A friend of and contributer to the blog has written her own sentiments on our earlier post on Arundhati Roy.
I absolutely agree with your point that Roy is among those breed of people whose 'empathy for the poor is borne out a need for fame'. A hollow personality, whose arguments are lined with loopholes. I think your article very beautifully described her true nature. You have covered most of her major endeavours but there are few points dear to my heart that I would like to add, especially related to her perceptions about Kashmir, Afzal Guru and Muslims in general.
· She tries to involve and invoke readers on melodramatic front, like the way she tried to win hearts for Mohammad Afzal by describing his son as 'angelic looking'. When she was standing with S A R Gilani at Jantar Mantar to protest against the Afzal's death sentence, why did she fail to notice the plight of around 100,000 Kashmiri pundits, dumped in refuge camps for last 15 -20 years, just a few miles away? Were their sons and daughter not 'angelic looking' enough to gain her sympathy or did their parents not undergo horrors equivalent to 'the gallows'? They and many other non-Muslims have been victims of ethnic cleansing by the very people whom she calls 'martyrs of Kashmir'. According to her strategically used “cause and effect” theory - Kashmiri Muslims have to take up arms because of Indian Army/Government oppression. If her theory is true then by now these pundits should have taken up arms as well in retaliation to the atrocities done to them in Kashmir by the Muslims. Why is that not happening?
· Most of her writings, time and again try to conjugate Kashmir issue, Godhra riots, and Babri Masjid episod as the fountainhead of Islamic terror in India. Innumerable bomb blast, riots and ethnic cleansing, killing thousands of Hindus has still failed to produce Hindu terrorism. Why? Even then through her articles she has tried to equate non-existent Hindu terrorism to widespread Islamic terrorism. She very conveniently dismisses charges on Islamic terrorist like Afzal Guru, SAR Geelani, and Muslim students of Batla House, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar citing a lack of any evidence even in the face of overwhelming evidence. She then turns around and uses non-evidence or imaginary evidence to point fingers at Sadhvi Pragya and Lt Col Purohit as culprits for Malegaon Blast.
· According to her, Indians have - "...shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalize, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world.". She fails to see that in India unlike in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Muslims are accommodated and cheered in every sphere, including government jobs, sports, cinema, business, education etc. In fact special reservation is provided for Muslims for higher education and govt. jobs. A look at the demography of both India and Pakistan should be good enough proof to understand who is inflicting torture on whom - In 1947, Hindus constituted over 20% in Pakistan and 36% in Bangladesh. Now, they are less than 1% in Pakistan and about 8% in Bangladesh. While in India, the Muslim population has risen from about 10% in 1947 to about 15% today. If the Muslims were so oppressed then they would have abandoned our country long back just like Hindus did in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why are these statistics, so completely overlooked by her?
· She supports Kashmir's independence without understanding the fate of a landlocked country surrounded by three nuclear-armed nations. She warns readers of the consequences of a broken Pakistan but fails to see the consequences of broken India. She seems to oppose the capitalistic and neo imperial policies of America, with which I totally agree. A small independent nation like Kashmir will be a perfect target for manipulation and occupation similar to Afghanistan and Pakistan by western powers especially for their capitalistic greed. It has lot of natural resources, strategic location near China, India, Russia, Afghanistan and plus as an independent country it will be an Islamic state. Islamic states traditionally, are known to be more than happy to wag their tails for Uncle Sam and China and Kashmir could be just another one of those.
· From time to time she has tried to present 2002 Gujarat riots as case of the Muslim genocide. But once again she refused to notice Hindu genocide that happened in Bangladesh and Pakistan after 1992 Babri Masjid episode, accounts of some is listed in Taslema Nasreen's book ' Lajja'. She conveniently ignores the historical context from the point where it starts contradicting her arguments. Her 'larger historical context of terrorism’ tails back to maybe just couple of decade or at the max till the 1947, when India got independence. It seems there was no existence of Indian history before that. For a nation that takes pride in at least 7000 yrs of history, incomplete analysis of last 50-60 yrs of history is oversimplification of matters.
