She is not God of All Things

Arundhati Roy spoke and the media exploded. This time she adopted another pet and called it Kashmir. She said she was speaking what “millions of people in Kashmir have been saying everyday for years". To quote her: “Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free."
The government is now contemplating sedition charges against her and hard line Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, with whom she shared the dais at the seminar, 'Whither Kashmir? Freedom or Enslavement'. The media lapped up the debris left behind her explosive call for supporting those who want ‘azadi’ for Kashmir.
There is no doubt about the fact that India by itself is a post-colonial construct, the concept of Hindustan arising out of the imperial ashes. History is testimony to the fact that in the span of a century from Robert Clive-led Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Sepoy Mutiny (or the patriotic term "first war of independence"), the colony called India more or less took shape as it is today, sealed to a large extent by Dalhousie's final nails of annexation. The 1940s saw an impatient British empire rushing through partition of a non-nation and marking ambivalent boundaries. The empire was in a hurry to leave the country. It left, but in shreds after its loot of our resources to fund its industrial revolution and its rape of our conscience with its seditious designs of divide and rule. Left to fend for itself, the country gifted itself Kashmir, again in a hurry before their people could realise the pact with their Maharaja. But after the accession, like other princely states, Kashmir remains a part of our democratic fabric, though its politicians retained their feudal colour. The Indian government's promises got buried under the Valley's political and military snowstorm.
That Geelani shrewdly used star activist Arundhati Roy to add glamour to the separatists' call for azadi is a natural marketing gimmick. But Arundhati Roy romanticising Kashmir militancy is dangerous. A writer-activist adopting the cause of Maoists and displaced tribals is understandable. That is an internal question. But calling the Indian government's acquisition of Kashmir foul is a serious cause for security concern. It is at best an open invitation to destablilise the volatile sub-continent. By espousing the cause of separatists, she is questioning India as an entity and that is outrageous.
Agreed that Kashmir is an Indian question mark, but instead of solving the question, Roy, as an Indian, could help democratic forces resume a healthy dialogue and inspire sincerity among government and security forces. And, the Indian government, instead of contemplating to arrest Roy, could begin taking sincere political and economic steps in the Valley to win back people's confidence.