Arundhati Roy
Tradução / Enquanto a Índia celebra seu 73º ano de independência do domínio britânico, crianças esfarrapadas percorrem o trânsito de Délhi vendendo bandeiras e lembranças nacionais enormes que dizem: "Mera Bharat Mahan". Minha Índia é ótima. Honestamente, é difícil se sentir assim agora, porque parece muito que nosso governo está sendo desonesto.
Last week it unilaterally breached the fundamental conditions of the Instrument of Accession, by which the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India in 1947. In preparation for this, at midnight on Aug. 4, it turned all of Kashmir into a giant prison camp. Seven million Kashmiris were barricaded in their homes, internet connections were cut and their phones went dead.
O ministro indiano do Interior propôs no Parlamento que o Artigo 370 da Constituição Indiana (que descreve as obrigações legais decorrentes do instrumento de adesão) fosse anulado. Apesar do voto contra dos partidos da oposição, a nova lei foi aprovada pela câmara alta e também pela câmara baixa.
Ela anula o estatuto especial, incluindo a constituição e a bandeira da Caxemira. Ela divide o território em duas partes: Jammu e Caxemira, que será administrada diretamente pelo governo central de Nova Delhi (enquanto mantém uma assembleia legislativa eleita, mas com poderes consideravelmente reduzidos); e Ladakh, que será administrada diretamente de Nova Delhi e não terá assembleia legislativa.
The passing of the act was welcomed in Parliament by the very British tradition of desk-thumping. There was a distinct whiff of colonialism in the air. The masters were pleased that a recalcitrant colony had finally, formally, been brought under the crown. For its own good. Of course.
Na prática, os cidadãos indianos agora podem comprar terras e instalar-se na Caxemira sem impedimentos. Os investidores indianos, como o industrial mais rico da Índia, Mukesh Ambani, ambicionam já em possuir esta terra rica de vastos glaciares, lagos de alta altitude e cinco grandes rios.
A dissolução da entidade jurídica do estado significa igualmente a dissolução do artigo 35A, que concedia aos residentes direitos e privilégios que lhes permitiam ser administradores do seu próprio território. Durante muito tempo, os caxemirenses temeram esta eventualidade. É um pesadelo recorrente: o de ser varridos por uma onda de indianos e tornarem-se uma espécie de palestinianos de territórios ocupados e repovoados de colonos.
For Kashmiris, in particular, this has been an old, primal fear. Their recurring nightmare (an inversion of the one being peddled by Donald Trump) of being swept away by a tidal wave of triumphant Indians wanting a little home in their sylvan valley could easily come true.
As news of the new act spread, Indian nationalists of all stripes cheered. The mainstream media, for the most part, made a low, sweeping bow. There was dancing in the streets and horrifying misogyny on the internet. Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of the state of Haryana, bordering Delhi, while speaking about the improvement he had brought about in the skewed gender ratio in his state, joked: “Our Dhakarji used to say we will bring in girls from Bihar. Now they say Kashmir is open, we can bring girls from there.”
O mais impressionante agora é o silêncio mortal das ruas patrulhadas e barricadas da Caxemira e dos seus mais de sete milhões de pessoas enjauladas, humilhadas, espiadas por drones, isoladas do mundo. That in this age of information, a government can so easily cut off a whole population from the rest of the world for days at a time, says something serious about the times we are heading toward.
Kashmir, they often say, is the unfinished business of the “Partition.” That word suggests that in 1947, when the British drew their famously careless border through the subcontinent, there was a “whole” that was then partitioned. In truth, there was no “whole.” Apart from the territory of British India, there were hundreds of sovereign principalities, each of which individually negotiated the terms on which it would merge with either India or Pakistan. Many that did not wish to merge were forced to.
While Partition and the horrifying violence that it caused is a deep, unhealed wound in the memory of the subcontinent, the violence of those times, as well as in the years since, in India and Pakistan, has as much to do with assimilation as it does with partition. In India the project of assimilation, which goes under the banner of nation-building, has meant that there has not been a single year since 1947 when the Indian Army has not been deployed within India’s borders against its “own people.” The list is long — Kashmir, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Hyderabad, Assam.
