The world-renowned Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy has recently become the target of a dangerous attack by the fascist government of India headed by Narendra Modi. All people of conscience should rally to her defense.
On June 14, a top official in Modi’s fascist Hindu-nationalist BJP party gave the go-ahead for judicial authorities to pursue prosecution of Roy for sedition under India’s “anti-terror” laws.1 In India, sedition is a broad charge that includes speaking up against the established authority. These laws allow the Indian government to detain suspects for up to 180 days without any charges and to classify people as terrorists even if they aren’t linked to any so-called terror group.
Roy’s offense? Giving a speech in 2010—14 years ago!—at an event supporting independence for the territory of Kashmir. Kashmir, home to nine million Kashmiri Muslims, is a territory northwest of India that’s divided between India and Pakistan and under brutal military occupation by both. Under Modi, the population has basically been locked in their homes with thousands arrested and foreign journalists prevented from covering these crimes.2
At the 2010 event, Arundhati Roy courageously spoke the truth:
Look, Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. However aggressively and however often you want to ask me that, even the Indian government has accepted in the U.N. that it’s not an integral part of India. So, why are we trying to change that narrative now? 3
The Attack on Arundhati Roy and Stepped-Up Fascism in India
Arundhati Roy is an important award-winning novelist. She has also been a tireless campaigner against Modi’s fascist Hindu nationalism, including its policies on Kashmir, and the oppression and dispossession of the masses of Indian people.
She has directly called out Modi, a Hindu-fascist who believes India should be ruled by and for Hindus. Modi has ruthlessly tried to crush any opposition, even from within the Indian ruling class, and has targeted and persecuted India’s 200 million Muslims.
The attack on Arundhati Roy is not only motivated by crushing opposition to India’s reactionary occupation of Kashmir. It is also part of a broader, fascist assault on dissent, women, the poor, and India’s non-Hindu populations.
Roy writes,
Autocrats invariably target not only human rights defenders and journalists but also writers and artists. They instinctively recognize the power of words and, by extension, free and creative expression to spark imagination, kindle hope, and allow people to imagine different and better worlds built on equality, freedom, and human rights. In the absence of free expression, other freedoms are quick to die, paving the way for autocrats to write their own rules.4
Denounce India’s Attack on Arundhati Roy and America’s Criminal Support of the Fascist Modi Regime
Modi and his regime have been embraced and supported by every U.S. president—Obama, Trump, Biden—since he took power, even as his fascist atrocities have become more and more blatant.5
Everyone who values the vital role played by artists and intellectuals such as Arundhati Roy should speak up on her behalf now—and denounce the U.S.’s criminal support of the fascist Modi regime.