her non-fictions contain the poetic language with persuasive power.

[Kartik · Rating 4 out of 5]

How do I even review such a feat of a book? This is a 1000 page tome that contains a collection of essays that range from the Kashmir Issue, Economic Inequality, Religious Fundamentalism, Casteism, Ecology and many more. It will be nearly impossible for a single person to properly dissect and review every single idea posed in this book but I will try my best.

The best thing that I can say for My Seditious Heart is that Roy's prose is simply outstanding. She has the ability to take regular words, harness their basic meaning, and use them in ways that I have never seen before. It's fitting that Roy started her career in fiction, because her writing demonstrates the skill of somebody who has had to deeply understand the nuances of human emotion that cannot only come from writing non fiction.

But at the same time, her arguments are always so compelling to read. Her writing and the passion that she has for the subjects she writes about makes her ideas so much more enthralling to read. I recently came across a video talking about India's potential as a future economic powerhouse and while I was watching it I found myself quoting Roy's responses almost verbatim: "Who is benefiting from all this economic growth? Who decided that GDP should be a measuring stick for progress? How can we call ourselves an economic success when over 300 million people live in poverty? What does that say about our society?"

She also poses a lot of interesting moral and ethical conundrums. One of the thematic ideas that she constantly brings up is the question, "Can you leave the Bauxite in the mountain?" For context, Bauxite is found in the flat topped hills of Orissa and is worth billions of dollars, as it is commonly mined and used in many modern devices from phones to guns. However many indigenous communities derive their sustenance from these mountains and extracting the Bauxite will not only upend the way of lives of all the Dalit and Advasi communities, mining of the mountain will also completely destroy the ecology and environment of the land. So, the question that she asks is, is it worth uprooting indigenous ecosystems that have existed for hundreds of years, in order to expand our economic prowess. And, now having read her arguments, I'm afraid I don't know the answer. Which I think is a sign of her writing skill, that she was able to provide a voice to the people whose lives will be destroyed by "development" and made me consider a completely different view.

But that leads me to my problem with this text. While Roy might be good at identifying causes to problems (casteism, communalism, economic inequality etc.) and writing about them, she doesn't not seem very adept at explaining how they should be solved. At times she'll simply give a vague idea of a solution without any futher explanation while other times she simply won't give a solution at all! Sure, "Ambedkarite Marxism" sounds lovely in theory... But I still don't know what it actually means and, from what I've read, I don't think Roy does either. I don't think such a simple vague ideology will solve our problems and I am critical of anyone who suggests so.

Likewise I appreciate her ability to acknowledge any issues in her arguments they never seem to go anywhere? At times she'll just use anecdotal reasoning to support her arguments and other times she will paint her opponent's arguments in the most unflattering light and respond to only the most extreme positions of the people opposed to her and make no concessions to some of the more moderate arguments levelled against her ideas.

Regardless, even if I didn't agree with everything she said, I did gain a lot from this book. Namely the fact that India has a bleeding heart. It got this way after being trampled on by religious zealots, aristocratic landowners, greedy industrialists and so many more. To fix it, we need to put our ear down and listen to the voices of the voiceless, we need to ask ourselves at what cost our development has come at, and, as difficult as it may be, we need to ask ourselves if we can leave the Bauxite in the mountain.

[Megh Krishnaswamy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The timing of the release is sobering. Forgotten crises, forgotten people and forgotten policies. A grim reminder.

[Ayesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should a book on politics of a country, by a writer who is renowned for her craft, be a balanced, non-judgemental, factual piece instead of it being an opinion piece imbued with all the emotions the author feels? *Shrugs*

For better or for worse, this IS a collection of her speeches and essays over a span of two decades, this IS her opinion, this IS a fight she aligns herself with. To call Arundhati a Maoist because she is sympathetic towards a cause, to call her a terrorist because she screams her bias (no matter how good or ill-intentioned it is), to term her an anti-national because she sympathises with those the government hasn't sympathised with IS proving her whole point in the book.

