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An open note to Arundhati Roy

Picture Courtesy - The Hindu

At the outset, I admire and appreciate your courage and determination to raise your voice for the poor, weaker and more recently the tribal sections of our population. This immediately qualifies you to a responsible citizen status and upgrades you well above the rest of the Sheep (btw, Shashi Tharoor calls them cattle class).
However, I have very serious issues & strong objections with your understanding of the enemy and the root cause to the problems that you are fighting for. This strong difference of opinion lies in your quote from your speech at the just concluded meeting of Federation Against Internal Repression at Chennai –

Your understanding of Capitalism sadly seems to be completely misplaced and quoted out of context. What you actually are referring to is known by many names such as - “Crony-Capitalism” / “Nehruvian-Socialism” / “Socialist-Liberalism” or more simply “Nepotism and Greed”; that has been passed on as a legacy and has plagued our country for the last 30 years; prior to that it was pure Nehruvian Socialism in its original avatar. It is by no means called the “Capitalism”, if understood in its true form and spirit. India is yet to embrace a Free and Fair Capitalist Society, where every citizen is free to pursue her happiness and is treated with respect and dignity.

Thanks to the Elitist and the Educated class of Indians like you, not able to understand the true meaning of Capitalism and its merits, a mixed product of Communist and Socialist ideology, we are having to fight this battle of Freedom and Liberty in our country, ever since Swatantra Party was launched by Rajaji and had to quickly fold up & disintegrate into non-existence. It was precisely people like you, who branded Swatantra, the only political party with an ideology of Individual Freedom and Liberty, as the party of the Rich and Businessmen and forced it to die its pre-mature death. You never allowed Swatantra Party to survive and blossom to offer the innocent people of India (including the Tribals in Orissa, that you have taken to represent and fight for) the option of Freedom and Liberty, as a result of which the country always had to choose either the Hindutva (BJP) or the Socialist (Congress) ideology. Both of which are extremely regressive, divisive, corrupt and have failed the country repeatedly.

If you actually trace back the history of events that have unfolded over the last 30 years and the very cause that you have now so bravely taken up to fight against, you will understand the difference between Capitalism and Socialism. If the Indian constitution was not amended and the Right to Property Act was not demolished, it would provide the constitutional right to own a property to every single citizen of this country, including the Tribals of Orissa. As per your own claim, the market value of Bauxite reserves in the state of Orissa is said to be worth US$ 4 Trillion. The Tribals and locals would be part of all this rich mineral wealth by way of their right to ownership. But as per your misplaced perspective, they would then automatically be part of a truly Capitalist society and consequently partners in the crime called Capitalism. You would actually be enjoying your life after Booker as a celebrity writer full-time, rather than fighting this losing battle against the corrupt politicians and mining mafia, part-time.

It is never too late though. You would be doing a great service to the nation by not shooting the messenger and calling the MNCs as the culprits and issuing such regressive statements as above. It is the state, the politicians, their failed socialist policies, their greed for money and power, their extended families as Benami mining mafia – The Black Forces - who are directly linked and responsible for this disaster that we face today. Please do not strengthen them further by making regressive statements against Capitalism. Instead please go after them and criticise their Socialist policies of the last 60 years. Please promote the concept of Liberty and Individual Freedom. Please join the White Force. Please associate and partner with the Freedom Movements and offer yourself and your voice to the cause of individual freedom and liberty and good governance.

Capitalism is Amoral and not Totalitarian.

You may also like to read one of my earlier post on the Maoist Terror.

Comments

  1. Hi Ashish
    Dont waste time on Arundhati Roy,because it can give a sense of legitimacy to her cynical views.She is in some inexplicable time-warp,and is trying to flex her post-booker muscle which is somewhat visible because she can write such sparkling prose.Someone-may be you can do-should plainly tell her to shut up,go write some fiction like god of small things(of which i am a fan,frankly)rather than writing such parochial stuff on everything like terrorists ,maoists ,politics,economics etc etc all of which she thinks she is an authority.Unni

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  2. Capitalism survives only when the country is doing better then the rest around it. It is perhaps easy to think of an ideal society in the way Ayn Rand thought USA to be, but the notion that corporates/institutions should have the same rights as an individual is a very dangerous scenario. Arundhati Roy may or may not understand what she is talking about. She's a good writer and it's often difficult to focus to her point rather than be distracted by her prose. That said, at least she's taken some stand. MNCs have no moral code, and indeed capitalism is amoral. Perhaps we need to think hard if we really want a country and a society which has no moral values, one where we put a price/return of investment argument on everything we do.

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