The business of assimilation has been complicated and painful and has cost tens of thousands of lives. What is unfolding today on both sides of the border of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir is the unfinished business of assimilation.
What happened in the Indian Parliament last week was tantamount to cremating the Instrument of Accession. It was a document with a complicated provenance that had been signed by a discredited king, the Dogra Hindu King, Maharaja Hari Singh. His unstable, tattered kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir lay on the fault lines of the new border between India and Pakistan.
The rebellions that had broken out against him in 1945 had been aggravated and subsumed by the spreading bush fires of Partition. In the western mountain district of Poonch, Muslims, who were the majority, turned on the Maharaja’s forces and on Hindu civilians. In Jammu, to the south, the Maharaja’s forces assisted by troops borrowed from other princely states, massacred Muslims. Historians and news reports of the time estimated that somewhere between 70,000 and 200,000 were murdered in the streets of the city, and in its neighboring districts.
Inflamed by the news of the Jammu massacre, Pakistani “irregulars” swooped down from the mountains of the North Western Frontier Province, burning and pillaging their way across the Kashmir Valley. Hari Singh fled from Kashmir to Jammu from where he appealed to Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian prime minister, for help. The document that provided legal cover for the Indian Army to enter Kashmir was the Instrument of Accession.
The Indian Army, with some help from local people, pushed back the Pakistani “irregulars,” but only as far as the ring of mountains on the edge of the valley. The former Dogra kingdom now lay divided between India and Pakistan. The Instrument of Accession was meant to be ratified by a referendum to ascertain the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. That promised referendum never took place. So was born the subcontinent’s most intractable and dangerous political problem.
In the 72 years since then, successive Indian governments have undermined terms of the Instrument of Accession until all that was left of it was the skeletal structure. Now even that has been shot to hell.
It would be foolhardy to try to summarize the twists and turns of how things have come to this. Let’s just say that it’s as complicated and as dangerous as the games the United States played with its puppet regimes in South Vietnam all through the 50s and 60s.
Esta situação resulta de uma lenta destruição. Um momento decisivo ocorreu em 1987, quando Nova Delhi fraudou eleições no Estado. Em 1989, a reivindicação de autodeterminação, até então não violenta, transformou-se numa luta pela liberdade. Centenas de milhares de pessoas correram para as ruas para serem abatidas, massacre após massacre.
O vale de Caxemira foi rapidamente invadido por militantes da Caxemira de ambos os lados da fronteira, assim como de combatentes estrangeiros, treinados e armados pelo Paquistão e adotados. E assim, a Caxemira entrou na tempestade. De um lado, um Islão cada vez mais radicalizado no Paquistão e no Afeganistão, totalmente estranho à cultura cachemirense; e, do outro, o nacionalismo hindu fanático que estava em ascensão na Índia.
Last week it unilaterally breached the fundamental conditions of the Instrument of Accession, by which the former Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India in 1947. In preparation for this, at midnight on Aug. 4, it turned all of Kashmir into a giant prison camp. Seven million Kashmiris were barricaded in their homes, internet connections were cut and their phones went dead.
O ministro indiano do Interior propôs no Parlamento que o Artigo 370 da Constituição Indiana (que descreve as obrigações legais decorrentes do instrumento de adesão) fosse anulado. Apesar do voto contra dos partidos da oposição, a nova lei foi aprovada pela câmara alta e também pela câmara baixa.
Ela anula o estatuto especial, incluindo a constituição e a bandeira da Caxemira. Ela divide o território em duas partes: Jammu e Caxemira, que será administrada diretamente pelo governo central de Nova Delhi (enquanto mantém uma assembleia legislativa eleita, mas com poderes consideravelmente reduzidos); e Ladakh, que será administrada diretamente de Nova Delhi e não terá assembleia legislativa.
The passing of the act was welcomed in Parliament by the very British tradition of desk-thumping. There was a distinct whiff of colonialism in the air. The masters were pleased that a recalcitrant colony had finally, formally, been brought under the crown. For its own good. Of course.
