A review by mohiuddin_
Broken Republic: Three Essays by Arundhati Roy

5.0

India has been a republic for the past 65 years. But, by the turn of the century the very basics on which the country was liberated from the clutches of the English colonialists seems to have vanished. The free voices seems to be stifled in the throats itself, the blatant and rampant misuse of the Constitution by the government and The courts alike are becoming the highlights of today’s era.

“What is freedom?” is an oft asked and highly quoted question. I guess, neither did we know it in 1947 nor do we know it in 2015. The reins of power shifted from the British egalitarians to the kurta-clad desi romantics. But the state of the poor remains the same. At least, in the bygone days we had the comfort of being looted by a foreigner, who looked foreign, ate foreign food, we could lament and curse under our breaths but in this age, it is our brother who loots us, he speaks our language, eats our food, has the same skin colour. But, what more he has is the money in his pockets.

Money buys everything, even free speech too. The media houses today are slaves to business barons, either the business owns the media or the media owns businesses. In this highly partial structure, only the rich get richer and the poor are left to commit suicide.

In the name of development, the poor are forced out of their homes, and the few who refuse to get forced are branded as terrorists and shot in “encounters”.

In the end, India is a democracy. By definition, it is a rule of the majority. Whatever the majority wants, it does. The fundamental rights of the Constitution are rampantly violated when the interests of the government or the corporate houses it caters to is at stake. Right to life is abused like anything. Rampant rapes, killings, murders, of adivasis and Dalits are common. The real concept of “divide and rule” is implemented. The policy of “divide and rule” was implemented by the British raj to efficiently manage the Indian mass without utilizing the resources of their own. In this age, it is used to create rift between different religions, different castes, and different regions.

In “Broken Republic”, Roy in her four essays exposes the rampant abuse of law and human rights to crush the local tribals in order to usher in the “New Development”. She doesn’t bat an eyelid in criticizing the policies of the right wing political parties to the leftists. She is also unwavering in criticizing the hypocrisies of some of the well-known social activists of today, Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, Bill Gates or even Nelson Mandela.

Most of the prose is easy on the brain and unfaltering in their essence. Though we may offer a different view on some of her theories, but we cannot ignore her overall message. The best part I like about her non-fiction is she doesn’t impose her views on the readers. She just bares the truth and leaves it out for the readers to judge. Sometimes, she can waver a bit in her accusations though.

In my opinion, all right minded, patriotic Indian must read Arundhati Roy’s non-fiction to understand what the government does and what it publishes.