Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy welcomes readers and writers alike to reflect on the meaning of freedom in her latest collection of essays.

Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.

Marion R

Fake news is the skeletal structrue, the scaffolding over which the specious wrath that fuels fascism drapes itself. The foundation on which that scaffolding rests is fake history - possibly the oldest form of fake news. The history being peddled by Hindu nationalists, that hackneyed tale of spurious valour and exaggerated victimhood in which history is turned into mythology and mythology into history, has been very ably perforated and demolished by serious scholars.

Over time, an unspoken compromise was arrived at.

I began to be called a 'writer-activist'. Implicit in this categorization was that the fiction was not political and the essays were not literary.

I mention this because it taught me that the place for literature is built by writers and readers. It's a fragile place in some ways, but an indestructible one. When it's broken, we rebuild it. Because we need shelter. I very much like the idea of literature that is needed. Literature that provides shelter. Shelter of all kinds.

This is a solid collection of an introduction to Hindu nationalism in India, the anti Muslim movement that is at the helm of making India into a Hindu ethno state by asserting Hindu supremacy using myths and revisionist history. It also delves into the occupation of Kashmir and the efforts India is making in turning most of their citizens into stateless refugees. I found most of it quite repetitive and didn’t enjoy the choice to add speeches here. 

Hellboy TCR

If you follow what happens in India these days, there is nothing in this book for you - the decision to collect speeches in this book was a mistake, the content looks dated already and there are no new insights or anything. Book's still relevant for those who are trying to understand the "utmost happiness" of certain ppl while rest of the country burns.

Loreng

Arthur A

Khan

FROM THE BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF MY SEDITIOUS HEART AND THE MINISTRY OF UTMOST HAPPINESS, A NEW AND PRESSING DISPATCH FROM THE HEART OF THE CROWD AND THE SOLITUDE OF A WRITER'S DESK The chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom!' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically, it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu Nationalism. Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for Freedom - a chasm or a bridge? - the streets fell silent. Not only in India, but all over the world. The Coronavirus brought with it another, more terrible understanding of Azadi, making a nonsense of international borders, incarcerating whole populations, and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. In this series of electrifying essays, Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. The essays include meditations on language, public as well as private, and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic, she says, is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake, it is an invitation to the human race, an opportunity, to imagine another world.

Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction.

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