· With her usual out of context phrases in the middle of an ongoing discussion on a particular issue, she calls successful 2008 Kashmir elections as 'odd', probably because her Kashmir independence theory lose its zest with each successful and peaceful Kashmiri elections.
· She tries to involve and invoke readers on melodramatic front, like the way she tried to win hearts for Mohammad Afzal by describing his son as 'angelic looking'. When she was standing with S A R Gilani at Jantar Mantar to protest against the Afzal's death sentence, why did she fail to notice the plight of around 100,000 Kashmiri pundits, dumped in refuge camps for last 15 -20 years, just a few miles away? Were their sons and daughter not 'angelic looking' enough to gain her sympathy or did their parents not undergo horrors equivalent to 'the gallows'? They and many other non-Muslims have been victims of ethnic cleansing by the very people whom she calls 'martyrs of Kashmir'. According to her strategically used “cause and effect” theory - Kashmiri Muslims have to take up arms because of Indian Army/Government oppression. If her theory is true then by now these pundits should have taken up arms as well in retaliation to the atrocities done to them in Kashmir by the Muslims. Why is that not happening?
· Most of her writings, time and again try to conjugate Kashmir issue, Godhra riots, and Babri Masjid episod as the fountainhead of Islamic terror in India. Innumerable bomb blast, riots and ethnic cleansing, killing thousands of Hindus has still failed to produce Hindu terrorism. Why? Even then through her articles she has tried to equate non-existent Hindu terrorism to widespread Islamic terrorism. She very conveniently dismisses charges on Islamic terrorist like Afzal Guru, SAR Geelani, and Muslim students of Batla House, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar citing a lack of any evidence even in the face of overwhelming evidence. She then turns around and uses non-evidence or imaginary evidence to point fingers at Sadhvi Pragya and Lt Col Purohit as culprits for Malegaon Blast.
· According to her, Indians have - "...shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than 150 million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalize, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world.". She fails to see that in India unlike in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Muslims are accommodated and cheered in every sphere, including government jobs, sports, cinema, business, education etc. In fact special reservation is provided for Muslims for higher education and govt. jobs. A look at the demography of both India and Pakistan should be good enough proof to understand who is inflicting torture on whom - In 1947, Hindus constituted over 20% in Pakistan and 36% in Bangladesh. Now, they are less than 1% in Pakistan and about 8% in Bangladesh. While in India, the Muslim population has risen from about 10% in 1947 to about 15% today. If the Muslims were so oppressed then they would have abandoned our country long back just like Hindus did in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Why are these statistics, so completely overlooked by her?
· She supports Kashmir's independence without understanding the fate of a landlocked country surrounded by three nuclear-armed nations. She warns readers of the consequences of a broken Pakistan but fails to see the consequences of broken India. She seems to oppose the capitalistic and neo imperial policies of America, with which I totally agree. A small independent nation like Kashmir will be a perfect target for manipulation and occupation similar to Afghanistan and Pakistan by western powers especially for their capitalistic greed. It has lot of natural resources, strategic location near China, India, Russia, Afghanistan and plus as an independent country it will be an Islamic state. Islamic states traditionally, are known to be more than happy to wag their tails for Uncle Sam and China and Kashmir could be just another one of those.
· From time to time she has tried to present 2002 Gujarat riots as case of the Muslim genocide. But once again she refused to notice Hindu genocide that happened in Bangladesh and Pakistan after 1992 Babri Masjid episode, accounts of some is listed in Taslema Nasreen's book ' Lajja'. She conveniently ignores the historical context from the point where it starts contradicting her arguments. Her 'larger historical context of terrorism’ tails back to maybe just couple of decade or at the max till the 1947, when India got independence. It seems there was no existence of Indian history before that. For a nation that takes pride in at least 7000 yrs of history, incomplete analysis of last 50-60 yrs of history is oversimplification of matters.
· With her usual out of context phrases in the middle of an ongoing discussion on a particular issue, she calls successful 2008 Kashmir elections as 'odd', probably because her Kashmir independence theory lose its zest with each successful and peaceful Kashmiri elections.
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