Na prática, os cidadãos indianos agora podem comprar terras e instalar-se na Caxemira sem impedimentos. Os investidores indianos, como o industrial mais rico da Índia, Mukesh Ambani, ambicionam já em possuir esta terra rica de vastos glaciares, lagos de alta altitude e cinco grandes rios.
A dissolução da entidade jurídica do estado significa igualmente a dissolução do artigo 35A, que concedia aos residentes direitos e privilégios que lhes permitiam ser administradores do seu próprio território. Durante muito tempo, os caxemirenses temeram esta eventualidade. É um pesadelo recorrente: o de ser varridos por uma onda de indianos e tornarem-se uma espécie de palestinianos de territórios ocupados e repovoados de colonos.
For Kashmiris, in particular, this has been an old, primal fear. Their recurring nightmare (an inversion of the one being peddled by Donald Trump) of being swept away by a tidal wave of triumphant Indians wanting a little home in their sylvan valley could easily come true.
As news of the new act spread, Indian nationalists of all stripes cheered. The mainstream media, for the most part, made a low, sweeping bow. There was dancing in the streets and horrifying misogyny on the internet. Manohar Lal Khattar, chief minister of the state of Haryana, bordering Delhi, while speaking about the improvement he had brought about in the skewed gender ratio in his state, joked: “Our Dhakarji used to say we will bring in girls from Bihar. Now they say Kashmir is open, we can bring girls from there.”
O mais impressionante agora é o silêncio mortal das ruas patrulhadas e barricadas da Caxemira e dos seus mais de sete milhões de pessoas enjauladas, humilhadas, espiadas por drones, isoladas do mundo. That in this age of information, a government can so easily cut off a whole population from the rest of the world for days at a time, says something serious about the times we are heading toward.
Kashmir, they often say, is the unfinished business of the “Partition.” That word suggests that in 1947, when the British drew their famously careless border through the subcontinent, there was a “whole” that was then partitioned. In truth, there was no “whole.” Apart from the territory of British India, there were hundreds of sovereign principalities, each of which individually negotiated the terms on which it would merge with either India or Pakistan. Many that did not wish to merge were forced to.
While Partition and the horrifying violence that it caused is a deep, unhealed wound in the memory of the subcontinent, the violence of those times, as well as in the years since, in India and Pakistan, has as much to do with assimilation as it does with partition. In India the project of assimilation, which goes under the banner of nation-building, has meant that there has not been a single year since 1947 when the Indian Army has not been deployed within India’s borders against its “own people.” The list is long — Kashmir, Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Hyderabad, Assam.
The business of assimilation has been complicated and painful and has cost tens of thousands of lives. What is unfolding today on both sides of the border of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir is the unfinished business of assimilation.
What happened in the Indian Parliament last week was tantamount to cremating the Instrument of Accession. It was a document with a complicated provenance that had been signed by a discredited king, the Dogra Hindu King, Maharaja Hari Singh. His unstable, tattered kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir lay on the fault lines of the new border between India and Pakistan.
The rebellions that had broken out against him in 1945 had been aggravated and subsumed by the spreading bush fires of Partition. In the western mountain district of Poonch, Muslims, who were the majority, turned on the Maharaja’s forces and on Hindu civilians. In Jammu, to the south, the Maharaja’s forces assisted by troops borrowed from other princely states, massacred Muslims. Historians and news reports of the time estimated that somewhere between 70,000 and 200,000 were murdered in the streets of the city, and in its neighboring districts.
Inflamed by the news of the Jammu massacre, Pakistani “irregulars” swooped down from the mountains of the North Western Frontier Province, burning and pillaging their way across the Kashmir Valley. Hari Singh fled from Kashmir to Jammu from where he appealed to Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian prime minister, for help. The document that provided legal cover for the Indian Army to enter Kashmir was the Instrument of Accession.
The Indian Army, with some help from local people, pushed back the Pakistani “irregulars,” but only as far as the ring of mountains on the edge of the valley. The former Dogra kingdom now lay divided between India and Pakistan. The Instrument of Accession was meant to be ratified by a referendum to ascertain the will of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. That promised referendum never took place. So was born the subcontinent’s most intractable and dangerous political problem.
