Arundhati Roy

It never ceases to amazes me what a volatile reaction mere mention of Arundhati Roy engenders among otherwise most gentle and sober of peoples. Some things are beyond a shadow of doubt. She is one of the most gifted of writers in English in India at the moment. I believe ‘The God of Small Things’ is one of the best novel ever written by an Indian. The artistry and the craft of the haunting prose stirred my emotions like nothing had and it is a pity that she has not produced a work of fiction since then but I keep living in hope. But in the meanwhile she has actively been at the forefront of taking up causes on behalf of the poor, voiceless and the marginalized, people who have been left out of the process of the so called development and also producing some non fiction writing in between.

And that is when the trouble begins. Because she challenges and confronts the traditional paradigm of development and tries to puncture the bubble under which the average middle class Indian has put himself, she is seen as someone who is out there to upset this balance. The vast section of educated Indians perceive her to be disturbing their cozy consensus, an interloper about to shatter their American dream. Besides subjected to volley of abuse in the social media, the most charitable of observers have called her an apologist for the Maoists.

My contention is that whether we agree with her or not is beside the point. What matters is that in a genuinely vibrant democracy we need people like Arundhati Roy who hold up a mirror to us as a society from time to see our reflection warts and all. No matter how unpopular or uncomfortable the question may be, we must not shy away from dealing with them and forcing our government to account. If we have to challenge her, let us challenge her on the plane of facts and reason rather than bullying and abuse. Indeed our society will be a poorer one without vigorous dissenters like Arundhati.