Ultra-left activist and controversial ‘fiction’ writer Arundhati Roy, who believes that Rafale is an aircraft career, was interviewed by the HTN Network, a channel backed by senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal. Arundhati Roy, who often stays away from any press conference or interviews, perhaps fearing an expose on her ‘intellectualism’ was presented an opportunity by the Congress mouthpiece to push her propaganda against the country.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAQb8qecys]
Arundathi Roy speaking to ‘Journalist’ Karan Thapar expressed her views on a whole range of issues including Prime Minister Modi, BJP, RSS, and the Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
Karan Thapar began his interview with Roy asking her views on the performance of the Modi government, to which Roy said that she was not shocked unlike others as the BJP was almost following a ‘script’. She went on to say it was not Prime Minister Modi who was governing the country but it was Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS), which has the come to power with its people on the top.
Roy claimed that the alleged lynching, communalism, and sectarianism were not the biggest surprised for her but it is the devastation of the Indian economy which has shocked her. She, however, doesn’t back her ‘economic devastation’ claim by a single fact. She goes on to compare the BJP with the Fascists as she claims that both share the same ideology. She even claims that despite all his fascism, Hitler had ‘developed’ Germany into an economic superpower but Modi has destroyed India’s economy. All of it, notably, without a single fact-based argument.
In a hurry to express her hatred towards the PM Modi and the BJP, Roy seems to have deliberately ignored the fact that India’s economic credentials have grown increasingly in the last five years. The sustained higher growth rates, with no big-ticket corruption, increase in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings and sustained foreign investments into the country has, in fact, the manifestation of strong macro-economic indicators of the country under the present BJP government. Apart from that, several other developmental schemes initiated by the Modi government like Ujwala Yojana, Start-up schemes, MUDRA and Ayushman Bharat has increased socio-economic capital of the country.
When Thapar argues that PM Modi has given a ‘clean’ government when it comes to corruption, as compared with the UPA government. Roy claims, “Clean is a very dangerous word”.Arundathi Roy brings in her vague ideas of ‘moral cleanliness’, which she fails to define it in her interview.
As she did not have any clear response, Roy went back to her old trick by playing out her ‘2002 riots’ card against PM Modi and claimed that he is playing to some ‘script’. Throughout her interview, Roy managed to repeat that RSS had some ‘script’ which is being followed by PM Modi.
In her interview, Roy mentions some of the conspiracy theories, stating that RSS has begun a ‘deep’ movement to transform India into a ‘Hindu Nation’. Roy claims that RSS has changed its position on whenever it wanted to. In her attempt to objectify RSS, Roy fails to comprehend the fact that in a definitive political system, ideological organisations constantly evolve themselves and renew their movements with time and this ‘evolution’ process in ideological and political movement exists across the world.
Arundathi Roy also does not agree to the fact that the NDA government has given a corruption-free government. Roy claims that Modi government indulged in obfuscation on the issue of Rafale by submitting wrong documents, despite the fact that Modi government submitted a corrective document to declare that earlier documents had some changes. She also refuses to acknowlede the fact that there is no money trail and no proof.
In the entire interview, Arundathi Roy amazes by bringing up her conspiracy theories while associating the RSS for everything that has happened in the country for the last five years. Calling the BJP, a benign mask of the RSS, she further suspects and indulges in fear mongering by claiming that there is something wrong happening on the ground.
Referring to the Sabarimala incident, Roy said that the fascist RSS is working towards majoritarian politics, marginalisation of the minorities while declaring that Muslims in India are being terrorised. By doing so, Arundathi Roy not only indulges in fake propaganda against the present dispensation as she does not specifically presents any facts to prove her conjectures but also indulges in fear mongering and Hinduphobia.
To reinforce her theories, Roy also narrates an incident of a Muslim friend of hers who was so worried about the ‘mobs’ and had asked her whether she should teach her son the ‘Gayathri Mantra’. The lady who is being cited by Roy is definitely not the representative of the Muslims in the country. She further tries to incite by claiming that lynchings have pushed the minorities into fear, which has made the country intolerant and majoritarian.
Roy states that she is deeply unhappy about the state of affairs in the country. She added that she was worried by the depth at which the ‘mobilisation’ is happening in this country. However, she does not explain the nature of the mobilisation she claims to be happening.
Notably, in the interview that was conducted by a Kapil Sibal backed channel, Arundhati also claims that the 2G scam was ‘cleared’ by the Supreme Court.
As Karan Thapar pushes her to respond to her theories, Arundathi Roy somehow connects it to the issue of Sabarimala, where she claims that RSS mobilised the people to oppose the Supreme Court verdict to generalise a narrative that RSS is indeed mobilising common people in the country to push their so-called mobilisation politics. She also believes that RSS has pushed other ‘secular’ parties to take a similar stand to not to lose their voter base in the state of Kerala.
In reality, no political parties in any part of the world do not want to take a stand which has a negative outcome on electoral politics. Roy holding RSS accountable for ‘secular’ political parties indulging in vote bank politics by following ‘majoritarian’ policy on Sabarimala issue is just personal prejudice and display of hatred towards the Hindus and the RSS.
In what seems to the most bizarre accusations by ‘intellectual’ Arundathi Roy against the RSS and BJP, she says that the BJP and RSS are working towards a drumbeat, where it is working meticulously to increase its presence in the states like West Bengal. She targets the RSS, BJP for working towards an objective to increase its foothold in states where it does not have any presence.
Well, Isn’t that the objective of any political party in any democratic system? Every political party in any democratic electoral system will try and get to expand their base. If communists like Arundathi Roy ever believed in the idea of democracy, she would have definitely known about the system of the multi-party electoral system.
With this pretext, Roy believes that RSS and BJP are mobilising people across the country since decades to inflict terror on Muslims and push the idea of Hindu Rashtra. Roy also believes that BJP is not just a political party while discrediting the Indian citizens who had voted for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.
Continuing with her senseless fear-mongering, Roy added that five years of this mobilisation backed by the RSS and BJP will cause further damage to India’s institutions similar to the claims of several other opposition parties. Roy further added that even with the chance of BJP losing the chance of danger is still high as the opposition parties are still much weaker and the so-called ‘mobilisation’ still takes place despite RSS and BJP is out of power.
She maintains that the historical problem of ‘mobilisation’, marginalisation can only be met by an ocean of people who think differently. The ‘secular’ Roy mentions a ‘counter mobilisation’ comprising of Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis, OBCs and other minorities to balance out the RSS base. In fact, she reveals her bigotry and casteism by propagating a new coalition across the caste and religious lines to take on the BJP and the RSS.
Backing Rahul Gandhi for the post of the Prime Minister of the country, Arundhati Roy said that he may have some sort of the incite but he is not a seasoned politician but she would prefer the chaos rather than the BJP.