In the 72 years since then, successive Indian governments have undermined terms of the Instrument of Accession until all that was left of it was the skeletal structure. Now even that has been shot to hell.
It would be foolhardy to try to summarize the twists and turns of how things have come to this. Let’s just say that it’s as complicated and as dangerous as the games the United States played with its puppet regimes in South Vietnam all through the 50s and 60s.
Esta situação resulta de uma lenta destruição. Um momento decisivo ocorreu em 1987, quando Nova Delhi fraudou eleições no Estado. Em 1989, a reivindicação de autodeterminação, até então não violenta, transformou-se numa luta pela liberdade. Centenas de milhares de pessoas correram para as ruas para serem abatidas, massacre após massacre.
O vale de Caxemira foi rapidamente invadido por militantes da Caxemira de ambos os lados da fronteira, assim como de combatentes estrangeiros, treinados e armados pelo Paquistão e adotados. E assim, a Caxemira entrou na tempestade. De um lado, um Islão cada vez mais radicalizado no Paquistão e no Afeganistão, totalmente estranho à cultura cachemirense; e, do outro, o nacionalismo hindu fanático que estava em ascensão na Índia.
A primeira vítima do levante foi o vínculo secular entre os muçulmanos da Caxemira e sua pequena minoria de hindus, conhecida localmente como Pandits. Quando a violência começou, de acordo com o Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, ou o K.P.S.S., uma organização administrada por Kashmiri Pandits, cerca de 400 Pandits foram alvos e assassinados por militantes. Até o final de 1990, de acordo com uma estimativa do governo, 25.000 famílias Pandit deixaram o vale.
They lost their homes, their homeland and everything they had. Over the years thousands more left — almost the entire population. As the conflict continued, in addition to tens of thousands of Muslims, the K.P.S.S. says 650 Pandits have been killed in the conflict.
Vinte anos depois, milhares deles estão a definhar em miseráveis campos de refugiados na cidade de Jammu que os sucessivos governos de Nova Delhi estão a perpetuar para manter estas populações no limbo e incitar a sua raiva e amargura para alimentar a perigosa narrativa nacionalista da Índia sobre a Caxemira. In this version, a single aspect of an epic tragedy is cannily and noisily used to draw a curtain across the rest of the horror.
Hoje, a Caxemira é uma das áreas mais militarizadas do mundo. Mais de meio milhão de soldados foram para lá enviados. Estima-se que 70.000 civis, militantes e forças de segurança foram mortos no conflito. Milhares de pessoas "desapareceram" e dezenas de milhares de pessoas passaram por câmaras de tortura espalhadas no vale como uma rede de pequenos Abu Ghraibs.
Nos últimos anos, centenas de adolescentes ficaram cegos pelo uso de espingardas com zagalotes, a nova arma escolhida pelas forças de segurança. Hoje, a maioria dos militantes que operam no vale são jovens caxemirenses, armados e treinados localmente. Eles fazem o que fazem, sabendo muito bem que, no momento em que tiram uma arma, o seu "tempo de vida" é inferior a seis meses. Sempre que um "terrorista" é morto, os caxemirenses chegam em dezenas de milhares para enterrar o jovem a quem adoram como um shaheed, um mártir.
They lost their homes, their homeland and everything they had. Over the years thousands more left — almost the entire population. As the conflict continued, in addition to tens of thousands of Muslims, the K.P.S.S. says 650 Pandits have been killed in the conflict.
Vinte anos depois, milhares deles estão a definhar em miseráveis campos de refugiados na cidade de Jammu que os sucessivos governos de Nova Delhi estão a perpetuar para manter estas populações no limbo e incitar a sua raiva e amargura para alimentar a perigosa narrativa nacionalista da Índia sobre a Caxemira. In this version, a single aspect of an epic tragedy is cannily and noisily used to draw a curtain across the rest of the horror.
