[Lying doesn't help a worthy cause. It damages, by undermining the credibility of the campaign.
For Arundhati Roy, this is, of course, not the first time. She's not known to be too fussy about facts. But, the other instances are, usually, far less striking. Except for the one when she alleged, during the Gujarat 2002, stripping and burning of brutally slain former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffri's daughters. The snag was that Jaffri had one daughter, not more, and she was in the US, in those days, her usual place of residence. That offered a huge advantage to the Sangh Brigade in trying to project all the numerous valid charges of bestial brutalities as slanderous fabrications. This is what she had written: "A mob surrounded the house of former Congress MP Iqbal Ehsan Jaffri. His phone calls to the Director-General of Police, the Police Commissioner, the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) were ignored. The mobile police vans around his house did not intervene. The mob broke into the house. ***They stripped his daughters and burned them alive*** [emphasis added]. Then they beheaded Ehsan Jaffri and dismembered him. Of course it's only a coincidence that Jaffri was a trenchant critic of Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, during his campaign for the Rajkot Assembly by-election in February." (Ref.: 'Democracy: Who's she when she's at home?', dtd. May 6 2002, at <Democracy>.) The May 27 issue of the magazine would, however, carry a note of apology: <<There is a factual error in my essay Democracy: Where’s she when she’s at home? (May 6). In describing the brutal killing of Ehsan Jaffri, I have said that his daughters had been killed along with their father. It has subsequently been pointed out to me that this is not correct. Eyewitness accounts say that Ehsan Jaffri was killed along with his three brothers and two nephews. His daughters were not among the 10 women who were raped and killed in Chamanpura that day.>> (Excerpted from: 'Democracy: To the Jaffri Family, An Apology' at <Feedback>.) Noteworthy is the fact that even this note of apology talks of Ehsan Jaffri's "daughters". The same issue would also carry an article by a BJP leader, Balbir K. Punj, (gloatingly) making Roy's article a peg. An excerpt: <<T.A. Jafri, his son, in a front-page interview titled Nobody knew my father's house was the target (Asian Age, May 2, Delhi edition), says, "Among my brothers and sisters, I am the only one living in India. And I am the eldest in the family. My sister and brother live in the US. I am 40 years old and I have been born and brought up in Ahmedabad.">> (Ref.: 'Fiddling With Facts As Gujarat Burns: The Roys in the media are harming India with half-truths and worse, says Balbir K. Punj' at <Fiddling With Facts As Gujarat Burns>.) In the instant case, this is (a part of) what she said: “In fact, the Indian state, from the moment it became a sovereign nation, from the moment it shook off the shackles of colonialism, it became a colonial state. And it has waged war since 1947 in Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Telengana, Punjab, Kashmir [repeat], Goa, Hyderabad. If you look at it, it's like a state that has been perpetually at war, and a "military" war - deploying the Army, against its own people. The state of Pakistan has not deployed its Army against its own people in the way the Indian - the "democratic" Indian, state has. And if you look at who are these people that the Indian state chose to fight. In all the northeastern states they're tribal people, in Kashmir it was the Muslim, in Telangana it was the tribal people, in Hyderabad it was the Muslim, in Goa - Christian, in Punjab - Sikh." (Ref.: The embedded video clip in <Shama Mohamed on Twitter>.) Apart from the gross lie that the Pakistani Army was not used against its own people, in Goa, the action of the Indian state was against the colonial Portuguese rule. A popular resistance movement had been going on for years to oust that rule. Christians were known to be very much a part of that. (Shyam Benegal's film, Trikal, aptly captures that aspect.) Nor Punjab can hardly be equated with Nagaland and Mizoram. Nor the Army is known to have been used in Telangana. Admittedly, these are, however, rather finer points. As regards the Pakistani Army, it perpetrated brutalities "against its own people", in 1971, in the then East Pakistan, on a scale way larger than the Indian Army has ever done as yet. Its record in Balochistan also cannot be just overlooked. Apart from the fact that Pakistan was periodically under repressive military rule. <<The Indian author said the Pakistan army “was never used against its