In yesterday's paper (TOI) veteran journalist Dhananjay Mahapatra made his dissatisfaction with Roy manifest; he precisely dwelt on the 'fact' that Roy has been generally inconsistent. Roy has stood by the cause of the Maoists. She has also proclaimed her position as an anti-violence one. How can then she reconcile these two? And she has also said that she is unafraid to invest her support with the Maoist, and that the state, if it wants to, may suffice to put her behind bars. Mahapatra says with a masculine sting that Roy had said as much even when Supreme Court gave its verdict on the Narmada Bachao mega-event, that is, she had dared to make her dissatisfaction with the verdict too explicit (unbecoming of the true citizen-subject!).
So our assumption (and unwavering belief) is that the Supreme Court is bound to remain beyond all doubts, questions. That it can never make a mistake, it cannot go wrong, it cannot be bribed and it cannot have vested interests! Well, we do address the judge as "My Lord", but have we really begun to take that this literally!
And few have ventured to know the truth behind the NBA and now, behind this Green-Hunt. Roy remains one of the few actually concerned beings - more concerned than the sate, the democratic state that promises to treat all citizens as equals and give them safety, education, health and sanitation to begin with. An almost-obscure report of a talk Roy delivered at Mumbai a few days back was published in TOI itself: Roy is unambiguous in saying "Maoists do not have a revolutionary vision ... their mining policy is not very different from that of the state. They too would mine the bauxite instead of leaving it in the hills, which is what the people they are fighting for, want." Well, it is actually too clear that Roy is for the tribals - the people who have been existentially and physically mauled and raped ever since we waved the midnight tricolour and since earlier. When these squashed people are taking up the gun, she 'understands' their cause, feels the intense pain that led to this extreme - however, the moment the once-marginalised are tasting the momentary freedom and authority the gun begets. are often taking to wear the same shoes of domination, atrocity and violence (and thereby in a way talking the language of the state), Roy knows better than to play blind when the turnabout happens. She says: "We need an idea that's neither Right nor Left." She realizes that the range of available 'solutions' is a sham - ministers don't bother to even visit the ravaged families but are continuing to sell the tribal land to further more industries.
Roy understands the magic and menace of money slightly too closely; had she been really in dire need of name and fame (as most media persons explain her 'dramatic' stand offs as a means to fulfill this 'need) she might well have continued her cosy life in plush apartments and globe-trotting days and vying for the next Booker or Pulitzer. Not many Booker Awardees give up the life of glitz and sit by the river for days on end and fight for the rights of the nun-human species called tribals. But if they do ever manage to get back their land, we sceptics might want to see if Roy actually had been eyeing that all along, and if she would now start paddy cultivation on a plot?
However, as I said, she understands the magic and menace of money slightly too closely; she knows that there exists a gap between the tribal and the Naxal, despite their overlapping moments of origin and deprivation. Perhaps it's all the magic of the gun ... perhaps the wait for a politics that will be political will continue for a long time to come...
[One might venture to read the following article by two of my teachers: http://radicalnotes.com/content/view/131/1/]
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