Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 06:26:43 -0400
Subject: an interview with arundhati roy


>From: saeed urrehman <saeed.urrehman-AT-anu.edu.au>
>Subject: an interview with arundhati roy
>Sender: owner-postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>http://www.the-hindu.com/fline/fl1617/16171320.htm
>
>THE NARMADA VALLEY 
>
>'I felt that the valley needed a writer' 
>
>Arundhati Roy's essay The Greater Common Good and the "Rally for the
>Valley" campaign that she organised and participated in have given the
>Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) a boost. Although the 39-year-old Booker
>Prize-winning author insisted during the rally that she was "just a
>writer", there is no doubt that more is expected of her in the months
>ahead. Even though cynics said that she was trying to don the mantle of NBA
>leader Medha Patkar, the rally showed that Arundhati Roy had no such a
>mbitions. For the people of the valley, she is their didi (elder sister)
>and Patkar their devi (goddess). 
>
>Travelling with other participants in a convoy of six buses, Arundhati Roy
>was mobbed at the countless stops on the 800-km route that began and ended
>in Indore. She handled the flower-showers, tilak ceremonies and autograph
>hunters with amazing calm. Ask ed to speak at almost every halt, she
>affirmed her solidarity with the people and encouraged them to speak. "We
>are here to listen to you," she said. 
>
>
>In an interview with Lyla Bavadam she spoke of her experiences during the
>rally. Excerpts: 
>
>The Rally for the Valley has certainly brought the issue of big dams on the
>Narmada back into the public arena and given the work of the NBA a boost.
>What is the extent of your commitment to the cause? And what form will your
>involvement take in the long term? 
>
>I don't know how one quantifies the extent of one's commitment (Large,
>Extra Large, Petite?), neither do I think of the struggle in the valley as
>a 'cause' because 'cause' is too small a word...Was the Holocaust a
>'cause'? As far as I'm concerned, whethe r the protest is about Nuclear
>Weapons or Big Dams on the Narmada, what one is fighting for is nothing
>less than a worldview, a way of seeing. Why, even The God of Small Things
>is a worldview. What all of these works have in common is that they at
>tempt to analyse power and powerlessness. So, to answer the question of my
>commitment - all I can say is that I have no other way of seeing -
>instinctively, emotionally, intellectually, politically. What form will my
>involvement take in the long term? I don't really know, but I imagine what
>is most effective is my writing.... My commitment is total, but I have to
>be effective, otherwise it would be pointless. 
>
>What brought the Narmada issue to your notice first? 
>
>To be honest, I hadn't been following the struggle in the valley in minute
>detail. Like most people, I thought that some dams (not 3,200 of them) were
>being built on the Narmada, that large numbers of people were being
>displaced and that resettlement was being carried out callously in true
>government fashion. When the World Bank withdrew in 1993 and the Supreme
>Court ordered a stay on the construction in 1994, I thought that the
>struggle had more or less been won. I assumed that the Court was reviewing
>the whole project. In February this year, when the stay was lifted, my
>antennae went up. I began to read up on what was happening and grew more
>and more horrified at what I learned. I learned that rehabilitation was
>only one of several vital issues. From all that I read, I felt that what
>was missing was a communication of the entire issue to an interested lay
>person - I felt that what had been communicated was a fractured picture -
>displacement, rehabilitation, irrigation issues, the politics of who get s
>the benefits - all these had somehow got disconnected from each other. The
>reason for this is quite simple - it's a complex issue and journalists
>would have had to fight for column space to communicate even a part of the
>problem. I really felt that the valley needed a writer...and so I wrote The
>Greater Common Good. 
>
>Critics say that you have suddenly developed a social conscience and the
>Narmada Bachao campaign is a convenient bandwagon to assuage it. How would
>you react to this? 
>
>Maybe they're right. It's such a delightful accusation. Is it a crime to
>develop suddenly a social conscience? Is there a sort of age limit after
>which one should avoid developing a social conscience? But maybe the
>critics you mention should take a look at my earlier work - for instance
>they could begin by reading The God of Small Things, or going to the School
>of Architecture and reading my B.Arch thesis. They could read back issues
>of a magazine called Urban India, published by the Natio nal Institute of
>Urban Affairs. They could read back issues of Sunday, where I published
>three essays before I became 'famous'. Back then I was criticised for
>writing what I wrote because I was a 'failed' writer. Now I'm criticised
>because I'm a ' successful' writer. As for the Narmada Bachao Andolan being
>a 'convenient' bandwagon - here is a movement that is one of a kind.
