Arundhati Roy: India’s Hindu Right Are Willing to Bury Democracy
While India’s rulers downplay the brutal murder of a Dalit teenager by an upper-caste gang and acquit Hindu nationalists guilty of historic crimes, Arundhati Roy argues, they are concocting another show trial of Muslims and progressive activists to intimidate dissenters.
Indian Muslims in an argument with a group of Indian policemen after they were removed from a protest site at Shaheen Bagh on March 24, 2020 in Delhi, India. (Yawar Nazir / Getty Images)
As Diwali approaches and Hindus prepare to celebrate the triumphant return of Lord Ram to his kingdom (and the spanking new temple that is being built for him in Ayodhya), the rest of us must be content to celebrate this season of serial triumphs for Indian democracy.
Between the breaking news of a disturbing cremation, the laying to rest of one great conspiracy, and the inauguration of another, how can we not be proud of ourselves, our cultural and civilizational values, both ancient and modern?
Terror Against Dalits
In mid-September, reports came in of a nineteen-year-old Dalit girl who was gang-raped, mutilated, and left for dead by dominant-caste men in her village in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. Her family was one of fifteen Dalit families in a village where a majority of the six hundred households were Brahmin and Thakur — the same caste as Ajay Singh Bisht, the saffron-robed Uttar Pradesh chief minister who calls himself Yogi Adityanath. (He is, by all accounts, being groomed to replace Narendra Modi as prime minister in the near future.)
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.