The Congress has historically played covert communal politics in order to create what in India we call vote banks where you pit one community against another and so on in order to secure votes. Arundhati Roy More Quotes by Arundhati Roy More Quotes From Arundhati Roy Three-quarters of India lives on the edge of the market economy. You can't tell them that only those who can afford water can have it. Arundhati Roy india three water When I'm outside the cities I do feel optimistic. There is such grandeur in India and so much beauty. Arundhati Roy optimistic india cities I firstly don't think of myself as an activist, I never have. I always say that, I think this word "activist" is relatively recent one. I don't remember when people started being called that or what it means. It reduces both writers and activists, it makes it seem as though a writer's job is to just keep people entertained with best-selling books and the activist's job to keep on repeating the same thing without a great deal of subtlety and intelligence. I don't think either is the case. Arundhati Roy jobs mean book I think my eyes were knocked open and they don't close. I sometimes wish I could close them and look away. Arundhati Roy eye wish thinking I am an artist and a writer, and I do think that one always places oneself in the picture to see where one fits. I left home when I was sixteen and lived in places where it was very easy for me to have fallen the other way. I could have been on the large convoy because I was a woman and I was alone. In India, that's not a joke. I could have ended up very, very badly. I'm lucky that I didn't. Arundhati Roy artist home thinking The people who are getting rich can't imagine that the world is not a better place. Arundhati Roy imagine people world With one hand, you're selling the country out to Western multinationals. And with the other, you want to defend your borders with nuclear bombs. It's such an irony! You're saying that the world is a global village, but then you want to spend crores of rupees on building nuclear weapons. Arundhati Roy borders country hands The religious rightwingism is directly linked to globalization and to privatization. When India is talking about selling its entire power sector to foreign multinationals, when the political climate gets too hot and uncomfortable, the government will immediately start saying, should we build a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri mosque? Everyone will go baying off in that direction. It's a game. Arundhati Roy government religious talking When people stop some film from being shot or burn a book, it's not just that they are saying, this is against Indian culture. They are also saying, you Westernized, elite, English-speaking people are having too much of a good time. It's a very interesting phenomenon. Arundhati Roy book people interesting Indian intellectuals today feel radical when they condemn fundamentalism, but not many people are talking about the links between privatization, globalization, and fundamentalism. Arundhati Roy links talking people I know that a world in which countries are stockpiling nuclear weapons and using them in the ways that India and Pakistan and America do to oppress others and to deceive their own people is a dangerous world. Arundhati Roy india-and-pakistan country america People say to me, Oh, it's so wonderful that you're writing about real things, and that it's a political thing to do, and I say, look-to be in my position and not say anything is a hell of a political thing. You need to think politically, otherwise you'll be one of these people who says, Oh, this person's saying this and that person's saying that, and I'm confused. And I say, yeah, because you want to be confused. Arundhati Roy confused real writing In a way, writing is an incredible act of individualism, producing your language, and yet to use it from the heart of a crowd as opposed to as an individual performance is a conflicting thing. I do stand alone, and yet it's not about being an individual or being ambitious. Arundhati Roy ambitious heart writing Here they learned to Wait. To Watch. To think thoughts and not voice them. Arundhati Roy voice waiting thinking They looked at each other. They weren't thinking anymore. The time for that had come and gone. Smashed smiles lay ahead of them. But that would be later. Lay Ter. Arundhati Roy would-be gone thinking Flat muscled and honey coloured. Sea secrets in his eyes. A silver raindrop in his ear. Arundhati Roy eye secret sea Old. A viable die-able age. Arundhati Roy dies able age May in Ayemenem is a hot, brooding month. The days are long and humid. The river shrinks and black crows gorge on bright mangoes in still, dustgreen trees. Red bananas ripen. Jackfruits burst. Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air. Then they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun. Arundhati Roy air rivers long The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting. Arundhati Roy fighting weapons america Nilekani's technocratic obsession with gathering data is consistent with that of Bill Gates, as though lack of information is what is causing world hunger. Arundhati Roy data gathering world
