We are like a plane flying backwards, says Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy, writer and activist delivered the Gauri Lankesh Memorial Lecture in Bengaluru

Arundhati Roy, G.N. Devy, Prakash Rai, Kavita Lankesh and D. Umapati at Gouri Nenapu programme organised by Gouri Memorial Trust in Bengaluru on Monday, September 5. | Photo Credit: SUDHAKARA JAIN

“The country is now like a plane flying backwards. With institutions dysfunctional, we are today where we were during colonialism... We have to fight on the streets. But, even the streets are poisoned and we have to now start from below the streets, at sub-zero levels... The system is broken and we cannot fix it and a new system will take its place,” said Arundhati Roy, writer and activist who delivered the Gauri Lankesh Memorial Lecture in the city on Monday. 

Asked what fuelled her optimism, Ms. Roy said she had dedicated a book to those who have learnt to divorce hope from reason.

“Compared to what Europe or other parts of the world has seen and experienced, we haven’t even begun to understand what is war. There is no scope for despair. We have no option but to fight,” she said, adding that the problem in the country was the hierarchical society more than the state. 

However, she said the country had deteriorated to such an extent that from a country where a minister resigned over a railway accident, people are now benefitting from massacres. “That was why the rulers of Gujarat hurried the election after the 2002 riots and that is why today the rapists of Bilkis Bano have been released. There is an attempt to clear the legal trail of the riots for an international audience. On the other hand, there is claiming of its legacy for the domestic audience,” she said. 

“Today a party is able to come to power without Muslim votes which essentially means disenfranchising 200 million people. Two million people in Assam may lose their citizenship. BJP has emerged as perhaps the richest political party in the world through maze of opaque instruments and can topple elected governments at will. How can we call ourselves a democracy?,” She questioned.

On a satirical note, she suggested elected representatives should fight for a “Minimum Support Price (MSP)“, get stored in “Adani godowns” and get auctioned instead of the drama everytime, referring to the switching of sides of MLAs to BJP post elections. 

Asked by scholar G.N. Devy of the three words the country should fight for, if there was a “Minimum Speech Permission (MSP)“ a limited number of words a person is allowed to speak in the country, Ms. Roy said: Equality, Justice and Beauty. Mr. Devy asked Ms. Roy what was the source of beauty of the courage of Gauri Lankesh, Teesta Setalvad and Arundhati Roy, Ms. Roy read out a portion of her essay “The end of Imagination”: “To love, to be loved, to never forget your insignificance, to find happiness in sad places…”. 

Teesta calls for campaign for prison reforms

Teesta Setalvad, Chairperson, Gauri Memorial Trust, who was released from Ahmedabad prison two days ago on bail, sent a video message in which she called for a campaign for prison reforms especially over incarceration of women. 

“I thought of Gauri Lankesh when I was in the jail. She would have asked me about the state of women prisoners if she was here. I saw for myself how COVID-19 has impacted access to justice. Women in the prisons are being exploited. A few women who have completed 14 years in prison were waiting anxiously for their probable release on August 15. But the rapists of Bilkis Bano were released and not them. There is a crying need to take up a campaign for prison reforms and especially of women prisoners,” she said.