“When we talk of war, listen to their [the establishment] talk of war or even when we publish it, we are doing them a favour. To counter that, we should just talk of something else. If it’s true that Kashmir runs in people’s blood in India as well as in Pakistan and yet hundreds and thousands of Kashmiris are being killed in the name of Kashmir. So, let’s talk of human rights. If I am given basic human rights and have the right to speech and to live my life with freedom and dignity, it does not matter which flag one does that under. It becomes irrelevant. It’s only when you want to control somebody that you produce a flag. While they talk about war, let’s focus on human evolution and progress. These are the issues we should be thinking about, not these spurious theatrics of nation-states. Human society cannot exist when they are administered by nation-states and nation-states can’t survive with nuclear bombs,” said Ms Roy while speaking at a seminar on peace and freedom in South Asia held here on Thursday.
The internationally acclaimed writer of The God of Small Things was the key speaker at the seminar and shared the podium with former foreign minister Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali, Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express, N Ram from The Hindu, and Najam Sethi, editor of The Daily Times.
Arundhadti’s appeal to the local crowd was all, but barely concealed.
Benignly draped in a saree, Ms Roy delighted the crowd when she generously confessed her joy at visiting Pakistan. She further struck an instant chord with the audience by confessing her ill-ease at being invited to speak formerly at the seminar. “I would like to be just Arundhati, talking to the people of Pakistan. Occasions such as these make me uneasy about falling short of people’s expectations. I would rather talk to people informally,” were Arundhadti Roy’s opening remarks at the seminar. Distancing herself from the intransigence of the BJP government towards Pakistan and peace in the sub-continent, she told the gathering as to how she was dubbed an anti-national in India.
“When you are accused of being an anti-national, the unspoken thing is that you are anti this nation and pro some other nation. It’s not that I am an anti-national, but I am deeply, deeply suspicious of nationalism, deeply suspicious of flags, those funny bits of cloth which shrink the human mind,” she said amidst tumultuous applause.
She broke her extempore speech to read from her famous, impassioned essay The End of Imagination, written in 1998 in response to India’s nuclear tests. The essay, read out in the US, for the Eqbal Ahmed Foundation, summed up her disillusionment as an average citizen of a country struggling for survival. In no unequivocal terms, she condemned her government’s decision to go nuclear. It was, perhaps, one of the saddest moments of Ms Roy’s life to live under the constant threat of a human made weapon of mass destruction.
“I heard the news in London at a time when I was going to receive the Booker Prize for The God of Small Things. Imagine my feelings at a time which should have been the happiest moment of my life. I came back to India a changed person. Something inside of me had died,” lamented Arundhati in her soft-pitched tone. Conceding the differences between the people of India and Pakistan, she implored the two sides to know more about each other than ‘just Kashmir’. Her sentimentality appealed to the people in the auditorium who were, perhaps, more attuned to the didactical style of academics. By speaking in an ordinary way, she devolved the art of political analysis to sentimental analysis.
Prior to the much-awaited talk of Arundhadti Roy, the other guests on the panel were invited to speak on ‘Peace and Freedom in South Asia’. In his speech, Lt-General Naseer Akhtar retired of the Soldiers Solidarity Forum talked about Indo-Pakistan relations and laid the existence of peace in South Asia on good neighbourly relations between the two arch rivals.
While Mr N Ram of The Hindu showed concern about the ascendancy of the Hindu right, he also blamed Pakistan for strengthening them after the 1999 Kargil debacle. One of Mr Ram’s most authoritative statements was the criticism of the Indian government to refuse the internationalisation of the Kashmir issue. “I deplore India’s demand that Pakistan’s high commission leave New Delhi. We should try to live with our differences,” said Mr Ram.
Shekhar Gupta, the editor of The Indian Express, humoured the crowd when he said that the BJP should not be taken seriously. “We won’t go to war because the BJP does not speak for the majority of India. Don’t worry about the BJP, leave it to us,” joked Mr Gupta.
Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali spoke critically about the Indian government’s stance on Kashmir. He said that the only way the countries could move forward was to de-escalate and normalise relations.
Mr Najam Sethi injected a hope into the dismal Indo-Pak picture. “Where do we go from here? We need the people of both the countries to talk to each other,” he said. Ms Roy is scheduled to visit a girls college on Friday (today).