...But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions Full Story »
Posted by Shams Kazi
I found it difficult to summarise Roy's arguments. It seems the main point of the piece is that "we" (?) must choose between "justice" and "civil war"; the logic the writer used to get to this conclusion was poor, in my view. The piece provided many accurate (as far as I can tell) and uncomfortable facts about terrorism and politics in India, e.g. a great deal of state-sponsored violence by numerous Indian governments in Kashmir or against Muslims had gone unpunished or even unnoticed. The tone of the piece is passionate, eloquent and almost apocalyptic. Given Roy's social activism, this is perhaps not surprising.
I found that some of Roy's articles were very effective at blasting through the evasions, excuses and lies proffered by governments, corporations or even by individual such as you and me, and revealing some of the great injustices in the world with clarity, passion and eloquence. On the other hand, her pieces can also be one-sided, simplistic, overly moralistic and possibly detrimental to understanding an issue. In the current Indian context, I believe her voice to be a valuable one.