I just finished reading P Sainath’s Op-ed The narcissism of the neurotic. Classic Sainath – wry, derisive, and scathingly brilliant shredding of the Commonwealth Games’ showcasing India’s ‘arrival on the world stage.’ Like most commenters on the thread, I agreed with almost everything he said. Across the board most of P Sainath’s writing and videos exalt him as ‘India’s conscience.’
Meanwhile just a few hours ago my reaction to Arundhati Roy’s 2008 essay in the Guardian on Kashmir was completely the opposite. (I read the essay for context on what she said before landing in hot water over her ‘Kashmir is not an integral part of India’ comment earlier this week). I couldn’t express my anger and outrage at her fast enough. Again, I shared an opinion with millions of other Indians worldwide who took to various comment threads to protest against her.
Why? Much of what Roy had written and said about atrocities committed in Kashmir by the Indian army has already been reported in India’s mainstream media. And she is not the first person to openly call for Kashmir’s freedom from India. Take any of her essays published in Outlook or the Guardian for a flavor of the anger and pure hatred that is directed at her – she is called everything from communist, and politically naive to publicity whore.
Roy and Sainath have much in common. Both are international bestselling writers, have won numerous awards and do the talk circuit rounds in the US (a country they both bash regularly). They are fierce advocates for India’s marginalized poor, and passionate critics of the West (read America) and its corporations and policies. Both fearlessly castigate India’s media and corporations who crow about its ‘emerging superpower status.’ So why then do they elicit such completely different responses from their Indian readers?
A little sexism at play perhaps? Speaking for myself, I know this is not the case. I am a huge fan of Roy’s ‘God Of Small Things’ and have often defended her winning the Booker Prize for it.
So why does Arudhati Roy get people all riled up? I think it boils down to two things – the writing and the personality. With Sainath you can expect his opinions to be backed up with facts and statistics. Roy meanwhile paints pictures with words intended to jolt, shock and grab your attention. Sainath narrows his focus on the details of a particular issue. Roy connects dots across space, time, history and continents. Each of her points individually taken are mostly valid. Put together they’re a disparate mess of ideas that just don’t make head nor tail to the average reader.
While Sainath consistently covers the length and breadth of India writing about rural India’s issues, Roy is here, there, anywhere and everywhere all at once. One moment she’s in Maoist country in Dantewada, the next at the Narmada Dam. She’s barely done commenting on the Mumbai Terrorist attack , and she’s off in Srinagar meeting Kashmiri Separatists.
But mostly it is Roy’s tone that most, including myself find grating. The sanctimonious holier-than-thou tone that gets under the skin. That half-smile as she delivers speeches on the most serious issues, as if daring you to separate the facts while being enthralled by her eloquence.
So that’s my advice to Arundhati Roy – pick an issue, firm up the narrative around it and deliver it with less smugness. Anything less, and the messenger will always overshadow the message.
In the meantime I’ll stick to P Sainath for news on issues plaguing rural India.
-Genevieve
Tags: Arundhati Roy, India, P Sainath
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2012/05/05 at 08:57:41
Both are mega stars of the ‘protest industry’, which is today a niche segment of the ‘entertainment industry’, catering to the special tastes of intellectually inquisitive conscientious global citizens. Both are brilliant in sculpting the truth to their own designs. They are eminent entertainers. Encore. Keep performing.
2011/10/01 at 09:37:44
Mr Bobby how brilliantly you have put your views! You are 100% correct.
2011/05/10 at 06:44:49
I think Sainath and Roy are brilliant writers mostly speaking the brutality both economic ,civil. Sainath has a brilliant way of presenting with facts and figures ,whereas Roy is very emotionally inclined towards her writings.
I am a fan of Saintah’s writings on Hindu and his book Everybody Loves a Good Drought.
We need writers like Roy and Sainath
2011/04/26 at 12:36:02
Hi Gopal,
Thank you so much for your insight. I read Sainath’s piece on Prof. Basu’s suggestion, and agree with your view. Sainath did paint the issue with too broad a brush. Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Best regards,
Genevieve
2011/04/26 at 11:19:44
Like you I find a similarity between these two writers. However, unlike you I have serious problems with both of them.
Both have been honored for their work by foreign organizations. Since their honor they now feel that they have the right to pontificate on all issues, even if it is outside their expertise. Both use invectives and display contempt for other perspectives. Most devastatingly, they use twist statistics and deliberately ignore facts to suit their argument. Here are just a few examples:
1. Sainath recenty attacked Prof Basu’s suggestion in an article that was laced with contempt. Prof Basu’s crime is that he is an advisor to the Prime Minister. He had simply suggested that the ordinary people who are forced to give bribes should not be treated in the same way that those who take bribes. Widows collecting pensions, getting a driver’s license, registering property transactions are just a few examples. Sainath chose to ignore all of these ordinary examples that the proposal was aimed at and instead attacked the prime minister, Prof Basu, capitalism etc. I found the article reprehensible.
2. Arundhati Roy wrote about human rights violations in Kashmir. However, all her examples focused on the Indian army. In fact, she referred to Pandits in one sentence declaring “pandits left the valley”, completely ignoring the atrocities that were committed against them. It would not be hard for her to find the Pandits who can bear personal testimony to the crimes that were committed against them by Islamic militants. Today the valley has been ethnically cleansed, but it hasn’t stirred Arundhati’s conscience.
In my view both of these are examples of deliberate ignoring facts that are crying out to be called out. They do this in pursuit of an argument that finds everything wrong in their chosen bugbear. There are many more such examples that I find in their writings. Perhaps, it is their attempt to keep things simple and clear for their readers, but that too is a form of tremendous arrogance.
2010/12/08 at 09:52:04
Right. In today’s world, prettier than thou, richer than thou, smarter than thou, more powerful than thou, bigger than thou, are absolutely fair game. But holier than thou? That’s verboten. The “defeated” has to immediately find skeletons in the holier’s closet, or life’s not worth living.
Relative comparisons are ok for looks, money, power, but not holiness. Only the perfectly holy can be smug.
Great. Keep going and see where that leads the world.
2010/12/06 at 18:49:42
Sainath attacks the government on agriculture. On the latest budget. On the apathy towards the poor.
Arundhathi attacks the government about Kashmir, about Maoists, about Afsal Guru.
Hope I made the point clear.
2010/12/04 at 10:00:12
For me it’s also the way she disrespects people who disagree with her (e.g. the way she and her legion of fans attacked Ram Guha over Narmada), her absoluteness, the impression I get that to her the issues she gets involved in are vehicles for creative writing, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to do anything beyond pontificate.
2010/12/04 at 07:04:07
100% agree with you! You hit the nail right on the head!
2010/12/04 at 04:32:16
I think both Roy and Sainath are brilliant writers. Roy’s article titled the “greater common good” is absolutely brilliant, in my opinion.
The way i see it, Sainath is liked and Roy is disliked by most Indians, because of where they stand. Sainath is seen as an Indian, who is criticizing the state as an honest Indian.
Roy on the other hand owes no respect or love for the Indian state or for that matter any state. Her attacks are seen as one coming from an “outsider”. She has a more global perspective in mind, and writes more from an anarchist perspective.
I think this is what angers the middle class Indians. Its ok if someone sympathetic to the idea of an Indian state attacks it, but not when someone who seems not much attached to the idea of a state itself attacks it.