I kept aside all her personal opinions - her sympathies, her frustrations, her anger YET what stood out was what she has mentioned in the speeches and essays has happened. These are not conjured up scenarios she's writing about. Even as a silent bystander, I can see that the incidents that have shaped recent India aren't in alignment with Democracy as a concept. And that's why it's important to read My Seditious Heart. If you can't hear a different opinion than the one that is ingrained in your conscience, she wins. That's the point she's trying to make.

On a different note politics aside, she looks at the world through her artist's glasses. If you truly understand what she's saying you'll know that she isn't trying to speak against someone or for someone. She's simply saying, put people first. Stop the caste/religion/region based atrocities on them. She's saying governments should not be dictatorial (she's included the left and right wing in this). Though idealistic, though having its feet in a mystical world rather than in the real one, she has a point. If you can silence your own objections long enough to listen, she might just make some sense.

About the structure of the book - since it's a collection of her work over the years, there's a lot of information that will feel repetitive, but since it was supposed to be an update on the previously spoken /written about issues, it makes sense if you read it as such. That's one part that got tedious for me, otherwise, if you can read with an open mind, I'd suggest you give it a try. If only to counter her.

[Ali · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Civil unrest has begun to erupt in the global village. In countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia, and India, the resistance movements against corporate globalization are growing. To contain them, governments are tightening their control. Protesters are being labelled ‘terrorists’ and then being dealt with as such. But civil unrest does not only mean marches and demonstrations and protests against globalization. Unfortunately, it also means a desperate downward spiral into crime and chaos and all kinds of despair and disillusionment, which, as we know from history (and from what we see unspooling before our eyes), gradually becomes a fertile breeding ground for terrible things – cultural nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism, and of course terrorism."

I'd been meaning to read this for ages, but it was so intimidating - more than 1000 pages of political essays, many of them dealing with politics familiar on the subcontinent, but less to me. Then I bought and started on a whim - one essay a day, a month and a half. Some were longer, some were shorter. All combine Roy's transcendent prose with a breathtaking incisiveness. It is however, her prescience that kills. The quote that starts this review is from more than 15 years ago, a time when few could see what is now unavoidable.
This very incisiveness makes it tough going. Roy does not shrink from hard truths:

"Then there are those fighting formal and brutal neo-colonial occupations in contested territories whose boundaries and fault lines were often arbitrarily drawn last century by the imperialist powers. In Palestine, Tibet, Chechnya, Kashmir, and several states in India’s north-east provinces, people are waging struggles for self-determination. Several of these struggles might have been radical, even revolutionary, when they began, but often the brutality of the repression they face pushes them into conservative, even retrogressive spaces where they use the same violent strategies and the same language of religious and cultural nationalism used by the states they seek to replace." 

The longer essays, one of which I had read before, are richest in musing. I devoured the introduction to Ambedkar's work, which discusses Gandhi's relationship with the Dalit leader. It is a balanced look, accepting of nuance, which doesn't stop her probing like: "Gandhi always said that he wanted to live like the poorest of the poor. The question is, can poverty be simulated? Poverty, after all, is not just a question of having no money or no possessions. Poverty is about having no power."
Much of it though I found hard. Over the years, few of the causes she advocates for are successful - dams are built, innocent men executed, and the world gets slowly or not so slowly) more dominated by sectoral violence, inequity and prejudice. The bright optimism in her voice gets slightly dulled, joy moves to the act of resistance, to living truth. The outrage never dulls, but a weariness creeps in. Or maybe that is me. There were, of course, bits that made me cry: "
Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost."
Here's hoping the next collection has the same transcendent style, with more wins.

[Basho · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit repetitive, but feels like an important summary of Roy’s activist writing. She brings to light many things that have occurred in India in the early 2000s. Things that I would know little to nothing about without having read this.

[Nishanth Bala · Rating 5 out of 5]

The inimitable Arundhati Roy at her best.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The American Way of Life is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn’t acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.”

