The tragedy of empire

Are you familiar with the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things? Poppi and Tom sent me an article about her called "The god of big things". Here are a couple of excerpts that really caught my attention:

"I'll tell you a story. After my book was published, I was on a radio program in England, with two imperial historians who both started speaking about how the British Empire was such a glorious empire. One of them said that if an alien was to come to earth, and was totally neutral, they would have to say that British civilization was one of the world's defining civilizations.

"I had never heard anyone praising the empire. I told myself, don't get into it, it doesn't matter. Then the next one started and said that 'even the fact that your book was written in English is a tribute to the British Empire'. I lost it. I said: 'That is like telling the child of a raped parent that he is a tribute to his father's brutality.' I said: 'My tragedy is that I love English, not hate it, but I will use it in any way I can against you.'"
...
In contrast to India's image in the West, Roy sees her country as marching on "a journey into darkness." She is merciless in her criticism. "Somehow all the cruelty is being blurred by talk about Gandhi, and how everybody is meditating and doing yoga, and isn't it just great, how we have cricket and we have Miss World and Miss Booker Prize and dissent, and aren't we all a lovely sort of happy bumbling family? "Actually no, it's dark and cruel and vicious, and you know, unless one is going to see this, it is going to get darker and more cruel and more vicious. India is a country that is comfortable with its killings," she says, offering a partial list: "One million people [the Dalits or Untouchables] are still scavengers of human shit, and the worst tragedy is that they would fight for their right to carry that shit because if they don't, then what would they do? Each day Dalits are being lynched, and suspects are not brought to justice. Muslims are being murdered all over India. One hundred and thirty seven thousand farmers have committed suicide in the last years. Something like 60 to 80 thousand people have been killed in Kashmir alone. It is the most militarized zone in the entire world - Kashmir - 12 million people, 700,000 soldiers - the army itself says there are 850 militants, so who are they guarding there? This is a society whose engine is the hierarchic division into thousands of castes and sub-castes. A violent society that takes a pride in nonviolence."

She adds that it is a society that is continuing to nurture and apply the perception of "impurity": They talk about the attitude of the Taliban toward women in Afghanistan, but the attitude of the high castes in India toward the untouchables is far worse in her opinion.

Roy relates that in India's geographical center, a real civil war is going on: "In the states of Orissa and Chhattisgarh, they have now found the bloody bauxite mines [bauxite is used in the production of aluminum], and the corporations are at them, simply raping them. One should see how they take away the whole forest, mountain, the draining off of water, the devastation of the land, the displacement of indigenous people. The government has cleared out something like 400 villages, thousands of people, moved them into police camps and told them, like George Bush does, you are either with us or with the terrorists, the Maoists. The government has set up people's militias, forcing a tribal fight. And the Maoists are being murdered."

(One important reason for the suicides of farmers is globalization and the fact that flooding the market with American farm products (like cotton) drives down prices so that Indian farmers can't survive. Of course, our farmers are heavily subsidized by the government so it's grossly unfair competition.)

Roy is an important voice writing today. We need to listen.