My Seditious Heart

by Arundhati Roy

  “AND HIS LIFE SHOULD BECOME EXTINCT”

  1.The high court claimed that “the fire power was awesome enough to engage a battalion and had the attack succeeded, the entire building with all inside would have perished.” See the court’s verdict of October 29, 2003. For details of the Parliament attack and the subsequent trial, see Nandita Haksar, Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal: Patriotism in the Time of Terror (New Delhi: Promilla, 2007); Praful Bidwai et al., 13 December: A Reader: The Strange Case of the Attack on the Indian Parliament, revised and updated ed. (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007); Syed Bismillah Geelani, Manufacturing Terrorism: Kashmiri Encounters with Media and the Law (New Delhi: Promilla, 2006); Mukherji, December 13; People’s Union for Democratic Rights, “Balancing Act: High Court Judgment on the 13th December 2001 Case,” New Delhi, December 19, 2003; and People’s Union for Democratic Rights, “Trial of Errors: A Critique of the POTA Court Judgment on the 13 December Case,” New Delhi, February 15, 2003.

  2.Judge S. N. Dhingra, Judgment of the Special Prevention of Terrorism Act Court, Mohammad Afzal vs. the State (NCT of Delhi), December 16, 2002.

  3.“Statement Made by Shri L. K. Advani, Union Home Minister on Tuesday, the 18th December, 2001, in Lok Sabha in Connection with the Terrorist Attack on Parliament House,” Ministry of External Affairs, https://www.mea.gov.in/articles-in-indian-media.htm?dtl/16856Satement+made+by+Shri+LK+Advani+Union+Home+Minister+on+Tuesday+the+18th+December+2001+In+Lok+Sabha+in+Connection+with+the+terrorist+attack+on+Parliament+House.

  4.See Susan Milligan, “Despite Diplomacy, Kashmir Troops Brace,” Boston Globe, January 20, 2002, A1; Farah Stockman and Anthony Shadid, “Sanctions Fueling Ire between India, Pakistan,” Boston Globe, December 28, 2001, A3; Zahid Hussai, “Tit-for-Tat Bans Raise Tension on Kashmir,” Times (London), December 28, 2001; and Ghulam Hasnain and Nicholas Rufford, “Pakistan Raises Kashmir Nuclear Stakes,” Sunday Times (London), December 30, 2001.

  5.Dhingra, Judgment of the Special Prevention of Terrorism Act Court.

  6.See Somini Sengupta, “Indian Opinion Splits on Call for Execution,” International Herald Tribune, October 9, 2006; and Somini Sengupta and Hari Kumar, “Death Sentence in Terror Attack Puts India on Trial,” New York Times, October 10, 2006, A3.

  7.“Advani Criticizes Delay in Afzal Execution,” Hindu, November 13, 2006.

  8.Maqbool Butt, a founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, was hanged in New Delhi on February 11, 1984. See “India Hangs Kashmiri for Slaying Banker,” New York Times, February 12, 1984, sec. 1, 7.

  9.Lakshmi Balakrishnan, “Reliving a Nightmare,” Hindu, December 12, 2002, 2. See also Shuddhabrata Sengupta, “Media Trials and Courtroom Tribulations,” in Bidwai et al., 13 December, 46.

  10.Press Trust of India, “S[upreme]C[ourt] Allows Zee [TV] to Air Film on Parliament Attack,” IndiaInfo.com, December 13, 2002.

  11.“Five Bullets Hit Geelani, Says Forensic Report,” Hindustan Times, February 25, 2005.

  12.See “Police Force,” Indian Express, July 15, 2002; “Editor’s Guild Seeks Fair Trial for Iftikhar,” Indian Express, June 20, 2002; and “Kashmir Time Staffer’s Detention Issue Raised in Lok Sabha,” Business Recorder, August 4, 2002.

  13.Iftikar Gilani, My Days in Prison (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2005). In 2008 the Urdu translation of this book received one of India’s highest literary awards from the Sahitya Akademi, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/iftikhar-gilani-wins-sahitya-akademiaward/424871.

  14.Doordarshan Television (New Delhi), “Court Releases Kashmir Times Journalist from Detention,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, January 13, 2003.

  15.Statement of Sayed Abdul Rahman Geelani, New Delhi, August 4, 2005; http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/parl/geelanistate.htm. See also Basharat Peer, “Victims of December 13,” Guardian (London), July 5, 2003, 29.

  16.“Special Cell, ACP Face Charges of Excesses, Torture,” Hindustan Times, July 31, 2005. Singh was later murdered, in March 2008, in what is widely believed to be an underworld property dispute. See Press Trust of India, “Encounter Specialist Rajbir Singh Shot Dead,” Hindustan Times, March 25, 2008.