Hoje, a Caxemira é uma das áreas mais militarizadas do mundo. Mais de meio milhão de soldados foram para lá enviados. Estima-se que 70.000 civis, militantes e forças de segurança foram mortos no conflito. Milhares de pessoas "desapareceram" e dezenas de milhares de pessoas passaram por câmaras de tortura espalhadas no vale como uma rede de pequenos Abu Ghraibs.
Nos últimos anos, centenas de adolescentes ficaram cegos pelo uso de espingardas com zagalotes, a nova arma escolhida pelas forças de segurança. Hoje, a maioria dos militantes que operam no vale são jovens caxemirenses, armados e treinados localmente. Eles fazem o que fazem, sabendo muito bem que, no momento em que tiram uma arma, o seu "tempo de vida" é inferior a seis meses. Sempre que um "terrorista" é morto, os caxemirenses chegam em dezenas de milhares para enterrar o jovem a quem adoram como um shaheed, um mártir.
These are only the rough coordinates of a 30-year-old military occupation. The most cruel effects of an occupation that has lasted decades are impossible to describe in an account as short as this.
Durante o primeiro mandato de Narendra Modi como primeiro-ministro da Índia, esta violência foi exacerbada. Em fevereiro, depois de um kamikaze caxemirense ter matado 40 membros das forças de segurança indianas, a Índia lançou um ataque aéreo contra o Paquistão. O Paquistão ripostou. Os dois países tornaram-se as duas primeiras potências nucleares da história a lançar ataques aéreos uma contra a outra. Agora, dois meses depois da sua reeleição, Narendra Modi lançou um fósforo aceso para um barril de pólvora.
If that were not bad enough, the cheap, deceitful way in which it did it is disgraceful. In the last week of July, 45,000 extra troops were rushed into Kashmir on various pretexts. The one that got the most traction was that there was a Pakistani “terror” threat to the Amarnath Yatra — the annual pilgrimage in which hundreds of thousands of Hindu devotees trek (or are carried by Kashmiri porters) through high mountains to visit the Amarnath cave and pay their respects to a natural ice formation that they believe is an avatar of Shiva.
On Aug. 1, some Indian television networks announced that a land mine with Pakistani Army markings on it had been found on the pilgrimage route. On Aug. 2, the government published a notice asking all pilgrims (and even tourists who were miles from the pilgrimage route) to leave the valley immediately. That set off a panicky exodus. The approximately 200,000 Indian migrant day laborers in Kashmir were clearly not a concern to those supervising the evacuation. Too poor to matter, I’m guessing. By Saturday, Aug. 3, tourists and pilgrims had left and the security forces had taken up position across the valley.
By midnight Sunday, Kashmiris were barricaded in their homes, and all communication networks went down. The next morning, we learned that, along with several hundred others, three former chief ministers, Farooq Abdullah, his son, Omar Abdullah of the National Conference and Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party, had been arrested. Those are the mainstream pro-India politicians who have carried India’s water through the years of insurrection.
Newspapers report that the Jammu & Kashmir police force has been disarmed. More than anybody else, these local police men have put their bodies on the front line, have done the groundwork, provided the apparatus of the occupation with the intelligence that it needs, done the brutal bidding of their masters and, for their pains, earned the contempt of their own people. All to keep the Indian flag flying in Kashmir. And now, when the situation is nothing short of explosive, they are going to be fed to the furious mob like so much cannon fodder.
The betrayal and public humiliation of India’s allies by Narendra Modi’s government comes from a kind of hubris and ignorance that has gutted the sly, elaborate structures painstakingly cultivated over decades by cunning, but consummate, Indian statecraft. Now that that’s done — it is down to the Street vs. the Soldier. Apart from what it does to the young Kashmiris on the street, it is also a preposterous thing to do to soldiers.
The more militant sections of the Kashmiri population, who have been demanding the right to self-determination or merger with Pakistan, have little regard for India’s laws or constitution. They will no doubt be pleased that those they see as collaborators have been sold down the river and that the game of smoke and mirrors is finally over. It might be too soon for them to rejoice. Because as sure as eggs are eggs and fish are fish, there will be new smoke and new mirrors. And new political parties. And a new game in town.
