[Reader-list] Reg: The problem with Arundhati Roy

[Pheeta Ram]

Dear Rakesh

I am sorry for getting back to you a bit late.

Let me tell you that i find in your response the best example of what i
appreciate as the "Ethics of Arrival": the ethical necessity to arrive at
solutions, take positions and not to linger on ad infinitum. One can see in
you(r response) the zeal to set things right, to get things straight, to get
the work done: the task orientedness, in short. Much of it has to do with
your disciplinary training, i am pretty sure.

Now, eulogies apart, i intend to clarify a few things that you have ascribed
to me and would want to say a few things in response to some of the things
you have said which i think need a response:

1) //but then for you facts are the same as ethical positions (or personal
ethics)//

To my mind, a fact is not a thing-in-itself ( a fact is not khud-a). An
observer of an event/enunciator/explicator is always already implicated in
the definition of a fact. A fact and an ethical position of a person
regarding it are not two separate things for me. They constitute a whole i
term as 'facthics'. For things to be similar, they have to be separate first
in order to initiate the process of comparison. Thus, for me " facts are
[NOT] the same as ethical position (or personal ethics)" because they are
not separate but one thing for me. Whoever said "there are no facts but only
interpretations"? Hasn't it become a kinda gospel truth in the sciences that
our very act of observing the universe brings alterations in it?



2)//The second point you make is that Arundhati need not take positions.//

Nowhere in my response do i assert that "Arundhati need not take positions."
Ironically, she does take positions, ask tough questions and destabilise
many a reputation (both inside her writerly community and outside it). I
just said that even if she doesn't have answers to many of the questions she
has dared to ask it shouldn't matter to us that much. We needn't try finding
a messiah in Arundhati who shall lead us by holding our hands to the holy
grail. Arundhati as a phenomenon has acquired a strategic and tactical
importance by virtue of her celebrity status in engaging with conflicts that
have troubled this side of the world. She ( her celebrity persona ) is doing
her bit and we stand in solidarity.


3)//Of course it bothers me, for people to to think they can get away from
their duties (both constitutionally and more importantly, of a human being)
by declaring themselves 'mobile republics'. //

Interestingly, by declaring oneself 'mobile republic' one doesn't get away
from ones responsibilities but instead embraces the larger world community
and the duties that accrue as a result. One becomes a citizen of the world
rather than remaining confined within the boundaries of the citizenship of a
particular country or affiliations of a nation or a community.


4)//If I am appalled at the so-called movement to fight Naxals (Salwa
Judum), I am equally appalled at the romanticization of the tribal way of
life. (They need education and health please). //

Romance has its own importance in a discourse as it has in our dreary lives.
But romanticising doesn't mean denying the tribals their right to education
(?) and health. But,boy, where are the doctors? and teachers? in the tribal
areas? (You would say, "Let's go." And i like it!)


5)//she doesn't do research, nor does she lead ground movements or
participate in them.//

This is going a bit overboard. Now if you expect Arundhati to generate a
bunch of excel spreadsheets full of data relating to calorie intake in the
Naxal 'infested' areas and present her findings in a seminar held by
National Institute of Development and Planning, i think you are knocking at
a wrong door. She writes well and she's employing her writing skills to do
something she has a conviction for. I don't think one can really write with
conviction without doing some background research. It takes something to
take an informed ethical stand. I know of many bimbos who write equally or
much better than Arundhati but all they do is spill their existential
grudges on their blog pages, down a peg of vodka, shake a leg or two in a
disc and make merry till the dawn breaks. At least Arundhati is making a
better use of her skills.

The basic problem is that many people who need to speak have been rendered
incapable by prejudices that run back centuries. If one Ambedkar, a dalit,
properly educated and a master of English language can make these elites
shudder in their pants [even Gandhi had to abandon a public dialogue
abruptly because he didn't know what to do with Ambedkar's terse questions]
just imagine what would happen when every other dalit starts writing like
Arundhati. Wouldn't s/he flood the entire world with the tales of injustice
that the paisawallas have perpetrated for generations. Wouldn't they ask
them to pay for every injustice? Wouldn't they tear apart this charade that
the englishwallas have built around our lifeworlds. To my mind it is most of
these convent educated English speaking elites who are making everybody
bewkoof. They don't realise that much of what they do, or posses, or claim
to posses - material and intellectual - accrues by virtue of their facility
in the English language. Why is it that our English media don't have even 1
percent dalits? A person who has been fed on English from right after his
birth to right through his graduation and after ends up as a bullshitter
news anchor like Arnab Goswami or an ass of an interviewer or columnist like
Thapar or that hedonist par excellence of a chap called Vir Sanghvi.

I wonder what would have happened if Arundhati had been a Dalit? Doesn't
some perceptual change occur the moment we ask this question. What is it?

And finally, it would be a mistake to think that all the people who are
writing on the list don't have ground/field level affiliations. Some of the
people i know personally do take their time off from practical ground level
real work to post a thing or two on the list. And if you want to discuss
your grassroots level experiences on the list everybody welcomes you, its a
different thing that you find a response or not, but that shouldn't matter
because there shall always be somebody listening to what you have to say.
Else, there are many other alternative forums to compare your notes in.

Pheeta Ram