Azadi

 

Book Review

Title: Azadi: Freedom, Fascism, Fiction

Author: Arundhati Roy

Publisher: Penguin, 2020

Pages: 243, Price: Rs499

 

Arundhati Roy is a personification of intellectual acumen coupled with moral indignation. She belongs to the realm of rebellious angels. Her writings show us clearly the truth as she sees (and she sees more clearly than most ordinary people) and also make us feel what she feels provided we are on the side of ugly truths. Her writings can also create more enemies of whom she has already gathered too many around her.

Azadi is a collection of nine essays most of which were originally lectures delivered to diverse foreign audiences in the period of 2018-2020. The themes of these essays are indicated in the subtitle of the book: freedom, fascism, fiction. Roy deals with the particular variety of fascism that is being practised in Modi’s India which gives too much freedom to one section of citizens and denies even the freedom to exist to others. Fiction becomes the only valid way of understanding a reality of this sort which is considered sacrosanct by the majority while it decimates a few million people slowly and not so slowly.

The issues raised in the book are not new. We are familiar with them all: fascism and certain Modi-created demons such as demonetisation, empty slogans like ‘Make in India’, degradation of universities and institutions, decimation of the agriculture sector, lynching, and projection of genuine Dalit problems as sheer Naxalism.  Kashmir is a recurrent theme. RSS and its multi-faced demons come and go. Fiction, particularly Roy’s recent novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, holds all these together like a magic fabric the patterns on which keep changing as we move from one essay to the next showing us new realities and new meanings.

Modi’s India does not want non-Hindus. That has been made clear enough by the various thuggish organisations affiliated to the RSS. Muslims are the primary targets. Right from the 2002 Gujarat riots to the recent Citizenship Amendment Act, too many things have been perpetrated by Modi and his henchmen to alienate the Muslim population in the country.

Even before Modi, independent India has always been “an upper-caste Hindu state”. But pre-Modi, India had a hypocritical secularism which is what actually “made India possible” [emphasis in original]. “That hypocrisy was the best thing we had,” says Roy. “Without it, India will end.”

This book shows how Modi and his protean army are putting an end to India. Modi wants to make India “One nation, one religion, one language.” It is a chimera that can’t be achieved without a shocking lot of bloodshed as well as surreptitious methods (which are all in practice now).

Democracy has been strangled for all practical purposes by Modi who behaves precisely like a dictator. Those who question him too much are done away with one way or another. Those who support him can not only get away with rape and murder, assault and lynching, but also get rewarded for their devilish loyalty. In Roy’s words, “Lynchers, and others accused in hate crimes, including mass murder, have been rewarded with public office and honoured by ministers in Modi’s cabinet.”

One of the most diabolically effective tactics employed by Modi is the fake news industry which is “corporatized, Bollywoodized, televised, Twitterized, atomized, weaponized, WhatsAppized, and is disseminating its product at the speed of light.” India is a living lie under Modi. Modi has converted 1.3 billion people into walking frauds.

There are a few out of those billions who refuse to swallow the fake patriotism shovelled down their throats by a demoniac leader. They still dare to speak the truth. “It’s a battle of those who know how to think against those who know how to hate,” says Roy. “A battle of lovers against haters. It’s an unequal battle, because the love is on the street and vulnerable. The hate is on the street, too, but it is armed to the teeth, and protected by all the machinery of the state.”

This is the ultimate tragedy of any nation: hate reigning supreme pretending to be sacred nationalism. Roy’s book exposes this demon that has taken charge of India.