Indian author Arundhati Roy was catapulted into fame in 1997 after publishing her best-selling and Booker Prize-winning novel, The God of Small Things. In the wake of her global success, Roy says that India attempted to trot her out as a symbol of national pride and Hindu nationalism.
Yet, rather than be placed on a pedestal by the Indian government, Roy would instead become one of her country’s most prominent dissidents.
“I write to make space for myself and to make a space for a political point of view which some people are not in a position to put out,” Roy tells Mehdi. “For me… there's never been a moment where I felt, ‘Oh, I should do this,’ or ‘I should keep quiet’, or ‘I should suck up to so and so.’”
In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Roy discusses her first-ever memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me, and describes how her complicated relationship with her late mother Mary – a prominent activist in her own right – influenced the person Roy is today.
“She was always up for a fight with something bigger than herself,” Roy says.
Mehdi and Roy discuss what it’s like for her to be a target for Hindu nationalists, compare Hindutva to Zionism (they “work together very easily”), and call out Israel’s brutal genocide in Gaza, something the acclaimed novelist says is unfolding in a way that “human beings have never seen before.” Roy argues that Donald Trump could stop the genocide anytime he liked and says “the carcass of Western liberal democracy” is also “under the rubble in Gaza.”
“What is worrying, I think, is that all these great leaders are watching what Netanyahu can get away with in Gaza, and that is the bar that is being set,” she says. “Everyone is not just saying, ‘Oh it's a terrible thing,’ others are saying, ‘Hey if they can do it, why not us?’”
Roy also doesn’t hold back when it comes to India’s mainstream media and Bollywood film industry, telling Mehdi that “Bollywood and the mainstream media, TV anchors, they're like lynch mob leaders sometimes," adding: “Bollywood has made some unforgivable films that lead to mass hysteria…It's sad to watch.”
This wide-ranging interview is available in full for all paid subscribers. Watch the full video to also hear Roy’s warnings to the US media, what she sees as the parallels between India and Israel, and why she believes authoritarians' “tiny little minds” will eventually tire.
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You can click here to buy a copy of Roy’s memoir, Mother Mary Comes to Me. And do share your own review of it with us in the comments below!
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