If you had the misfortune to be outdoors on a pitch dark stormy night; then you would be fortunate to see the stark reality of the surrounding landscape with every streak of lightning, even though for a few seconds, you see everything strikingly clear and in great detail; you are also forced to see things that you would ordinarily not like to see. This is the only way I can describe Booker Prize Winner (1997) Arundhati Roy's writing.
She has this unique forte to bare her characters, society, and environment to truths that are scalding to the intellect; A few get burnt and hate her for it. Before coming to her latest novel " The Ministry of Utmost Happiness " let me first give a brief insight from her first novel " The God of Small Things ". Since our college days (mid 70's) we were fascinated by the opening sentence or paragraph of a novel. Remember.... " Howard Roak laughed " the first sentence in Ann Ryand's novel " Atlas Shrugged " ? In those halcyon days we had spent many a hours critiquing that sentence.
Here is Roy's first paragraph " May in Ayemenem (a village in Kerala) is a hot, brooding month.... Crows gorge on bright mangoes.... red bananas ripen, jack fruit bust. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear window panes and die, fatly baffled in the Sun". All great writing has a universal context; apart from the complexity of love in an Indian setting which the story is about. Let me put this in context of our current politics. Basking in the fruity air of a mammoth victory in the U. P. state elections, fatly baffled by lawlessness of every kind: dacoity, rape, plunder, social unrest and communal tension in the state; at the National front, GDP dropping to 6.1% in the last quarter from 7.1%. Again, dazzled by the bountiful harvest, to backfire spectacularly by general farmer unrest, and farmer riots in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. As Roy would say Modiji is " essentially a politician " .... " A professional Omeletteer " ; with insincere and broken promises you are bound to be confronted by " Short creatures with long shadows ". Of course this is not limited to politics and politicians, everyone operating with depravity with his fellowmen, society, constituency and their environment are bound to be stunned at the most comfortable times of their lives. " The impossible really happens". In Goa we are all part of this depravity, by allowing a defeated, unwanted and illegitimate government to Lord it over us. The Chief Minister's response to the Sadvis Vitriolic speech in Goa. " No one will be spared if they break the law in Goa". C. M. Sir, the law is already broken, don't give us your Brahmanical Pontifications , act and protect the citizens.
"At magic hour, when the Sun has gone but the light has not" are the first lines in Roy's second book of fiction "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness". Light is shone on characters and places in multiple colors as you would see in a drama enacted on the stage. This novel is a kaleidoscope of the history of India's "Adverse Political Spectacle". Through; The Emergency, anti Sikh riots, Ayodhya, Godhra, Bhopal gas tragedy, Bastar, Lathur earthquake Victims, anti dam movement, anti corruption movement, birth of AAP party and Kashmir. If her critics were aware that in our country " Adverse Political Spectacle " is the new normal they would be more charitable and not called her a polemicist. The bigotry in our country, of a regime dabbling in religion, perverted science, caste and social engineering is both alarming and deplorable. Red flags of caution waved by Roy are always assuring....Let a Hundred Arundhati Roy bloom! Nobel Laureate William Golding in his award winning work "Lord of the Flies", has depicted a society, a young one at that, getting morphed into an evil, murderous group because of intolerance and authoritarianism, in a flash. Let us analyze some typical adverse spectacles played out in our polity. Take censorship of films;.... The censor board Chief, an ideologue of the ruling dispensation is at the center of bitter criticism for heavily censoring and banning films for his agenda driven views and beliefs. In our films Police encounters of citizens is shown as routine (the latest being Raees). Encounters are the liquidation of its own citizens by the State (Police or other National Security Agency) of individuals or groups for unproved nefarious activities. This is done precisely for two reasons, one of it's police force is incompetent, corrupt, immoral, a bunch of bafoons. Secondly the Judiciary is so weighed down, that to bring any one of them to Justice would take decades if not a lifetime; if these heinous act of killing it's own citizens is sanctioned by the state overtly or covertly and feature in films as a done thing; does it matter about the speeches of a Vemula or a M.s. Roy.? It is such a farce and an irony to ban films because of any " Vemula's", when the state itself is portrayed as a blood hound of its own citizens. Police reforms and Judicial reforms to make these institutions competent and credible are not on any political party's agenda and everyone knows why. "What we have on our hands is a spices problem" is what Roy calls it.
A low caste Marty's statue, put up in his village square; is systematically vandalized by upper castes in connivance with the police, this caste scenario is playing out today after seven decades of Independence. You can be sure for the next 100 years caste will get more segregated, compartmentalized and solidified because to win election the Chatur Bania is indulging in every despicable caste manipulation. "In some countries some soldiers die twice is what Roy calls it.
Roy's character "Musa" is a Kashmir Protagonist and an Indian Antagonist, what does one call such a character? Kashmir is akin to this character. Does it want Azadi to join Pakistan or does it want Azadi because of Allah. As for the former, Pakistan is only a part of the whole (India) and is the main sponsor and instigator of terrorism and militancy, a failed state themselves. As for the latter Azadi for Allah has no place in a Secular country. The Kashmirs already have a special status in our constitution, which safeguards them more than any other Indian citizen. The Kashmirs are wedged between the rock and the deep sea, every Kashmir is in the viewfinder of the Pakistani terrorist gun, the Indian state views every Kashmiris suspiciously. In spite of Kashmir taking a lot of space in Roy's novel its mostly grey. She acknowledges the duplicity inherent in the Kashmiris especially in regard to dealing with New Delhi; but she also says " the only thing that keeps Kashmiris from self destruction like Pakistan and Afghanistan is good old petite bourgeois capitalism" its her fervent desire that the Indian state calibrates a new and fresh dialogue with its people of Kashmir. Which brings us full circle at the beginning of the novel " Was it possible to be outside language" is a deep, desperate, soul searching question a mother confronts when she learns her child is neither a boy or a girl but a Hijra (eunuch).
Is this the premise the Indian state should keep in mind when dealing with Kashmir?
Hopefully, people who are hurt most, have the greatest ability to heal. A case in point the, blacks of South Africa.