Re: Arundhati Roy on India and Its Maoists

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 4/14/07, raghu <mraghu01@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > I've really never gotten much sense of what kind of
> > economic policy she thinks India should follow, and how to get there.
> > I once asked her U.S. agent, very sophisticated fellow politically,
> > what her politics were, and he said he'd rather drink a beer.
>
> This is exactly the argument her intellectual opponents offer - that she
> opposes everything without offering any alternatives. It is of course the
> same argument offered against socialists everywhere. And it is an unfair
> criticism. The deficiencies of Roy's alternatives have nothing to do with
> the merits of her criticisms.

On 4/14/07, ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> So, who needs anything more than morals? A science like "dialectical
> materialism"? Puh-lease, as they say ;-).

Based on her novel, as well as this interview and several other pieces
by and about her, I think Roy is cautiously sympathetic to the Maoists
among India's Marxists, but she doesn't quite think that the Maoists
are the answer to India's problems either.  If that's indeed her take
(I may be misunderstanding where she actually stands), it seems to me
that she's right about her assessment.  If she doesn't have a solution
to the problems she decries, that is only because no one party on the
left side of the political spectrum in India has one either.

If a convergence of social forces ever develops in India that presents
a promising way to go, I'm sure that she'll join it, and her ability
to write in English comes in handy.  All social (r)evolutions need
their propagandists.
--
Yoshie