Arundhati Roy: 'We're Burning Down Our House'
The Indian writer details fascism's rise in the American ally state
Best-selling author and Indian Arundhati Roy says that fascism is the ruling order in her nation, thanks to religious nationalism. “We're burning down our house. India is an experiment that is failing dangerously,” Roy tells CNN.
“You know the people in strange clothes, the man in furs and antlers who stormed the US Capitol? We're being ruled by their equivalent here. The difference is that they are not a collection of random lunatics. They are members of the most powerful organization in India -- the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), whose founding ideologues openly admired Hitler and likened the Muslims of India to the Jews of Germany. RSS is the real power in India.”
The ruling Hindu Nationalist party has silently overseen mass killings of Muslim people in recent years. In the face of this reality, Roy rejects the nation’s propaganda claim that it is the world’s largest democracy.
“A democracy doesn't just mean having regular elections. You cannot be a democracy when 200 million people who constitute a religious minority are expected to live without rights,” she continues.
“When you can lynch them, kill them, incarcerate them, economically and socially boycott them, bulldoze their homes with complete immunity and threaten to strip them of citizenship. When the murderers and lynchers can aspire to move swiftly up the political ladder."
Read the entire interview, here.