Arundhati Roy is being hounded by the Indian state. This is a test case for its democracy

The climate for media and free speech in India is in a dangerous place. The country is already ranked 161 out of 180 countries in the press freedom index, but the actions of prime minister Narendra Modi’s government in the past few weeks have shown how many more clampdowns await. Desperately in need of distraction tactics – given the many failures in governance, tackling inflation or delivering jobs – the regime is after a fresh dose of sound and fury against political opponents.

Indian Government Backs Prosecution of Author Arundhati Roy

Booker Prize-winning writer Arundhati Roy, author of The God of Small Things, has been charged, along with retired law professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain, for allegedly seditious comments supporting the separation of Kashmir from India.

They were speaking at a 2010 Delhi conference, the same year right-wing activist Sushil Pandit filed the complaint on which these latest charges draw.

Nearly 13 years later, on October 10, Delhi’s lieutenant governor V.K. Saxena, with the approval of Narendra Modi’s government, sanctioned the prosecution. Roy and Hussain are accused of making statements promoting social enmity, prejudicing national integration and inciting offences against the state and public tranquillity.

India’s Love Affair with the Privatization of Everything

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently inaugurated a new hospital and medical research center in Mumbai, one of numerous state-of-the-art private facilities providing world-class medical care to Indians who can afford it. This one, run by one of India’s largest corporate conglomerates, Reliance Industries Limited, will keep some free and some subsidized beds for the “underprivileged,” whose well-being is rhetorically invoked during such privateering initiatives, even as India’s public services themselves are famously underfunded and increasingly vitiated. During his speech, Mr. Modi, who comes from a majoritarian Hindu nationalist milieu known as the “Sangh Parivar” that identifies “real India” with resurgent Hinduism, asserted that ancient Hindus had demonstrated “great strengths in space science” and that there was evidence for the existence of both genetics and plastic surgery in India, the latter evidenced by the Hindu god, Ganesha, who has an elephant’s head on a human body. The gathering, attended by a dazzling array of Bollywood stars, was hosted by Nita Ambani, the wife of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who owns vast swathes of the Indian media. Any politician who hopes to run this large nation must have Mr. Ambani—whose estranged brother Anil runs the other half of the multibillion-dollar petrochemical empire left by their father—onside. In her speech, Ms. Ambani paid due homage to worthy ideals such as the non-negotiability of good healthcare for all and praised Mr. Modi for his apparent devotion to this principle. The event was described admiringly by India journalists, but few reported the astonishing claims made for ancient Indians, never mind taking them on critically.

Arundhati Roy: Occupy Wall Street is "So Important Because It is in the Heart of Empire"

Renowned Indian writer and global justice activist Arundhati Roy is preparing to address Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday. She recently joined us in the studio to talk about the Occupy movement. "What they are doing becomes so important because it is in the heart of empire, or what used to be empire," Roy said. "And to criticize and to protest against the model that the rest of the world is aspiring to is a very important and a very serious business. So...it makes me very, very hopeful that after a long time you’re seeing some nascent political, real political anger here." She also discussed her new book, "Walking with the Comrades," a chronicle of her time in the forests of India alongside rebel guerrillas who are resisting a brutal military campaign by the Indian government.

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Source: Democracy Now!