  17.See the articles “‘Terrorists Were Close-Knit Religious Fanatics,’” and “Police Impress with Speed But Show Little Evidence,” Times of India, December 21, 2001.

  18.Emily Wax and Rama Lakshmi, “Indian Official Points to Pakistan,” Washington Post, December 6, 2008, A8.

  19.Mukherji, December 13, 43.

  20.Statement of Mohammad Afzal to the Court under Section 313 Criminal Procedure Code in the Court of Shri S. N. Dhingra, ASJ, New Delhi S/V Afzal Guru and Others, FIR 417/01, September 2002, http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/afzal/azfal6.htm.

  21.Aijaz Hussain, “Killers in Khaki,” India Today, June 11, 2007. See also “PUDR Picks Several Holes in Police Version on Pragati Maidan Encounter,” Hindu, May 3, 2005; People’s Union for Democratic Rights, “An Unfair Verdict: A Critique of the Red Fort Judgment,” New Delhi, December 22, 2006; and “Close Encounter: A Report on Police Shoot-Outs in Delhi,” New Delhi, October 21, 2004.

  22.See “A New Kind of War,” Asia Week, April 7, 2000, and Ranjit Dev Raj, “Tough Talk Continues Despite Peace Demands,” Inter Press Service, April 19, 2000.

  23.See “‘Five Killed after Chattisinghpora Massacre Were Civilians,’” Press Trust of India, July 16, 2002, and “Judicial Probe Ordered into Chattisinghpora Sikh Massacre,” Press Trust of India, October 31, 2000.

  24.Public Commission on Human Rights, “State of Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir 1990–2005” (Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, 2006), 21.

  25.“Probe Into Alleged Fake Killings Ordered,” Daily Excelsior (Janipura), August 30, 2005.

  26.M. L. Kak, “Army Quiet on Fake Surrender by Ultras,” Tribune (Chandigarh), December 14, 2006.

  27.“Appeal to the President of India,” March 5, 2002, https://www.sabrang.com/gujarat/statement/statement.htm#SAHMAT%20CALLS%20MODI%20A%20%E2%80%98MASS%20MURDERER; Mark Oliver and Luke Harding, “He Is Blamed for the Death of 2,000 Muslims in India. So Why Is Narendra Modi in Wembley?” The Guardian, August 18, 2003. “Genocide,” Communalism Combat, March–April 2002, https://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/marapril/edinote.htm; Amnesty Internationa, “Equal Protection to All Citizens Must be Ensured in Gujarat,” March 1, 2002.

  28.“Storm over a Sentence,” Statesman (India), February 12, 2003.

  29.The analysis that follows is based on the judgments of the Supreme Court of India, the Delhi High Court, and the Prevention of Terrorism Act Trial Court cited earlier.

  30.“As Mercy Petition Lies with Kalam, Tihar Buys Rope for Afzal Hanging,” Indian Express, October 16, 2006.

  CUSTODIAL CONFESSIONS, THE MEDIA, AND THE LAW

  1.Somini Sengupta, “Indian Opinion Splits on Call for Execution,” New York Times, October 9, 2006.

  2.See the letter of N. D. Pancholi to NDTV, December 26, 2006, http://www.sacw.net/free/pancholitoNDTV.html.

  3.Despite the court judgments, the media continues to publish custodial confessions. See Mihir Srivastava, “Inside the Mind of the Bombers,” India Today, October 2, 2008.

  4.Barkha Dutt, “Death of the Middle Ground,” Hindustan Times, December 16, 2006.

  5.Maloy Krishna Dhar, Open Secrets: India’s Intelligence Unveiled (New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2005), 20.

  LISTENING TO GRASSHOPPERS: GENOCIDE, DENIAL, AND CELEBRATION

  1.One and a half million is the number of Armenians who were systematically murdered by the Ottoman Empire in the genocide in Anatolia in the spring of 1915. The Armenians, the largest Christian minority living under Islamic Turkic rule in the area, had lived in Anatolia for more than 2,500 years. Figures given by Peter Balakian, talk at the World Affairs Forum, San Francisco, California, November 2, 2003. Audio and transcript available from Alternative Radio, http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/BALP002.shtml.

  2.Araxie Barsamian, speaking at the University of Colorado at Denver, Colorado
, September 26, 1986. Audio and transcript available from Alternative Radio, http://www.alternativeradio.org/programs/BAAR-FISR001.shtml.

  3.See Susanne Fowler, “Turkey, a Touchy Critic, Plans to Put a Novel on Trial,” New York Times, September 15, 2006, A4, and Nicholas Birch, “Speaking Out in the Shadow of Death,” Guardian (London), April 7, 2007, 30.