own people” -- this is a display of ignorance at best, and an attempt at whitewashing Pakistan’s history of violence at worst. Roy has long been considered a champion of the downtrodden and the oppressed, and for a writer of her level of erudition and sensitivity to completely dismiss the history of the Pakistan army’s atrocities towards the people of what was then East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, is not just unfortunate, but potentially damaging. While we can understand Roy’s desire to condemn what is happening in Kashmir vis-a-vis India’s revoking of Article 370, defending Pakistan through false examples is not the way to present her argument. Indeed, it is not only the genocide committed against the Bangali population in 1971 that the Pakistani army needs to answer for. Whether we are talking about the Sindhis or the Balochis, the Pakistan army has a storied history of using force against its own countrymen.>> (Excerpted from the sl. no. II. below.) Good that she has, now, tendered an apology, having been challenged: <<A 2011 video clip of Roy speaking at a panel surfaced on social media, in which she says the Indian state has deployed its Army against people in regions including Kashmir, the northeast, Telangana, and Goa. “…Pakistan has not deployed its army against its people the way India has…”, she goes on to add. In a statement shared with ThePrint, Roy clarified that at some point in their lives, people inadvertently “say something thoughtless or stupid”. “Still, it is a matter of enormous consequence and I apologise for any momentary confusion the clip may have caused.”>> (Excerpted from sl. no. I. below.) <<Upon closer inspection, I realised that Roy had not only been quoted out of context by the Indian media but was also misquoted outright. Some Bangladeshi media outlets blindly followed suit, without bothering to verify her words for themselves.>> (Excerpted from sl. no. III. below.) It's, however, not clear "Indian media", as mentioned above, refers to which news item(s)? Google searching by this observer led to only these sites: The Print, reproduced below, Scroll, cited above, Moneycontrol and NewsX. These controvesies have, however, hardly any bearing on the quality of her creative writing. She is pretty deservedly celebrated as a top class writer. Better visit the orginal sites for which links have been provided below.] I/III. https://theprint.in/india/arundhati-roy-apologises-for-2011-video-on-pakistan-army-says-may-have-been-thoughtless/283548/?fbclid=IwAR0vB47sUCXtwKeTXRXbso6jTWsdY_3BP0JQ7bsd9UOcWRIyVPiUtiWo_Z4 Arundhati Roy apologises for 2011 video on Pakistan Army, says may have been thoughtless Arundhati Roy issued a statement for her claim that Pakistan had not deployed its army against its people the way India has in regions such as Kashmir and the northeast. THEPRINT TEAM Updated: 28 August, 2019 11:14 pm IST Author and activist Arundhati Roy addresses a protest organised by the activists of Campaign against State Repression on Rights over various issues, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in August, 2018. | PTI Author and activist Arundhati Roy in August, 2018 | PTI New Delhi: Award-winning author Arundhati Roy apologised Wednesday for her nearly decade-old remarks comparing the Indian and Pakistani armies, saying what she said then in no way represents what she believes now, or has written over the years. A 2011 video clip of Roy speaking at a panel surfaced on social media, in which she says the Indian state has deployed its Army against people in regions including Kashmir, the northeast, Telangana, and Goa. “…Pakistan has not deployed its army against its people the way India has…”, she goes on to add. In a statement shared with ThePrint, Roy clarified that at some point in their lives, people inadvertently “say something thoughtless or stupid”. “Still, it is a matter of enormous consequence and I apologise for any momentary confusion the clip may have caused.” She added that she has been clear about her views on Pakistan’s actions through her writings. Roy had come under a wave of criticism for her “double standards”, with Twitter users in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh making the hashtag #ArundhatiRoy trend. Many Pakistanis, who claimed to be admirers of Roy, said her remarks had disappointed them. Shama Mohamed ✔ @drshamamohd Shame on Arundhati Roy! I used to have huge respect for her, but not anymore! Not only is she insulting my India, she is praising the Pakistani army which, apart from directly supporting terrorism in India, also killed 3 million of its own people during the 1971 Bangladeshi war! Embedded video 14.6K 3:50 PM - Aug 26, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 7,133 people are talking about this The Dhaka Tribune also criticised her remarks as unfortunate. “…Pakistan has refused to acknowledge the atrocities committed against our people in 1971… Roy has long been considered a champion of the downtrodden and the oppressed, and for a writer of her level of erudition and sensitivity to completely dismiss the history of the Pakistan army’s atrocities towards the people of what was then East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, is not just unfortunate, but potentially damaging,” the publication said in its editorial. Read Arundhati Roy’s full statement here: As tensions rise to dangerous levels between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a nine year old video clip has surfaced on the social media, in which while speaking of the endless wars the Indian government has waged against its own people, I seem to be saying that Pakistan has never deployed its army against its “own” people the way India has. We all, at some point in our lives, might inadvertently say something thoughtless or stupid. This tiny clip of video in no way represents what I believe, or indeed what I have written over the years. I am a writer, and what I commit to words is far more important than what I might say extempore in the course of a freewheeling talk. Still, It is a matter of enormous consequence and I apologize for any momentary confusion the clip may have caused. My views on what the Government of Pakistan is doing in Balochistan and the genocide that the Pakistan Army committed in Bangladesh have never been ambiguous and have always been a part of my writing. Here, in order to keep it short, are two small examples. In my novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, published in 2017, one of the main characters, an Indian Intelligence officer, Biplab Dasgupta aka Garson Hobart, who has served in Kashmir, says: “It’s true we did—we do— some terrible things in Kashmir, but… I mean what the Pakistan Army did in East Pakistan—now that was a clear case of genocide. Open and shut. When the Indian Army liberated Bangladesh, the good old Kashmiris called it—still call it—the ‘Fall of Dhaka.’ They aren’t very good at other peoples’ pain. But then, who is? The Baloch, who are being buggered by Pakistan, don’t care about Kashmiris. The Bangladeshis who we liberated are hunting down Hindus. The good old communists call Stalin’s Gulag a ‘necessary part of revolution’. The Americans are currently lecturing the Vietnamese about human rights. What we have on our hands is a species problem. None of us is exempt.” In an essay called Walking with the Comrades published in 2010 and republished in June 2019, I wrote: When Charu Mazumdar famously said, “China’s Chairman is our Chairman and China’s Path is Our Path,” he was prepared to extend it to the point where the Naxalites remained silent while General Yahya Khan committed genocide in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), because at the time, China was an ally of Pakistan. There was silence too, over the Khmer Rouge and its killing fields in Cambodia. There was silence over the egregious excesses of the Chinese and Russian revolutions. Silence over Tibet. Given my views on what is happening in Kashmir now, it is not surprising that Hindu Nationalists are rushing to generate outrage over this exciting new/old canard they have dug up about my supposed denial of the genocide in Bangladesh and the deeds of the Pakistan Army in Pakistan. Anybody who has even a passing acquaintance with my writing, will not entertain this idea for even one second. I do not believe that the States of India, Pakistan or Bangladesh are in any way morally superior to one another. In India right now, the architecture of pure fascism is being put into place. Anybody who resists it risks being smeared, trolled, jailed, or beaten down. But it will be resisted. II/III. https://www.dhakatribune.com/opinion/editorial/2019/08/28/arundhati-roy-should-have-known-better?fbclid=IwAR0_1TJK3zL6XcXLIz-ptlVNoo3RNsqvdEiQR4_jhStiyYwQc3sfnm9SWLw Arundhati Roy should have known better Tribune Editorial Published at 12:00 am August 28th, 2019 Arundhati Roy Defending Pakistan through false examples is not the way to present her argument To this day, Pakistan refuses to acknowledge the atrocities committed against our people in 1971 -- crimes which included murder, torture, rape, and looting. That is why it is all the more inexcusable that a writer and activist of the stature and reputation of Arundhati Roy would make a blatantly false statement that aligns perfectly with Pakistan’s own denials of its crimes. The