On Aug. 8, four days into the lockdown, Narendra Modi appeared on television to address an ostensibly celebrating India and an incarcerated Kashmir. He sounded like a changed man. Gone was his customary aggression and his jarring, accusatory tone. Instead he spoke with the tenderness of a young mother. It’s his most chilling avatar to date.
His voice quivered and his eyes shone with unspilled tears as he listed the slew of benefits that would rain down on the people of the former State of Jammu and Kashmir, now that it was rid of its old, corrupt leaders, and was going to be ruled directly from New Delhi. He evoked the marvels of Indian modernity as though he were educating a bunch of feudal peasants who had emerged from a time capsule. He spoke of how Bollywood films would once again be shot in their verdant valley.
He didn’t explain why Kashmiris needed to be locked down and put under a communications blockade while he delivered his stirring speech. He didn’t explain why the decision that supposedly benefited them so hugely was taken without consulting them. He didn’t say how the great gifts of Indian democracy could be enjoyed by a people who live under a military occupation. He remembered to greet them in advance for Eid, a few days away. But he didn’t promise that the lockdown would be lifted for the festival. It wasn’t.
The next morning, the Indian newspapers and several liberal commentators, including some of Narendra Modi’s most trenchant critics gushed over his moving speech. Like true colonials, many in India who are so alert to infringements of their own rights and liberties, have a completely different standard for Kashmiris.
A 15 de agosto, no seu discurso no Dia da Independência, Narendra Modi gabou-se das muralhas do Forte Vermelho em Delhi que o seu governo tinha finalmente realizado o sonho de tornar a Índia "uma nação, uma Constituição". Mas na véspera, grupos rebeldes que operam em vários Estados problemáticos no nordeste da Índia, muitos dos quais têm um estatuto especial como o antigo Estado de Jammu e Caxemira, anunciaram um boicote à festa da Independência. While Narendra Modi’s Red Fort audience cheered, about seven million Kashmiris remained locked down. The communication shutdown, we now hear, could be extended for some time to come.
É muito provável que a violência na Caxemira se espalhe pela Índia. Ela será usada para inflamar a hostilidade contra os muçulmanos indianos que já são demonizados, guetizados, empurrados para o fundo da escala económica e, cada vez mais, linchados. O Estado também se aproveitará para atacar outras pessoas - militantes, advogados, artistas, estudantes, intelectuais, jornalistas - que protestaram com coragem e abertamente.
A poderosa organização de extrema-direita Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) tem mais de 600.000 membros, incluindo Narendra Modi e vários dos seus ministros. Ela dispõe de uma milícia "voluntária", inspirada nos camisas negras. Cada dia que passa, a RSS aperta mais as instituições do estado indiano. In truth, it has reached a point when it more or less is the state.
In the benevolent shadow of such a state, numerous smaller Hindu vigilante organizations, the storm troopers of the Hindu Nation, have mushroomed across the country, and are conscientiously going about their deadly business.
Entre os seus alvos estão intelectuais e académicos que, de acordo com Ram Madhav, secretário geral da RSS devem ser afastados da esfera académica, cultural e intelectual do país. Perante essa "marginalização", a já draconiana lei sobre a "prevenção de atividades ilegais" foi alterada para alargar a definição de "terrorista" para incluir indivíduos, não apenas organizações. A emenda permite que o governo designe uma pessoa como terrorista sem seguir o devido processo e sem julgamento.
On Aug. 1, in preparation for that “discarding,” the already draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was amended to expand the definition of “terrorist” to include individuals, not just organizations. The amendment allows the government to designate any individual as a terrorist without following the due process of a First Information Report, charge sheet, trial and conviction. Just who — just what kind of individuals it means — was clear when in Parliament, Amit Shah, our chilling home minister, said: “Sir, guns do not give rise to terrorism, the root of terrorism is the propaganda that is done to spread it … And if all such individuals are designated terrorists, I don’t think any member of Parliament should have any objection.”
