Corruption or Anna - who's your muse, Ms Roy?
An extremely powerful writer is at it, again. The Booker-winning writer and activist, and arguably one of India’s most powerful essayists, scathes and spews vitriol on Anna Hazare’s fast and the swelling popular movement behind it. And describes his Gandhian ways as a counterbalance to the Maoists – both taking different routes to “overthrow the state”. And this, coming from Roy, who in principle supports the Maoists’ arguments and their anguish over what they perceive and feel as state tyranny.
An extremely powerful writer is at it, again. The Booker-winning writer and activist, and arguably one of India’s most powerful essayists, scathes and spews vitriol on Anna Hazare’s fast and the swelling popular movement behind it. And describes his Gandhian ways as a counterbalance to the Maoists – both taking different routes to “overthrow the state”. And this, coming from Roy, who in principle supports the Maoists’ arguments and their anguish over what they perceive and feel as state tyranny.
Roy’s remarks, to say the least, are severe. They scathe both Anna, the person, AND the movement. If it had been the former, it would have been all right to get personal – all public figures are vulnerable to personal attacks, and it really wouldn’t have mattered. But when it’s a sole voice despising and deriding a popular movement, one wonders if Roy considers it fashionable to distance herself from the mainstream any which way – when it’s the state vs. the protestors in Kashmir, she’s with the protestors, when it’s the state vs. the Maoists, she’s with the Maoists, but if it’s the state vs. thousands of people with Anna, she’s with the state – just because it’s in the minority for the time being. Or is she? If she’s with neither, she must be having a view. Where is it?
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