THE WAR WITHIN INDIA
India has been a republic for the past 65 years. But, by the turn of the century the very basics on which the country was liberated from the clutches of the English colonialists seems to have vanished. The free voices seems to be stifled in the throats itself, the blatant and rampant misuse of the Constitution by the government and The courts alike are becoming the highlights of today’s era.
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Money buys everything, even free speech too. The media
houses today are slaves to business barons, either the business owns the media
or the media owns businesses. In this highly partial structure, only the rich
get richer and the poor are left to commit suicide.
In the name of development, the poor are forced out of their
homes, and the few who refuse to get forced are branded as terrorists and shot
in “encounters”.
In the end, India is a democracy. By definition, it is a
rule of the majority. Whatever the majority wants, it does. The fundamental
rights of the Constitution are rampantly violated when the interests of the government
or the corporate houses it caters to is at stake. Right to life is abused like
anything. Rampant rapes, killings, murders, of adivasis and Dalits are common. The
real concept of “divide and rule” is implemented. The policy of “divide and
rule” was implemented by the British raj to efficiently manage the Indian mass
without utilizing the resources of their own. In this age, it is used to create
rift between different religions, different castes, and different regions.
In “Broken Republic”, Roy in her four essays exposes the
rampant abuse of law and human rights to crush the local tribals in order to
usher in the “New Development”. She doesn’t bat an eyelid in criticizing the
policies of the right wing political parties to the leftists. She is also
unwavering in criticizing the hypocrisies of some of the well-known social activists
of today, Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, Bill Gates or even Nelson Mandela.
Most of the prose is easy on the brain and unfaltering in
their essence. Though we may offer a different view on some of her theories,
but we cannot ignore her overall message. The best part I like about her
non-fiction is she doesn’t impose her views on the readers. She just bares the
truth and leaves it out for the readers to judge. Sometimes, she can waver a
bit in her accusations though.
In my opinion, all right minded, patriotic Indian must read
Arundhati Roy’s non-fiction to understand what the government does and what it
publishes.