LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS: FOOTNOTES ON DEMOCRACY
Arundhati Roy
Penguin Publishers
Pages: 304
Price: £14.99
Reviewed by UMAR KHALID
Arundhati Roy’s latest book Listening to Grasshoppers: Footnotes on Democracy, a collection of articles written over the period 2002 to 2009, offers a sordid tale of Indian polity. The articles in the book deal with a number of issues from the Gujarat riots to George W. Bush’s visit to India, announcement of death penalty to Parliament attack accused Afzal Guru, mass uprising of Kashmiris for Azadi in 2008, the 26/11 attack on Mumbai and more recently the counter insurgency operations in a number of places in India in the name of combating ‘Maoist menace’.
These articles, in her own words, were written at a time when ‘remaining quite became more difficult than speaking out’. The strong undertone in all these articles is what happens to democracy when it is fused with free market, what happens when corporate giants hijack democracy for their own ends, what happens when essential commodities like water, health care, education are presented on the platter to big corporate giants, what happens when World Bank agents and members of board of directors of capitalist octopuses like Vedanta and Enron become the prime minister and home minister of the country.
The author traces the rapid about turn of the Indian state from the period post 1991. After the opening up of India’s markets in 1991, caused due to external as well as internal factors (the collapse of the Soviet Union and more importantly the heavy debt India found itself due to its own non-implementation of land reforms and ever-increasing corruption), the Indian state has followed extremely rapacious policies. The poor have got poorer and the rich have increased their wealth to vulgar limits. Unlike the western countries that had colonies to plunder from, India (or rather its comprador section) is colonising its own interiors. The likes of former ‘Marxist’ economist Meghnad Desai and other apologists of the ruling class point to the 9% growth rate as an indicator of the benefits of the reforms and want us to believe that this growth rate is helping the poor out of their miseries. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
Despite this so called growth the reality is tragic. While India Inc. is reaping rich benefits through the non-payment of taxes, through a variety of subsidies and transfers, and through lucrative state support, the vast majority – the peasants, the workers, artisans, etc. are living a life of utter destitution and misery. Maharashtra, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh account for two-thirds of India’s farmer’s suicides. The year 2006 saw 1065 farmers killing themselves in the small district of Vidarbha. The same year saw 1483 farmer suicides in Chhattisgarh followed by 1593 in 2007. Farmer suicides in the country since 1997 now total 182,936, but the real causes behind this devastation remain not just unaddressed but the tragedy also remains unacknowledged by the ruling class.
More than 77% of Indians live under 20 rupees a day, 61% of India’s children are stunted by malnutrition (the highest figure in the world), over 90% of the labour is under the informal sector having absolutely no rights or protection measures, health care remains one of the most privatised in the world (even worse than that of the US), the plunder of the mineral rich tribal land in Central India has been described as the ‘biggest land grab after Columbus’, infant mortality rate is through the roof, not to forget the numerous caste and communal conflicts that have intensified post these ‘reforms’.
On the international hunger index, India ranks below Sudan and Somalia and below Bangladesh on the human development Index. To maintain such high rates of exploitation draconian laws like POTA, Chhattisgarh Public Security Act, UAPA, etc. have turned large parts of the country into virtually a police state, where absolutely no form of dissent is tolerated and anyone disagreeing with the state policies can be labelled a ‘terrorist’ and imprisoned, tortured or worse still even executed. India has the highest number of custodial deaths in the world. According to the author, ‘The ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they’ve escaped being ‘encountered’ by our encounter specialists…India remains a country where the line between the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.’
As far as poverty is concerned, we have been recently informed by the corporate media that the government has finally found a plan – a better and more efficient one, as compared to the old boring Garibi Hatao ones – to combat this growing poverty – something that tarnishes its image as ‘the rising superpower’ internationally. They have sent their troops to eliminate the poor! A genocide is being carried out in our name and against our own people and remaining quite at this time, to quote Roy, ‘will be just as political as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, we are accountable.’
The case of Kashmir remains unaddressed and Roy points to ‘the insanity that permits the world’s largest democracy to administer the world’s largest military occupation and continue to call itself a democracy.’ The valley has been turned into one full of torture chambers, check points, army camps and bunkers. Army personnel shoot, rape, maim with impunity thanks to laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The author describes how despite the brutalities and heavy deployment of the army, none of the fears could hold people back from demanding Azadi. Millions of rupees are spent by India on keeping this small piece of land military occupied, a land where none of its inhabitants wants to be a part of it and at the same time as already mentioned 77% of Indians live below 20 rupees a day. This money ought to be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished, malnourished population in India.
Apart from this there are also articles on the new trend of media trials of the ‘terror’ accused, the case of Afzal Guru in which the Supreme Court passed its judgement saying that ‘though we have no evidence to prove that he belonged to a terrorist group but the collective conscience of the society can only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the accused’, the increase in ‘encounter’ killings, the horrific response from some TV anchors, who make ‘Fox News look almost radical and left-wing’, post 26/11 attacks in Mumbai and a very good satirical play written at the time of George Bush’s visit to India.
Arundhati Roy remains a figure who has been vilified by both the burgeoning Indian middle class as well as by a wide spectrum of political parties ranging from the BJP to the Congress to CPI(M), however, to once again quote her, she carries this as ‘a badge of honour’. On the other hand this vilification is only symbolic of how we treat people who try to bring to the picture the numerous silent genocides going on in this semi-feudal, semi-colonial country of ours.