A review by hadiya
Azadi: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction. by Arundhati Roy
challenging
informative
4.5
Roy deftly illuminates the tense political atmosphere in India, and the combination of fascism, casteism, classism, and religious fundamentalism that is eroding any democratic "decency" (as Roy puts it) it has. She speaks in particular about her own writing, the rise and origins of the BJP (and RSS) and the way that caste is inviolably woven into Indian society, and what citizenhood means in a country of a billion.
I loved the essay where she looks at how fiction/nonfiction writing is treated differently and she herself as a writer is. Her treatises on Kashmir were really informative, and I am sad to say so much of what I previously knew about the issue had been sanitized.
I think a lot of what I knew about India had been sanitized, by well meaning family, news, under reporting, a lack of research on my part, but I always knew there was a bigger monster under the bed. Roy speaks to that monster directly, that monster that is so far gone that any description inevitably wrangles it into something less wild and is thus untrue. She doesn't allow it a semblance of decency.
A lot of the reading made me feel deeply sad, frustrated, and angry. What could be done to help? I had no idea. Roy gives no answers because it's not that easy, just that we will need bravery and courage to get to a better tomorrow.
Only wrangle is since it was a collection of essays, a lot of essays overlapped on content or themes, and at points it would get repetitive.
I loved the essay where she looks at how fiction/nonfiction writing is treated differently and she herself as a writer is. Her treatises on Kashmir were really informative, and I am sad to say so much of what I previously knew about the issue had been sanitized.
I think a lot of what I knew about India had been sanitized, by well meaning family, news, under reporting, a lack of research on my part, but I always knew there was a bigger monster under the bed. Roy speaks to that monster directly, that monster that is so far gone that any description inevitably wrangles it into something less wild and is thus untrue. She doesn't allow it a semblance of decency.
A lot of the reading made me feel deeply sad, frustrated, and angry. What could be done to help? I had no idea. Roy gives no answers because it's not that easy, just that we will need bravery and courage to get to a better tomorrow.
Only wrangle is since it was a collection of essays, a lot of essays overlapped on content or themes, and at points it would get repetitive.