  4.“Appeal to the President of India,” March 5, 2002, https://www.sabrang.com/gujarat/statement/statement.htm#SAHMAT%20CALLS%20MODI%20A%20%E2%80%98MASS%20MURDERER%E2%80%99; Mark Oliver and Luke Harding, “He Is Blamed for the Death of 2,000 Muslims in India. So Why is Narendra Modi in Wembley?” The Guardian, August 18, 2003; “Genocide,” Communalism Combat, March–April 2002, https://sabrang.com/cc/archive/2002/marapril/edinote.htm; Amnesty Internationa, “Equal Protection to All Citizens Must be Ensured in Gujarat,” March 1, 2002.

  5.See Dionne Bunsha, Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2006).

  6.“Tata, Ambani Bag Gujarat Garima Awards,” Business Standard (India), January 13, 2004.

  7.Pankaj Mishra, “A Mediocre Goddess,” New Statesman, April 9, 2001.

  8.United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, approved and proposed for signature and ratification or accession by General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of December 9, 1948, and entered into force on January 12, 1951.

  9.Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 23.

  10.Quoted in Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492–Present (New York: Harper Perennial Classics, 2001), 15.

  11.Babu Bajrangi, “‘After Killing Them, I Felt Like Maharana Pratap,’” Tehelka, September 1, 2007.

  12.Talk by Robert J. Lifton, Center for the Study of Violence and Human Survival, John Jay College, City University of New York, January 29, 1996. See also Robert J. Lifton and Greg Mitchell, Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996).

  13.See Mahmood Mamdani, “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency,” London Review of Books, March 8, 2007.

  14.See Anthony Arnove, ed., Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002), 63 and 145.

  15.See Rachel L. Swarns, “Overshadowed, Slavery Debate Boils in Durban,” New York Times, September 6, 2001, A1, and Chris McGreal Durban, “Africans Back Down at the UN Race Talks,” Observer (London), September 9, 2001, 16.

  16.See Sven Linqvist, A History of Bombing (New York: New Press, 2003); Marilyn B. Young and Yuki Tanaka, eds., Bombing Civilians: A Twentieth-Century History (New York: New Press, 2009); and Gabriel Kolko, Century of War: Politics, Conflict, and Society since 1914 (New York: New Press, 1995).

  17.See Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars: 1945–1990 (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991); Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2007); and Chalmers Johnson’s trilogy, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, 2nd ed.; The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic; and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2004, 2004, and 2008).

  18.Robert McNamara, interview by Errol Morris, in The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (Sony Pictures, 2004), 95 minutes, http://www.errolmorris.com/film/fow_transcript.html.

  19.See Carl Hulse, “U.S. and Turkey Thwart Armenian Genocide Bill,” New York Times, October 26, 2007, A12. Similar resolutions have also been consistently defeated in the Knesset in Israel. See, for example, Gideon Alon, “Knesset Opts Not to Discuss Armenian Genocide at P[rime] M[inister]’s Request,” Ha’aretz, March 15, 2007.

  20.See Heinz Heger, The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps, 2nd ed. (New York: Alyson Books, 1994); Daniel Guérin, The Brown Plague: Travels in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994); Guenter Lewy, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); and Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–1945 (New York: Picador, 2007).

  21.Balakian, World Affairs Forum. See also Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response (New York: Harper Perennial, 2004).

  22.Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide (New York: New Press, 1997).

  23.See Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (New York: Mariner Books, 1999). Leonard Courtney, president of the Royal Statistical Society in London, gave a lecture titled “An Experiment in Commercial Expansion” on December 13, 1898, at the society’s annual meeting. See “Colonial Lessons from the Congo Free State,” Public Opinion (New York), January 5, 1899, 11.

  24.Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes.”

  25.See “RSS Aims for a Hindu Nation,” BBC News, March 10, 2003, and Press Trust of India, “RSS Might Get Trendy Uniform Next Year,” Rediff. com, July 23, 2004.

  26.Leena Misra, “240 POTA Cases, All against Minorities,” Times of India, September 15, 2003; “People’s Tribunal Highlights Misuse of POTA,” March 18, 2004. The Times of India misreported the testimony presented. As the Press Trust of India article notes, in Gujarat, “The only non-Muslim in the list is a Sikh, Liversingh Tej Singh Sikligar, who figured in it for an attempt on the life of Surat lawyer Hasmukh Lalwala, and allegedly hung himself in a police lock-up in Surat in April [2003].”

