To Arundhati Roy, winner of the 2023 European Essay Prize, a novel is ‘real, unfettered azadi’. And essay a tool to fight against fascism and injustice.
When Arundhati Roy was thinking of the title of her 2020 collection of essays, AZADI: Freedom. Fascism. Fiction (Penguin India), which recently earned her the 2023 European Essay Prize, her publisher in the UK, Simon Prosser, asked her what she thought of when she thought of azadi (freedom). “I surprised myself by answering, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘A novel.’ Because a novel gives a writer the freedom to be as complicated as she wants — to move through worlds, languages, and time, through societies, communities, and politics,” she writes in the introduction to the book, a compilation of her lectures and essays written between 2018 and 2020, described by the publisher as “a pressing dispatch from the heart of the crowd and the solitude of a writer’s desk.”
In analysing the essence of a novel, Roy (61) posits that its complexity and intricacy should not be confused with it being ‘loose, baggy, or random’. “A novel, to me, is freedom with responsibility. Real, unfettered azadi”, she writes, pointing out how azadi, the slogan of the ‘freedom struggle’ in Kashmir, has also become a chant of millions against the project of Hindu nationalism. While some essays in the volume have been written through the lens of a novelist delving into the very universe of her novels, others explore the symbiotic relationship between fiction and reality, shining light on how fiction seamlessly integrates into the world and, in many ways, becomes the world itself. Like it does in her two novels: the lyrical and exquisitely written The God of Small Things (1997), for which she received the Booker Prize, and her long-awaited second work of fiction, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017).
Charles Veillon Foundation, the instituting body that confers the prize, said in a statement, ‘Roy uses the essay as a form of combat.’ The publication of The God of Small Things coincided with the 50th anniversary of India’s independence from British colonialism. This period marked India’s pivot toward the global stage, during which the country aligned itself with the United States, embracing corporate capitalism, privatisation, and structural adjustments. However, a shift occurred the Indian political landscape in 1998 with the ascent of a BJP-led Hindu nationalist government, which conducted nuclear tests, altering the public discourse dramatically.
Roy, who had just won the Booker Prize, found herself thrust into the role of a cultural ambassador for the emerging New India. She began her journey of speaking out through her writing lest her silence was seen as complicity. Her powerful essay, ‘The End of Imagination’, which rails against the nuclear weapons as an affirmation of statehood, identity and defence, led to her being labelled ‘a traitor and anti-national’. However, she took these insults as badges of honour, realising well that speaking out was a political act in itself. In her subsequent essays, she wrote about dams, rivers, displacement, caste, mining, and civil war.
Literature and freedom
In her acceptance speech, Roy articulated her perspective on the notion of freedom. She made it clear that her happiness, as a writer, stems from the world of literature and the craft of writing. Over the past 25 years, she has penned essays that serve as a warning about the direction the country has been headed. Yet, these warnings have often fell on deaf ears, with liberals and self-proclaimed progressives often dismissing her writing. “But now the time for warning is over. We are in a different phase of history. As a writer, I can only hope that my writing will bear witness to this very dark chapter that is unfolding in my country’s life. And hopefully, the work of others like myself lives on, it will be known that not all of us agreed with what was happening,” she said.
Ahead of the 2024 General elections, Roy fears that if Narendra Modi comes back to power, there might be a new Constitution which will only curtail her ability to speak candidly. The irony lies in the fact that she receives the prize for her work, which essentially forewarned the country about its current trajectory. Much of her first essay, written for the W. G. Sebald Lecture on Literary Translation which she delivered in the British Library in London in June 2018, is about the divisive partitioning of Hindustani into Hindi and Urdu, a schism that eerily foreshadowed the rise of Hindu Nationalism in India by more than a century. She delves into the historical roots of a project that would later reshape India’s political landscape. Scathing and incisive and trenchant and courageous and piercing and perspicacious — words that have come to define her style — these essays reflect the collective hopes, fears and despair of the people of India, minus the saffron brigade.