Where I find that Roy stands out from so many other contemporary political writes is her talent for clarity and concision on most matters, this allows her message to be so much more compelling and relatable. She is a bold and brave campaigner and activist as well as writer, and hailing from a country where millions of women are too often viewed closer to property and in some cases below cattle in the pecking order, her voice is all the more vital.

“According to the State, when victims refuse to be victims they become terrorists and are dealt with as such.”

Political greed and corruption take up most of Roy’s energy here, but she also gives plenty of air time to Kashmir, Islamophobia and the Dalits and Ambadkar. There were many areas which really drew me in, but one of her more impressive pieces, was surely her tackling the myth and revisionism surrounding Gandhi.

“At no point in his political career did he ever seriously criticize or confront an Indian industrialist or the landed aristocracy.”

She states and goes to add some other little nuggets such as his belief that Indians should be treated better than the natives when he was living in South Africa. She makes a point of reminding us that he was sponsored by a mill owner too, as well as many other memorable and bizarre quotes which throw-up many questions and contradictions.

“Almost unconsciously, we begin to think of justice for the rich and powerful and human rights for the poor.”

India is a nation which has more poor people than 26 of Africa’s poorest countries put together and yet it still managed to spend around $2 billion on an election. Something somewhere has clearly gone very wrong.

“To produce 1 ton of aluminum, you need about 6 tons of bauxite, more than 1,000 tons of water, and a massive amount of electricity…Last of all-the big question-what is the aluminum for? Where is it going? Aluminum is the principal ingredient in the weapons industry.”

She focuses much attention on the Hindu right and the relentless avarice that drives them, the millions of displaced minorities and the oppressive conditions which keep them down, and how so many have to suffer or die in order for the corporations and conglomerates to chase gross profits at any cost, tearing up huge amounts of land and polluting vast areas of it too.

“Free Speech has been substituted by the doctrine of Free If You Agree Speech.”

At one point when talking about the extremist violence in India, she refers to religion as the lowest common denominator, adding, “Being made to feel proud of something. Not something they have striven for or achieved, not something they can count as a personal accomplishment, but something they just happen to be”

“Let’s all suffer forever. Let’s buy expensive guns and explosives to kill each other with. Let the British arms dealers and the American weapons manufacturers grow fat on our spilled blood.”

“Come September” builds a great case against US foreign policy and the narcissism of the US She touches upon their troubling support of Israel, which as well as supporting them politically, it also supplies several billions of dollars every year. “When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes.”

“Why do we tolerate them? Why do we tolerate the men who use nuclear weapons to blackmail the entire human race?”

Roy certainly never shies away from telling it like it is, and there are many truly disturbing accounts retold in here, as offensive and barbaric as anything you’ll read from any war or genocide. The sheer inhumanity and horror that so many have inflicted upon their fellow countrymen is terrifying. It is even more disturbing when we realise how often the guilty get away with and profit from them.

“Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering blood-drenched gifts to the modern world. Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.”

Criticisms I would level at this collection, would be the occasional repetition of articles, stories or themes which gets annoying, but this tends to be a common problem with anthologies like this. Also if like me, you don’t have a first rate grasp of contemporary Indian politics and most of the main players, parties and sagas and dramas they have been involved in, then this can feel hard to get into in parts. But aside from these two gripes this remains a stand-out collection and illustrates why Roy remains one of the most vital and compelling voices out there today and in her stronger moments she shows flashes of brilliance, cutting wit and a vast intellect.

We see many disturbing examples of how India can be one of the most brutal, savage and unforgivable places on earth. One thing is for sure that after reading this you cannot and will not be able to look at India and its politics in quite the same way again.

A.A. Gill once wrote that to be born an Italian man was to have won the lottery of life or words to that effect…I wonder what he would say about what it means to be born a woman into the Indian Sub-continent?...

