WRITER'S DEFENCE
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Maoists justified in taking up arms: Arundhati Roy
Published on Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 13:46, Updated on Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 13:55 in India section
Tags: Arundhati Roy, Maoists , New Delhi
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New Delhi: Maoists are “justified in taking up arms” because the government has been unjust to them and is waging a war on them, says writer and activist Arundhati Roy.
"My fear is that because of this economic interest the government and establishment actually needs a war. It needs to militarise. For that it needs an enemy. And so in a way what the Muslims were to BJP, the Maoists are to Congress," Roy said in an interview with Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN’s show Devil's Advocate.
"If I was a person who is being dispossessed, whose wife has been raped, who is being pushed of their land and who is being faced with this 'police force', I would say that I am justified in taking up arms. If that is the only way I have to defend myself," said the Booker Prize-winning novelist. "There should be unconditional talks with the Maoists.”
"We should stop thinking about who is justified. You have an army of very poor people being faced down by an army of rich that are corporate-backed. I am sorry but it is like that. So you can't extract morality from the heinous act of violence that each commits against the other," she said.
Roy, in a debate on CNN-IBN last week, had alleged that the government was a planning a war on Maoists to take away their resources on behalf of the multi-national companies.
“The real fact is--and I believe this--that it is the Government that wants a war to clear out the forest areas because there is a huge backlog of MoUs in Jharkhand as well as Chhattisgarh that are not being activated,” she had said.
(Watch the full interview and read transcript at 2030 hrs IST on CNN-IBN and IBNLive. )
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If Maoists are justified, we will soon have guns in the hands of each and every Indian because we all
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Maoists dont want development cause otherwise where will get their recruits from???
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Clearly Arundhati Roy is anti national. She always supports those who try to harm our country. Its the so called
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What practical and useful purpose is going to be served if the ravings and rantings of a person who is
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A very interesting and probing interview indeed.
Arundhati Roy should understand the difference between flowing and
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