Arundhati Roy backs Maoists, dares authorities to arrest her

Criticism for romanticising Naxalism notwithstanding, Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy has justified the armed resistance by Maoists and dared the authorities to arrest her for supporting their cause.

While claiming that she does not support violence, the 48-year-old author-activist feels that the Naxal movement
could be nothing but an armed struggle as the Gandhian way
would not have been successful in the present context.

"The Naxal movement could be nothing but an armed struggle. I am not supporting violence. But I am also completely against contemptuous atrocities-based political analysis," she said delivering a lecture on 'The War on People' organised by the Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights here late last night.

"It ought to be an armed movement. Gandhian way of opposition needs an audience, which is absent here. People have debated long before choosing this form of struggle," Roy, who had saluted the "people of Dantewada" after 76 CRPF and police personnel were mowed down by Moists in the deadliest attack targeting security forces, said.

"I am on this side of line. I do not care...pick me up put me in jail," she asserted. 

While terming the Naxalite violence as a corollary to the battle between the tribals and corporate houses to gain control over natural resources like minerals, water and forests, she said, "While 99% of Maoists are tribals, 99% of tribals are not Maoists."