[Taruna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read all the essays yet. I plan to finish reading them over a longer course of time. I love how Arundhati Roy writes, but these five stars are not only about the writing. I admire her ability to see deeply through the politics that transpires in India, tie it back to a time when it had just started brewing, and consequently envisage a future that the events of the present are bound to bring.

The older essays are particularly striking since a lot of what is imagined has occurred all too bluntly in recent years in India. These essays are educating and revealing, challenging the so-called "saviours" of the country, they fill me up with a wish to delve further into the history of Indian politics. The offered perspective is something I needed in these particular years in my life.

[Samir · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for every Indian, who is still an Indian and has not fallen in trap of being a political party loyalist or a leader-worshipper... A must read for every human being who is still human in these times of bigotry... 'My Seditious Heart' is a reminder to introspect every time you find yourself going with the flow of popular single dimensional views, with no appetite to see a problem from all sides... This is a book not to be missed...

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became uncomfortable with her talk of the evils of Hinduism but considering she grew up as a religious minority and that 79.8% of the population in India is Hindu is it any worse than religious minorities or nonbelievers lambasting Christianity in the US?

[Simona · Rating 4 out of 5]

In questo volume che raccoglie vent'anni della sua opera, suddivisi tra racconto d'inchiesta, articoli di giornale, saggi e testimonianza personale, la scrittrice, resa celebre da "Il dio delle piccole cose", dona il suo punto di vista sul suo paese. Si tratta di una invettiva, quasi un manifesto di denuncia sociale e non solo, nel quale si occupa di varie tematiche e problemi: bombe nucleari, disastri, dighe, ma anche ecologia, libertà come scelta, capitalismo. Con coraggio, profonda sincerità e verità, e senza lasciarsi intimorire lancia delle accuse al governo indiano:

"Le mie opinioni sono in contrasto con l'establishment al potere. In tempi migliori, divergenze come queste venivano considerate atteggiamenti critici. Nell'India di oggi si chiamano sedizione".

Rifugge l'etichetta di scrittrice attivista, non considerandosi mai in questi termini, proprio perché lei sceglie da che parte stare e questo volume ne è la chiara dimostrazione.
Arundhati Roy è una donna che si fa portavoce del suo popolo, che va oltre l'immagine stessa di scrittrice abbracciando e condannando la sua terra.

[Nausheen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough look, since 1998 and before, at what is happening in India today, how it started, and how it's been supported by the US.

"There will not always be spectacular carnage to report on. Fascism is also about the slow, steady infiltration of all the instruments of state power. It's about the slow erosion of civil liberties, about unspectacular day-to-day injustices."

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really opened my eyes to the atrocities governments still commit on people. A troubling book that is best read in small doses.

[Magdelanye · Rating 5 out of 5]

All over the world today, freedoms are being curbed in the name of protecting freedom. Once freedoms are surrendered by civil society, they cannot be retrieved without a struggle. p238
from the essay Peace is War

Democracy has become empire's euphemism for neoliberal capitalism. p264

democracy itself is being undermined in serious and structured ways. p677

as long as corporations...are given free hand, our "democratically elected" leaders can fearlessly blur the lines between democracy, majoritarianism, and fascism.
>A government 's victims are not only those whom it kills and imprisons. Those who are displaced and dispossessed and sentenced to a lifetime of starvation and deprivation must count among them, too. Millions of people have been dispossessed by "development " projects. p286


In this collection of essays covering two decades of her work, Arundhati Roy focuses on the atrocities and tense political situation as she has experienced in her native India. This is illuminating in itself for the reader, if hard to process, but also relevant to the world situation.

War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration...p191

What price free speech? Free speech for whom? p265

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vital read.

Written with the incisive force of an investigative citizen journalist intimately connected to the groundwork of facts, tangled as they are with the global currents which operate upon them, invisible to most, from the stratosphere. Penned with the urgency of love and despair, and couched in the deconstructing oratorical power of poetry.

If your interest is in the politics and ethics of nationalism, globalisation, ecology and its ruination against the false binary of progress, read the entire book.

