After 14 years, India sends Arundhati Roy to trial
The writer and activist will have to answer for words spoken in November 2010 during a public event on separatism in Kashmir
2' min read
Key points
- Arundhati Roy became world-famous after winning the Booker Prize with 'The God of Small Things'.
- For years he has devoted much of his energy to non-fiction and political activism
- Today she is India's most controversial intellectual for her positions on Modi, Kashmir and the Maoist guerrillas
2' min read
From our correspondent
NEW DELHI - Indian writer Arundhati Roy will stand trial for opinions she expressed 14 years ago at a public meeting on the subject of separatism in Kashmir. This was ruled on Friday evening by the Lutenant Governor of Delhi, a kind of head of state for the Indian capital Territory, V. K. Saxena. Along with Roy, Sheikh Showkat Hussain, a former professor of international law at the Central University of Kashmir, will also go on trial.
Roy and Hussain, who were accused of making "provocative speeches" in the complaint filed in November 2010, will be tried under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or Uapa, an anti-terrorism law in force since 1969 that was amended more restrictively in 2019, just after the biggest ever electoral triumph of the Hindu nationalists of the Bjp, the party of PM Narendra Modi, against which Roy repeatedly lashed out, calling it 'a tragedy' for the country.
Arundhati Roy is one of India's greatest living authors and suddenly became famous in 1997 when her debut book The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize and was translated and published in dozens of countries, becoming a worldwide hit with critics and public alike. Before Roy, it had happened that Indian authors had won the prestigious literary prize, but it had always been children of the diaspora or emigrants, like Salman Rushdie. Even in more recent years, Indian winners, such as Kiran Desai, have never been residents of their home country.
After attaining world fame, the writer has devoted much of her energies to fiction and activism on the front of minority rights, such as the tribal peoples and the Muslim community of Kashmir, becoming arguably the country's most controversial, provocative and least compromising intellectual. His stances on Kashmir and the Maoist Naxalite guerrilla war in India's east-central states in the past have drawn criticism from a broad spectrum of political parties, including the Congress Party.
