[Reader-list] Statement by Arundhati Roy

[Tapas Ray [Gmail]]

Pheeta,

No problem, and no need to apologise!

Best,

Tapas

On 27 October 2010 09:07, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Tapas
> Actually the statement was sent to me by somebody. I forgot to check if it
> had already been published online; that's why there was no link. Thanks for
> reminding me the etiquettes of responsible online publishing.
> I shall take care next time.
> Pheeta Ram
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 6:42 AM, Tapas Ray [Gmail] <tapasrayx at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Pheeta,
>>
>> Thanks for this. I think it would be good if we gave the links along
>> with any material from online sources that we might be posting. This
>> one's is
>> <http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/arundhati-roys-statement-on-possible-sedition-case-62566>.
>> As for offline sources (e.g., printed books, etc.), a mention of the
>> source, as complete as possible, would be very helpful.
>>
>> Thanks again.
>>
>> Tapas
>>
>>
>> On 27 October 2010 02:10, Pheeta Ram <pheeta.ram at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > STATEMENT BY ARUNDHATI ROY
>> >
>> > I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning’s papers say that I
>> > may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent
>> > public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say
>> > every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written
>> > and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my
>> > speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I
>> > spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of
>> > the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri
>> > Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their
>> > homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited
>> > on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor
>> > who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now
>> > learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.
>> >
>> > Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which
>> > had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the
>> > brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose
>> > bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose
>> > murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who
>> > is Nilofer’s husband and Asiya’s brother.  We sat in a circle of
>> > people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would
>> > ever get ‘insaf’—justice—from India, and now believed that
>> > Azadi—freedom— was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had
>> > been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me
>> > how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been
>> > taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment
>> > for throwing stones.
>> >
>> > In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of
>> > wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love
>> > and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped,
>> > imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force
>> > them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a
>> > society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to
>> > silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that
>> > needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass
>> > murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey
>> > on the poorest of the poor, roam free.
>> >
>> > Arundhati Roy
>> >
>> > October 26 2010
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