Several of us felt his cold eyes staring straight at us. It didn’t help to know that he has done time as the main accused in a series of murders in his home state, Gujarat. His trial judge, Justice Brijgopal Harkishen Loya, died mysteriously during the trial and was replaced by another who acquitted him speedily. Emboldened by all this, far-right television anchors on hundreds of India’s news networks, now openly denounce dissidents, make wild allegations about them and call for their arrest, or worse. “Lynched by TV,” is likely to be the new political phenomenon in India.
Enquanto o mundo olha passivamente, a arquitetura do fascismo indiano é rapidamente posta em prática.
I was booked to fly to Kashmir to see some friends on July 28. The whispers about trouble, and troops being flown in, had already begun. I was of two minds about going. A friend of mine and I were chatting about it at my home. He is a senior doctor at a government hospital who has dedicated his life to public service, and happens to be Muslim. We started talking about the new phenomenon of mobs surrounding people, Muslims in particular, and forcing them to chant “Jai Shri Ram!” (“Victory to Lord Ram!”)
If Kashmir is occupied by security forces, India is occupied by the mob.
He said he had been thinking about that, too, because he often drove on the highways out of Delhi to visit his family who live some hours away.
“I could easily be stopped,” he said.
“You must say it then,” I said. “You must survive.”
“I won’t,” he said, “because they’ll kill me either way. That’s what they did to Tabrez Ansari.”
These are the conversations we are having in India while we wait for Kashmir to speak. And speak it surely will.
Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” Her most recent book is a collection of essays, “My Seditious Heart.”
Entre os seus alvos estão intelectuais e académicos que, de acordo com Ram Madhav, secretário geral da RSS devem ser afastados da esfera académica, cultural e intelectual do país. Perante essa "marginalização", a já draconiana lei sobre a "prevenção de atividades ilegais" foi alterada para alargar a definição de "terrorista" para incluir indivíduos, não apenas organizações. A emenda permite que o governo designe uma pessoa como terrorista sem seguir o devido processo e sem julgamento.
On Aug. 1, in preparation for that “discarding,” the already draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was amended to expand the definition of “terrorist” to include individuals, not just organizations. The amendment allows the government to designate any individual as a terrorist without following the due process of a First Information Report, charge sheet, trial and conviction. Just who — just what kind of individuals it means — was clear when in Parliament, Amit Shah, our chilling home minister, said: “Sir, guns do not give rise to terrorism, the root of terrorism is the propaganda that is done to spread it … And if all such individuals are designated terrorists, I don’t think any member of Parliament should have any objection.”
Several of us felt his cold eyes staring straight at us. It didn’t help to know that he has done time as the main accused in a series of murders in his home state, Gujarat. His trial judge, Justice Brijgopal Harkishen Loya, died mysteriously during the trial and was replaced by another who acquitted him speedily. Emboldened by all this, far-right television anchors on hundreds of India’s news networks, now openly denounce dissidents, make wild allegations about them and call for their arrest, or worse. “Lynched by TV,” is likely to be the new political phenomenon in India.
Enquanto o mundo olha passivamente, a arquitetura do fascismo indiano é rapidamente posta em prática.
I was booked to fly to Kashmir to see some friends on July 28. The whispers about trouble, and troops being flown in, had already begun. I was of two minds about going. A friend of mine and I were chatting about it at my home. He is a senior doctor at a government hospital who has dedicated his life to public service, and happens to be Muslim. We started talking about the new phenomenon of mobs surrounding people, Muslims in particular, and forcing them to chant “Jai Shri Ram!” (“Victory to Lord Ram!”)
If Kashmir is occupied by security forces, India is occupied by the mob.
He said he had been thinking about that, too, because he often drove on the highways out of Delhi to visit his family who live some hours away.
“I could easily be stopped,” he said.
“You must say it then,” I said. “You must survive.”
“I won’t,” he said, “because they’ll kill me either way. That’s what they did to Tabrez Ansari.”
These are the conversations we are having in India while we wait for Kashmir to speak. And speak it surely will.
Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.” Her most recent book is a collection of essays, “My Seditious Heart.”
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