If you have any interest in biographical art in which the lives and stories of people are 'translated' to book or screen, read the last two essays on the film Bandit Queen and the person - Phoolan Devi - whose story it claims to narrate.

You may quibble at the repetitions inevitable in a collection of essays which span years and were published individually into different papers and collections for audiences continents apart. Roy herself acknowledges this shortcoming, and explains that a key decision was to leave the works unedited despite the passing decades since their authorship.

The original nature of each essay only adds to the sense of necessity of reading them now. Their impact is undiminished. They shock with the alarm of the relevant, not the morbid curiosity of the past.

[Rajdeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow wow wow wow wow!

A thoroughly depressing book about the various social injustices of the past two decades. The depth of evidence she provides in her essays is absolutely astounding and that makes it such a compelling read. Stylistically, her writing is similar to Chomsky, and like Chomsky, she is very clever at putting the pieces together and deducing a pattern from them.
Our institutions are severely coerced by major corporations and all this is happening under the cloak of democracy. The 'free market' conditions set up by neoliberalism are no different from those in the colonial times. The Indian elite have swooped the positions held by the British imperialists while the poor still remain in the servile state. This has been achieved by design and not by chance.
I'm reminded when Chomsky said that Kissinger knows what's up and there is no point barking the truth at him. What we can do is provide evidence to the people so they could see the truth and this book does that brilliantly.

[Garret Giblin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big fan of her fiction, even bigger fan of her non-fiction. The essays on caste, Kashmir, and maoist guerrillas were particular highlights. Even the (several) chapters on the construction of big dams are interesting because Roy's prose is top class. Every chapter is brimming with righteous anger but never lacking in clarity and precision

[Hornthesecond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel I've learned a lot from reading this book, although, of course, all from the perspective of a single author. At the start I would probably have been surprised if you'd told me that I would read 860+ pages of essays about the political situation in India since about 2000 and still be interested to read more. I would be especially interested to read an update, by the same author, on the situations and cases documented in the essays.

I also wish I'd written down more quotations on the way through. Both the subject matter covered and the style with which Roy writes were of great interest to me. In places the writing is really quite beautiful even though there didn't seem to be all that much good news in the essays. In other places the criticism of politicians is concise but effective. Humour is sometimes used to excellent effect in criticism. Some of the essays felt a bit like a masterclass in how to present a political argument. The political perspective feels very consistent given the length of time over which the essays were written. Mostly the writing seemed to be documenting and protesting injustices or bad situations - so maybe not a book to read if you're depressed or just low.

The essay comparing Dr. Ambedkar and Mohandes Gandhi was particularly interesting. Other highlights for me were the essays about: the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan after Indian nuclear tests; time spent in the forest getting to know Maoist rebels; and the attack on the Indian Parliament and the subsequent miscarriage of justice. I think readers who enjoyed Roy's novels and who are curious about India, and particularly Indian politics, should certainly try reading this book. Those with very right-wing political views and/or strong supporters of recent Indian governments might find it a challenging read.

[Toño Piñeiro · Rating 4 out of 5]

♣️Reina de tréboles ♣️

Estos Ensayos reunidos (que no lo son) de la escritora/activista ambiental/"antipatriota" india Arundhati Roy tienen básicamente dos pivotes temáticos que veremos a lo largo de todo el libro: el neoliberalismo yanqui y su insaciabilidad económica; y por otro lado la total contradicción que representa la India como entidad o "nación".

Del primer eje temático, rescatamos textos como El final de la imaginación donde hace una sesuda y sentida denuncia contra la carrera nuclear entre la India y Pakistán, pero que bien puede ser aplicada a cualquier potencia mundial el día de hoy. Está también La guerra es paz donde Roy trae la retórica orwelliana para señalar el conflicto -y la contradicción- política y mediática que existe en todas las sociedades "civilizadas" de la modernidad.

