Arundhati Roy spoke to an audience of about 500 people at Friends Meeting House in Euston about the War on the People of India by the Indian State on 12th June 2011.
My impressions of the meeting are very positive has Arundhati's resistance to the murderous activities of the Indian State is an inspiration and listening to her energises you for further struggle.
She told the audience about her recent speech at School of Oriental and African Studies when she was confronted by a hostile questioner who said she should be thankful she was born in India the worlds largest democracy has if she had been born in China she would be in prison.
Arundhati's answer was that if she was not the world renowned Indian Author with the name Arundhati Roy, winner of the Booker prize she should would be sitting in an Indian prison along with the thousands of others unjustly imprisoned in India for resisting the crimes of the Indian State exposing the hypocrisy of Indian Democracy.
Arundhati clearly explains the two Indias, the middle class one so loved by the Western Media and the poor India, but Arundhati's heart and mind are deployed with the 850 million Indians who live on 38 cents a day. She explains how the mineral rich areas are also the tribal areas and the Indian State has a plan of urbanisation to drive 500 million people of the land into the cities. It is employing all weapons of war including starvation to drive the tribal people from their land to benefit the multinational companies who are hungry for India's raw materials.
She read out the UN definition of genocide which so well describes the Indian State's activities against the 100 million tribals of India but also stated that when speaking to the United Nations representative they indicated that what India did in its own borders was its own matter has India was the blue eyed boy of the international community and world capital.
I was also pleased that Arundhati Roy made the point that she had requested a Sri Lankan speaker on the platform for this meeting ( even though there was not one present ) because she saw Sri Lanka has the laboratory for the "invisible" killings that the elites in South Asia aspire to carry out.
She criticised the Left and progressive forces in India including Tamil politicians for failing the Sri Lankan people - her criticism could be extended world wide has the media black out which was a cover for mass murder in Sri Lanka was not exposed in the West either, in fact the Western powers are deeply complicit in the Tamil massacres.
The thrust of his remarks of the Nepalese Speaker at the meeting Comrade Kailash representing Nepalese in Europe was to emphasise the relations between Nepal and India, especially the unequal treaties which give Indian capitalists advantages over Nepalese ones in trade between the two countries. Also he mentioned the interference of the Indian state in Nepalese affairs, especially in supporting the Nepalese Army and other reactionary elements against the Maoist revolutionaries. He emphasised that the future of the revolutionary struggles in the two countries is closely related.
Jan Myrdal addressed the question of building and international solidarity movement with the peoples of India, and cited examples of successful solidarity movements and less successful ones.
The question that arises from the meeting with Arundhati Roy is while her visit to London has made the peoples struggle's in India visible - what happens when she returns to India do these struggles become invisible again ?
If they are not to become invisible again and the light of exposure is to stay on them there needs to be meetings on India in several British Cities in the coming year and articles in the media exposing the crimes of the Indian State.
Democracy and Class Struggle will initiate and support such meetings
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