The early essays reflect the hope that many of us had in 2018: that Modi's reign would come to an end. “As the 2019 general election approached, polls showed Modi and his party’s popularity dropping dramatically. We knew this was a dangerous moment. Many of us anticipated a false-flag attack or even a war that would be sure to change the mood of the country,” she writes. In one of the essays, “Election Season in a Dangerous Democracy” (2018) she also underscores this fear: “We held our collective breath. In February 2019, weeks before the general election, the attack came. A suicide bomber blew himself up in Kashmir, killing forty security personnel. False flag or not, the timing was perfect. Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept back to power.”
As she was writing the introduction to the book in February 2020, then US President Donald Trump was on an official visit to India, and the first case of COVID-19 had been reported. It was a time when India was grappling with the revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, widespread protests against an anti-Muslim citizenship law, and the horrifying communal violence in Delhi. “In a public speech to a crowd wearing Modi and Trump masks, Donald Trump informed Indians that they play cricket, celebrate Diwali, and make Bollywood films. We were grateful to learn that about ourselves. Between the lines he sold us MH-60 helicopters worth $3 billion. Rarely has India publicly humiliated herself thus,” she writes.
Literature in the Dark Times
Roy uses her words as both a shield and a sword in the face of an increasingly polarised world. In an essay titled ‘The Language of Literature,’ she grapples with the state of the world, dissecting the impact of capitalism, war, and government policies on our planet and its people. She doesn’t mince words when pointing out that much of the blame for the global chaos rests on the shoulders of the United States. She writes how after 17 years of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the conflict led to negotiations with the very Taliban they sought to overthrow. In the interim, Iraq, Libya, and Syria fell victim to the chaos of war, causing countless casualties and turning ancient cities into ruins. The rise of groups like Daesh (ISIS) further added to the turmoil. In her characteristic candour, she describes the US as ‘a rogue state’ that flouts international treaties and engages in aggressive rhetoric.
Roy believes that the place for literature is not predefined but rather built by writers and readers. It’s a fragile yet indestructible sanctuary that provides shelter in the face of chaos. She values the idea of literature that is necessary, literature that offers refuge: “It’s a fragile place in some ways, but an indestructible one. When it’s broken, we rebuild it. Because we need shelter. I very much like the idea of literature that is needed. Literature that provides shelter. Shelter of all kinds.” Her own journey as a writer has seen her straddle the worlds of fiction and nonfiction, with no clear boundary between the two.
She rejects the notion that fiction and nonfiction are at odds, stating that both are equally true, equally real, and equally significant: “I have never felt that my fiction and nonfiction were warring factions battling for suzerainty. They aren’t the same certainly, but trying to pin down the difference between them is actually harder than I imagined. Fact and fiction are not converse. One is not necessarily truer than the other, more factual than the other, or more real than the other. Or even, in my case, more widely read than the other. All I can say is that I feel the difference in my body when I’m writing.”
Acknowledging the risks that writers face today, she speaks of the perilous position of journalists in India, where threats to free expression have led to the country’s ranking just below conflict zones like Afghanistan and Syria. In The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, she navigates a complex map of languages, reflecting the linguistic diversity and complexity of India. She delves into the stories of characters who speak different tongues, showing how language can be both a bridge and a barrier. Her characters’ experiences demonstrate the challenges of living in a multilingual society, where slogans and chants may be in languages that people neither speak nor understand. Yet, they become tools of both resistance and assimilation.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, she writes, can be read as a conversation between two graveyards: “One is a graveyard where a hijra, Anjum — raised as a boy by a Muslim family in the walled city of Delhi — makes her home and gradually builds a guest house, the Jannat (Paradise) Guest House, and where a range of people come to seek shelter. The other is the ethereally beautiful valley of Kashmir, which is now, after thirty years of war, covered with graveyards, and in this way has become, literally, almost a graveyard itself. So, a graveyard covered by the Jannat Guest House, and a Jannat covered with graveyards. This conversation, this chatter between two graveyards, is and always has been strictly prohibited in India. In the real world, all conversation about Kashmir with the exception of Indian Government propaganda, is considered a high crime — treasonous even. Fortunately, in fiction, different rules apply.”