Indian author said: "The State of Pakistan has not deployed the army against its own people in the way that the democratic Indian state has." We cannot agree with this statement, which at best is incorrect and at worst looks like an attempt to whitewash the sins of the Pakistan army. Roy has long been considered a champion of the downtrodden and the oppressed, and for a writer of her level of erudition and sensitivity to completely dismiss the history of the Pakistan army’s atrocities towards the people of what was then East Pakistan and is now Bangladesh, is not just unfortunate, but potentially damaging. While we can understand Roy’s desire to condemn India's actions and policies with respect to Kashmir, defending Pakistan through false examples is not the way to present her argument. Indeed, it is not only the genocide committed against the Bangali population in 1971 that the Pakistani army needs to answer for. Whether we are talking about the Sindhis or the Balochis, the Pakistan army has a storied history of using force against its own countrymen. We sincerely hope that the Booker-winning author and humanitarian learns the error in her statement, and corrects herself, because it is one thing to get small facts wrong, and an entirely different thing to dismiss the plight of millions across the sub-continent. Editor's Note: A previous version of this editorial mistakenly identified the statement alluded to as "recent," and attempted to place it in the current context, when in fact it was made in 2011. The previous version also misquoted Ms. Roy. These mistakes have been corrected. Dhaka Tribune regrets the errors. III. https://scroll.in/article/935542/opinion-arundhati-roy-had-no-reason-to-apologise-for-statement-about-pakistan-indian-armies Opinion: Arundhati Roy has no reason to apologise for her statement about Pakistan, Indian armies Anyone familiar with the writer’s work would know that she is not an apologist for Pakistani militarism – or any form of brute power. Opinion: Arundhati Roy has no reason to apologise for her statement about Pakistan, Indian armies Writer Arundhati Roy and Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani. | Prakash Singh/AFP 4 hours ago Taqbir Huda “Arundhati: Pakistan never used army against its people,” declared a headline in The Gulf News earlier this week. Variations of that thought appeared in Pakistan’s The Nation, India’sTimes Now News and the Sri Lanka Guardian, among other publications. Former Arundhati Roy fans immediately began to denounce the writer for making this purported statement – with the clamour especially loud in Bangladesh. For most Bangladeshis, after all, the Liberation War of 1971 and the brutalities unleashed by the Pakistani army in the nine months that it lasted are etched in living memory as a constant source of trauma and pain. The fact that Pakistan blatantly refuses to officially recognise the crimes against humanity committed by its army in those nine months only rubs salt to the nation’s wounds. Therefore, any statement that could be construed as an attempt to diminish the suffering of the Bangladeshi Liberation struggle is understandably met with anger and resistance. The Dhaka Tribune, for instance, wrote a scathing editorial attacking Roy, saying accusing her of making a “blatantly false statement that aligns perfectly with Pakistan’s own denials of its crimes”. It added: “This is a display of ignorance at best, and an attempt at whitewashing Pakistan’s history of violence at worst.” Many other outraged Bangladeshis shared the same sentiment on social media. How could someone like Arundhati Roy, the voice of the voiceless, the unapologetic opponent of injustice in all its forms, possibly make such a statement? Shame on Arundhati Roy! I used to have huge respect for her, but not anymore! Not only is she insulting my India, she is praising the Pakistani army which, apart from directly supporting terrorism in India, also killed 3 million of its own people during the 1971 Bangladeshi war! pic.twitter.com/Xx794FmC1M — Shama Mohamed (@drshamamohd) August 26, 2019 Upon closer inspection, I realised that Roy had not only been quoted out of context by the Indian media but was also misquoted outright. Some Bangladeshi media outlets blindly followed suit, without bothering to verify her words for themselves. The two-minute clip making the rounds on Twitter and referred to in these news reports has been extracted from a one-and-a-half hour lecture Roy gave in 2011 titled “Democracy and Dissent in India and China”. In the complete video, Roy says, “The state of Pakistan has not deployed the army against its own people in the way that the democratic Indian state