El segundo eje, a mi juicio dónde está toda la carnita, versa sobre la construcción ideológica, histórica, cultural y religiosa de la India. Celebro el texto El médico y el santo un prólogo para el libro Aniquilación de las castas de Babasheb Ambdhekar, dónde deconstruye el mito de Mohandas Gandhi, el Mahatma; aquí vemos a Roy en plena forma: documentando y explorando todos los textos que Gandhi publicó en vida, demuestra que quizá no era el ser celestial que se (auto) proclamaba...

¿Por qué dije que no son ensayos más arriba? Bueno, porque el editor (Dios me lo bendiga) tuvo a bien incluir el reportaje Caminando con los camaradas donde Roy se fue a vivir con los naxalitas, unos rebeldes maoistas que viven en los bosques y que hacen justicia por su propia mano. Sin duda el texto acompaña temáticamente al libro, pero me parece que 'rompe' de alguna manera el ritmo que teníamos hasta ese punto.

Esto último, sin embargo, soy yo siendo tiquismiquis al cien por ciento: el libro es una colección de textos periodísticos imperdible que trae nueva luz a un lugar tan 'exótico' cómo la India. (plot twist: no somos tan diferentes).

Lo recomiendo con la aorta.

Y ya está.

[DonJulio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incontournable pour comprendre l'Inde moderne et son histoire. Pour comprendre le système des castes et l'organisation politique indienne. Mais aussi pour comprendre le monde contemporain et les relations de pouvoir et de domination entre les pays riches et le tiers-monde.

Un livre pour comprendre comment le lien entre nationalisme et capitalisme maintient en esclavage des millions d'opprimés "pour leur bien". Pour comprendre la mécanique du fascisme d'État. Pour comprendre les collusions entre politiques corrompus et grandes multinationales afin de privatiser le bien commun, faire du profit et spolier les démunis, en les sacrifiant sans scrupules, et l'environnement au passage.
Un livre pour comprendre les rouages de la privatisation de l'air, de la terre, de l'eau, des ressources collectives... de la vie en somme. De la vie et de la survie des êtres humains.

Quelle indignité ! (non, ce n'est pas un livre pour avoir une vision plus optimiste de notre monde et de notre humanité)

Que dire de plus ? Il y aurait tant d'éloges à faire de cette femme qui réhabilite le courage, la force de caractère et la prise de risque dans la liberté d'expression (il existe donc encore des écrivains/journalistes qui font le taff??!! -joie-).
Le rétablissement de la Vérité devient une notion qui prend tout son sens dans ce combat pour les droits humains, bafoués chaque jour.

Un livre comme je les attends, un livre pour découvrir et comprendre : éclairant, sincère et fouillé, référencé et sourcé, instructif et transformant ma vision du monde.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Já li os romances, e leio pela primeira vez os artigos, muito por causa de Gandhi. É desassombrada, coloca em causa os pressupostos de um Estado indiano que é, afinal, uma continuação da exploração de recursos colonialista, que tornou normal o sistema desigual das castas. Fez-me lembrar Angela Davis, pois a sua luta de tornar o mundo mais democrático.

[Clove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned soooo much from this. Can’t wait to try some her fiction out.

[Boka]

Sue Perb

[Carla Coelho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um conjunto de ensaios bem pensados e documentados sobre a vida política e social da Índia nos últimos anos. Com grande coragem, Arundhati Roy, aclamada pelo seu romance O Deus das pequenas coisas, apresenta temas como o percurso político de Gandhi, as propostas de um outro político dele contemporâneo e seu opositor político para acabar com as castas, Ambedkar, os custos políticos, sociais e económicos da manutenção daquelas, o investimento em energia nuclear, o conflito em Caxemira, a resistência e a violência que perpassa a vida de muitos indianos. São textos que não são sentimentais, mas que não deixam quem os lê indiferente. Roy mostra a sua mestria como escritora e ensaísta, a sua sensibilidade e o seu sentido de justiça. A comparação com Antígona (feita na capa da edição portuguesa) é inteiramente justa. Fala com coragem por aqueles que não têm voz.