Power Politics

Table of Contents

Maps
1 The Ladies Have Feelings, So…Shall We Leave It to the Experts?
2 Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin
3 On Citizens' Rights to Express Dissent
4 The Algebra of Infinite Justice
5 War is Peace
Glossary

Read more

Excerpt

From Chapter 1: "The Ladies Have Feelings, So . . .Shall We Leave It to the Experts?"

Now, I’ve been wondering why it should be that the person who wrote The God of Small Things is called a writer, and the person who wrote the political essays is called an activist? True, The God of Small Things is a work of fiction, but it’s no less political than any of my essays. True, the essays are works of nonfiction, but since when did writers forgo the right to write nonfiction?

My thesis—my humble theory, as we say in India—is that I’ve been saddled with this double-barreled appellation, this awful professional label, not because my work is political, but because in my essays, which are about very contentious issues, I take sides. I take a position. I have a point of view. What’s worse, I make it clear that I think it’s right and moral to take that position, and what’s even worse, I use everything in my power to flagrantly solicit support for that position. Now, for a writer of the twenty-first century, that’s considered a pretty uncool, unsophisticated thing to do. It skates uncomfortably close to the territory occupied by political party ideologues—a breed of people that the world has learned (quite rightly) to mistrust. I’m aware of this. I’m all for being circumspect. I’m all for discretion, prudence, tentativene...

Read more

Praise

“The scale of what Roy surveys is staggering.…Her pointed indictment of India's hydroelectric industry—which has very little to show for the destruction it has wrought—is devastating.”
—Alex Abramovich, New York Times Book Review

“An insightful discussion of India 's contemporary struggle for social justice.…A comprehensive, thought-provoking book with a fine balance between the significant social impact of industrialization and more intimate observations from Roy 's personal experience.”
—Gene Hayworth, Lyrical Ink 

“Writers have proved when they turn their back to power and start to feel the pulse and pain of society, they become powerful. This is the power beyond power that Arundhati Roy brings forth in Power Politics.”
—Vandana Shiva

“The novelist Arundhati Roy…has emerged as India's most impassioned critic of globalization and American influence.”
—New York Times

“Arundhati Roy's essays evoke a stark image of two Indias being driven in "resolutely opposite directions," a small India on its way to a "glittering destination" while the ...

Read more

Author Article

Bush in India: Just Not Welcome

Arundhati Roy

The Nation, March 1, 2006

On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and curiouser.

For Bush's March 2 pit stop in New Delhi, the Indian government tried very hard to have him address our parliament. A not inconsequential number of MPs threatened to heckle him, so Plan One was hastily shelved. Plan Two was to have Bush address the masses from the ramparts of the magnificent Red Fort, where the Indian prime minister traditionally delivers his Independence Day address. But the Red Fort, surrounded as it is by the predominantly Muslim population of Old Delhi, was considered a security nightmare. So now we're into Plan Three: President George Bush speaks from Purana Qila, the Old Fort. (continue reading)

Read more