has.” She does not say that Pakistan has never used the army against its own people, which is what many of the news sources misquote her as saying. After realising its error, the Dhaka Tribune corrected its headline and report. Unfortunately, other news sources are yet to do the same. Roy opens the 2011 lecture by reading out from her essay “Democracy’s Failing Light”, talking about the brutal ways in which the Indian army has been deployed to displace tribal people from their resource-rich lands to allow multinational corporations to extract precious minerals. She goes on to say: “The Indian state, from the moment it became a sovereign nation, from the moment it shook off the shackles of colonialism, it became a colonial state. It has waged war since 1947 in Kashmir, Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Telengana, Punjab, Goa and Hyderabad.” She adds that India is a state which has “perpetually been at war” with its own people. The misquotation can perhaps be explained by the fact that many newspaper relied on a tweet by Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah, which said that Roy had claimed that “Pakistan has never deployed its military against its own people” instead of verifying Roy’s statement themselves. What is equally a cause for concern is to see how quickly readers jumped to conclusions about Roy’s presumed apologia for Pakistani militarism after reading just the news reports – even those who have apparently read and loved Roy’s work in the past and should know that she would have been unlikely to make such a statement. Subtle distinction As the recording of her lecture makes clear, Roy was making a subtle distinction about India deploying its army to implement neoliberal development projects at the cost of indigenous land rights and the ecological balance as compared to using it tosuppress secessionist movements (which is what the army is typically used for in most parts of the world, including Pakistan). What she meant is that while both countries have used their armies against their own people, the way India has been using the armed forces since 1947 is quite distinct from the manner in which Pakistan has deployed its troops. After all, Pakistan if often referred to not as “a state that has a military” but a military that has a state. There is a good reason Roy often makes offhand comparisons between India and Pakistan: while Pakistan gets negative coverage for being a militaristic state, India is portrayed as a bastion of magical economic growth and liberal democracy – with the international media often turning a blind eye to its brutalities. Admittedly, someone of Roy’s stature could have (and perhaps, should have) worded this impromptu comparison in more a sensitive manner that adequately took into account Pakistani military’s own unique forms of brutalism. However, anyone familiar with Roy’s work in the slightest should know that she is not and has never been an apologist for Pakistani militancy (or any form of brute power. for that matter). Play For instance, an extract from Chapter 7 of her recent book Ministry of Utmost Happiness quite clearly demonstrates her views on the matter, as a character, named BiplabDasgupta, an Indian Intelligence Officer, introspects, “..It’s true we did – we do – some terrible things in Kashmir, but …I mean what the Pakistan Army did in East Pakistan – now that was a clear case of genocide. Open and shut. When the Indian Army liberated Bangladesh, the good old Kashmiris called it – still call it – the ‘Fall of Dhaka’. They aren’t very good at other people’s pain. But then, who is? The Baloch, who are being buggered by Pakistan, don’t care about Kashmiris...” Clinching evidence of her position is available in the 2011 lecture itself (29:30 onward), where Roy expressly mentions the “genocide in Bangladesh” when explaining the irony of geopolitical alliances in South Asian region through the example of Maoists,who are rebels themselves, but remain silent on revolutions that have occurred just across the border since they are not in line with China’s interests or that of its allies (such as Pakistan). While Arundhati Roy has apologised for the “thoughtless” way in which she framed her comparison, I, as a Bangladeshi, would argue that she did not need to do so. Those who deliberately misquoted her should be the ones issuing the apologies. Taqbir Huda is a research specialist at Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and can be reached at taqbirh...@gmail.com. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to greenyouth+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZh6KZMJAFDMWO44eK2Q6%3D18SZ2Yr4tmfWDVg-i0YJyy%3DA%40mail.gmail.com.