  27.On the violence in Nandigram, West Bengal, see the archives of the site Sanhati: Fighting Neoliberalism in Bengal and Beyond, http://sanhati.com/november-2007-violence-in-nandigram-archive-of-events.

  28.Quoted in Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” 154. See also Woodruff D. Smith, “Friedrich Ratzel and the Origins of Lebensraum,” German Studies Review 3, no. 1 (February 1980): 1–68.

  29.Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes,” xx.

  30.Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2002), 7.

  31.Neeta Lal, “Malnutrition Rampant, May Trigger Crisis,” India Together, April 2, 2007.

  32.See “The Greater Common Good,” 25–75, above; it was also published in Arundhati Roy, The Algebra of Infinite Justice (New Delhi: Penguin Books India), 2001; and Roy, The Cost of Living (New York: Modern Library, 1999). See also R. Rangachari et al., “Large Dams: India’s Experience,” World Commission on Dams, November 2002.

  33.See “Chhattisgarh Govt. Risking Civilian Lives Through Anti-Naxal Camps: ACHR,” Hindustan Times, March 17, 2006.

  34.See Aman Sethi, “New Battle Zones,” Frontline (India), September 8–21, 2007.

  35.Lifton, “Turkish Denial of Armenian Genocide,” City University of New York, January 29, 1996.

  36.Shah Rukh Khan, interview by Namrata Joshi, “‘Films Are for Entertainment, Messages Are for the Post Office,’” Outlook, October 22, 2007.

  37.Ramachandra Guha, India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 743. See the review by Sanjay Kak, “A Chronicle of ‘India Shining,’” Biblio: A Review of Books, July–August 2007, 1–3.

  38.“The Denial of an American Visa Is a Political Boon for Narendra Modi,” Economist, March 26, 2005, quoting Vir Sanghvi.

  39.Amitabh Bachchan, “‘India Poised’ Anthem,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP-TwHwLc98.

  40.Lifton, “Turkish Denial of Armenian Genocide,” City University of New York, January 29, 1996.

  41.Sudeep Chakravarti, Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 2007).

  42.Quoted in “Naxal March: Timebomb Ticks at Home,” Hindustan Times, August 8, 2006.

  43.Hartosh Singh Bal, “Stamp Out Naxals,” Mail Today, January 10, 2008.
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  1.See Yaroslav Trofimov, “A New Tack in Kashmir,” Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2008, A1.

  2.Human Rights Watch, “India’s Secret Army in Kashmir: New Patterns of Abuse Emerge in the Conflict,” Washington, DC, May 1996. See also reports by the International Crisis Group (http://www.crisisgroup.org) and Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org).

  3.See Sonia Jabbar, “Politics of Pilgrimage,” Hindustan Times, June 29, 2008.

  4.Gautam Navlakha, “State Cultivation of the Amarnath Yatra,” Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), July 26, 2008. See also Navlakha, “Jammu and Kashmir: Pilgrim’s Progress Causes Regression,” Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai), July 8, 2006.

  5.See Indo-Asian News Service, “Amid Amarnath Land Row, Pilgrimage Keeps Its Peace,” Hindustan Times, August 14, 2008; and Indo-Asian News Service, “Muslims Holding Makeshift Kitchens for Stranded Amarnath Pilgrims,” Hindustan Times, July 1, 2008.

  6.Andrew Buncombe, “Kashmir Tries to Defuse Shrine Riots by Revoking Deal,” Independent (London), July 2, 2008, 26.

  7.Indo-Asian News Service, “Amid Amarnath Land Row, Pilgrimage Keeps Its Peace.”

  8.“On Punjab–J&K Border, Parivar Pitches Tent, Calls the Shots,” Indian Express, August 6, 2008 (about Jammu and Kashmir). See also Indo-Asian News Service, “Land Row Makes Kashmir Economy Bleed,” Hindustan Times, August 7, 2008.

  9.“‘No Highway Blockade, It’s Only Propaganda,’” Times of India, August 17, 2008; “Gov[ernmen]t Counters Blockade Propaganda with Bulletins,” Economic Times (India), August 14, 2008; and Karan Thapar, “Jammu Discriminated and Kashmir Favoured: Jaitley,” CNN-IBN, August 24, 2008.

  10.“Hawk Geelani Says He’s ‘Sole’ Azadi Leader, Then Apologises,” Indian Express, August 19, 2008. See also interview with Rediff, “‘I Do Not Want to Be Compared with Osama [bin Laden],’” Rediff News, August 25, 2008.

  11.Aijaz Hussain, “Kashmiri Muslims March in Call for Freedom,” Associated Press, August 17, 2008, and “Indian Kashmir Separatists Announce Protests to Continue Till Demands Met,” BBC Monitoring South Asia, August 17, 2008.