>Nowhere in the world has there been a more spectacular fight for a river
>valley. As a writer I have written in support of it - now that can be
>twisted and made to sound ugly. What can I say? Simply that I support the
>struggle in the valley. My motives for supporting it are not the issue. The
>struggle is the issue. The unfolding human and ecological tragedy is the
>issue. 
>
>Gail Omvedt has written an article which amounts to being a critique of
>your essay. In it she has called your essay "rhetoric" and categorised your
>statement about the common destructiveness of big dams and bombs as
>"reckless". She also strongly cond emns opposition to big dams, calling it
>"eco-romanticism''. Could you comment on this. 
>
>I respect Gail Omvedt for presenting a counter-argument graciously instead
>of dismissing everybody who is against Big Dams with some tasteless
>invective. Her article is more a critique of the NBA (which she obviously
>dislikes) than a critique of my essay . I think there are too many facts
>and figures in The Greater Common Good for it to be dismissed as mere
>rhetoric...Eco-romanticism? I don't think so. Gail Omvedt subscribes to the
>classic 'green revolution' school of thought - maximise production in a
>minimum period of time regardless of the ecological consequences. Long-term
>sustainability is not even taken into consideration. Thousands of hectares
>of land are now water-logged and salt-affected thanks to this approach.
>It's the steroid-user syn drome. If avoiding steroids is romantic then
>perhaps I am a romantic. Gail should read Silenced Rivers by Patrick
>McCully. I think it answers her queries comprehensively. It is not reckless
>to say that Big Dams have proved to be instruments of mas s destruction.
>From me, she deserves more than just an off-the-cuff answer in someone
>else's interview. Perhaps I'll get down to writing it. Let me simply say
>here that I would love to be convinced that Big Dams are the solution to
>India's problems. She hasn't managed to make me change my mind. I wish, I
>wish she had come to the valley. How do you compensate a people once you
>submerge their civilisation? We must stop pretending that rehabilitation is
>possible. It isn't. In the last 15 years not one vill age in the
>submergence zone has been rehabilitated according to the orders of the
>Tribunal. In the last 50 years between 33 million and 40 million people
>have been uprooted by the reservoirs of Big Dams. Those of us who support
>these Stalinist schemes mu st at least be honest enough to support them
>even if there is no rehabilitation. Honest enough to admit that like the
>terrorised tiger in the Belgrade Zoo during the NATO bombing, we have begun
>to eat our own limbs. 
>
>There was a lot of opposition to the Rally for the Valley from Gujarat and
>there were also a few instances of local journalists being overly
>aggressive. Could you describe what happened? 
>
>The Gujarat Government flooded Kevadia colony and the dam site with the
>police. They turned it into an international order. They declared Section
>144. They closed the local haat (market) at Kavaat. They prevented all
>those who had to come through Baroda (Vadodara) from joining the rally.
>Some newspapers triumphantly declared that the rally had tried to enter
>Gujarat at night and had been turned back. They claimed this was a moral
>victory for Gujarat. It's astounding, the lies they managed to spre ad.
>Earlier BJP and Congress goons had vied to burn my book in Gujarat. They
>threatened to break up a meeting in Ahmedabad at which I had been invited
>to speak and therefore the invitation was cancelled. I suppose Rs. 44,000
>crores, which is the total es timated project cost, is too much money for
>any political party to pass up. Imagine the election campaigns that can be
>funded with that kind of money. 
>
>Even in Indore, again and again, certain people from the press who were
>rumoured to be in the employ of either S. Kumars or the Nigam would come
>and suddenly switch on a television camera and accuse me of being a foreign
>agent. The upshot of all this is that the people who are being cheated and
>denied the right to information are the people of Gujarat. It's interesting
>that the maximum number of orders by mail for my book, The Greater Common
>Good, come from Gujarat. I think they are beginning to smell a rat. After
>all it's their money that's going into creating this old dinosaur of a dam.
>And very few of them are going to get anything out of it. You cannot fool
>all the people all the time. Sooner or later the argument is bound to f
>ilter through and then, truly all hell will break loose. 
>
>There were moments in the rally when you were unable to cope with the
>constant public focus...moments of exhaustion, of repeating the same thing,
>handling aggressive press persons who were clearly opposed to the rally. Is
>it going to be difficult to be a public figure for a while at least? 
