The Strange Case of Arundhati Roy
"If the Court uses the Contempt of Court law, and allows citizens to abuse its process to intimidate and harass writers, it will have the chilling effect of interfering with a writer's imagination and the creative act itself. This fear of harassment will create a situation in which even before a writer puts pen to paper, she will have to anticipate what the Court might think of her work. It will induce a sort of enforced, fearful censorship. It would be bad for law, worse for literature and sad for the world of art and beauty."
Sounds like an excerpt from one of those thought-provoking essays that Arundhati Roy has been writing for sometime now? No, it is from her affidavit-in-reply in response to a contempt notice recently issued by the Supreme Court.
Of late, Roy has been in the news for two entirely different reasons. The first is that the French Government has conferred on her the award of "Knight of the order of Arts and Letters" for her talent and contribution to literature. But back home,she has been dragged into a sordid drama accusing her of contempt of court and 'attempt to murder'.
For those who know Roy only as a gifted novelist, it is to be added here that she has nor yet attempted a second novel; instead, over these years she has concerned herself more and more with such grave issues as globalisation, nuclear threats and big dam projects. Her transformation from a novelist to a social activist is by now complete, and the process is so smooth and logical that there is indeed little to suspect it. She is now a writer with a cause, with a social commitment. Her's is a real voice of reason, of dissent.
But what is it that turns this extraordinary writer into a full-time activist? If you take a look into her life, she has been a quintessential rebel all along. She had fled away from her home at the age of eighteen, and had a taste of the big bad world, living through days of hardships and sufferings along the way. She tried various things to make a living with: draftsmanship, scriptwriting, home-made cakes. She was hardly successful in any of these, but these served her to gain experience and insight in myriad things of the world. She got to be world-savvy in a way few writers were.
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