>
>Yes, that's true. I'm not wild about public speaking or facing huge crowds.
>The most exhausting thing for me however was the unreasonable, manipulative
>aggression of a few members of the press. They were frightening people -
>thugs more than journalists. Paid goons. This is a serious problem - the
>lies, the disinformation - behaviour that almost amounts to blackmail. I
>don't know how to begin to address this issue because it is such an ugly
>morass of amorality. But there is something vicious and rotten h appening
>on that front... Is it going to be difficult to be a public figure? Well,
>one of the reasons I was involved with the rally was that I hoped that
>people who came along would make their own independent alliances in the
>valley - that they would bec ome fighters too. While I may not be able to
>claim (at least for a while) that I'm not a Public Figure - I'd like, for
>the future, a scenario in which my writing is public, but my life is
>private... if you see what I mean. No more rallies and press confe rences. 
>
>The reaction of the people to you has been amazing. You were almost
>idolised by those waiting to receive you. Some had seen and met you before,
>but the majority had not. How do you explain hundreds of people waiting
>hours to meet you? 
>
>I'm not sure how to explain it... I suppose everyone who came on the rally
>had their theories. Here's mine - since February (after the Supreme Court
>lifted its stay) things have been going badly for the people in the valley.
>They have been cornered and l et down by the nation's institutions, the
>rains have started, their lands and homes are going to be submerged, they
>have nowhere to go. For four years there was a lull in the struggle because
>of the legal stay, suddenly the people needed to rally their f orces once
>again. They needed to show their strength. To do that they needed an
>occasion. I was the occasion - just somebody very famous who had come out
>and said - clearly, unequivocally, unhesitatingly "I'm on your side". I
>think that's what it was. Bu t also - it wasn't just me. They knew very
>well that the Rally for the Valley was a group of 500 people, many of them
>journalists. The valley showed its strength. And how! 
>
>Did you know that there were people in the rally who came purely because
>they were inspired by your essay? Though you keep insisting you are just a
>writer there seems to be something here that goes beyond good writing or
>persuasive presentation of fa cts. What is it that is suddenly making you a
>rallying point for people who had never dreamed that they would travel
>nearly 1,000 km to join a rally in solidarity with displaced people? 
>
>Yes, I did know that some had come because they read my essay... but I
>still maintain that I'm a writer (though not 'just' a writer). People
>travelling a 1,000 km to join a rally to show solidarity with people facing
>submergence and forcible displacemen t is a wonderful thing. It means that
>there is hope yet, in this brutal, broken world of ours. They didn't come
>for me - they came for those I wrote about. The power of a writer's writing
>is far more magical, far more majestic than the power of a writer' s human
>form. They didn't rally around me. They rallied around what I wrote about -
>The Narmada and her people. 
>
>To what extent have you interacted with Medha Patkar and what does she
>expect from you? 
>
>I haven't spent a great deal of time with her, but enough to know that she
>is an exceptional woman. What does she expect from me? That's something you
>should ask her - I imagine what she expects is what everybody in the valley
>expects - my support as a w riter, as a human being. 
>
>What do you mean when you join in the slogan Hum tumhare saath hai (we are
>with you) - in what way are you with the people? 
>
>What I meant quite literally was "I am with you". The whole point of the
>Rally for the Valley was to make alliances - urban-rural, writer-farmer,
>musician-fisherman - the idea was that we were all citizens of the earth
>making common cause of the struggle in the Narmada Valley. I'm very
>interested in the debate over the politics of dissent - this sneering
>attempt of many people to delegitimise those who protest - the NBA
>dismissed as urban activists, Arundhati Roy as an elite writer, the
>rallyists as for eign agents and so on. They declare that the only
>legitimate protestors are local people, preferably adivasi and Dalit. Once
>they've isolated them they squash them like bugs and the fight is over.
>It's interesting that the very same people unquestioningl y accept a
>project devised entirely by urban engineers and planners but insist that
>the critique must be only rural and only local. I think that the great
>strength of the struggle in the Narmada Valley is that the critique comes
>from all angles. From adi vasis, from Dalits, from the Patidars of the
>Nimar plains, from IIT engineers, from writers, from painters, from
>architects, from film-makers, from all of civil society. It spans the range
>and that's what gives it its strength and beauty. So when I said "Hum
>tumhare saath hai" I meant all this. 
>
>
>
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