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As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I’ve spent my whole life fighting tradition. There’s no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.

Arundhati Roy

Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Death Kind Nation Reason War
Power is fortified not just by what it destroys, but also by what it creates. Not just by what it takes, but also by what it gives. And powerlessness reaffirmed not just by the helplessness of those who have lost, but also by the gratitude of those who have (or think they have) gained.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Creation Destroy Gratitude Help Lost Power Thinking
Democracy no longer means what it was meant to. It has been taken back into the workshop. Each of its institutions has been hollowed out, and it has been returned to us as a vehicle for the free market, of the corporations. For the corporations, by the corporations.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Coporation Democracy Freedom Institution Return
People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose them. People get killed. Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people’s minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Death Kill Lose Mindset People War Willing Win
NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dangerous Time Worst
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Breathe Herself Journey Myself Possible Quiet World
The idea of justice – even just dreaming of justice – is revolutionary. The language of human rights tends to accept a status quo that is intrinsically unjust – and then tries to make it more accountable.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Dreams Human Ideas Justice Language Responsibilty Revolution Right
When people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Moral Myself People Reaction
The people who created the crisis in the first place will not be the ones that come up with a solution.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Creation Oneself People Place
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.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Corruption Death Freedom Injustice Justice Mindset Nation Poor Prison Silence Talk Writing
Every people, every society, needs a culture of resistance, a culture of being difficult and disobedient, that is the only way they will ever be able to stand up to the inevitable abuse of power by whoever runs the state apparatus, the capitalists, the communists, the socialists, the Gandhians, whoever.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Culture Difficult Injustice Need People Power Resistance Society
NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Coporate Goodness Politics Space Work World
Privatization is presented as being the only alternative to an inefficient, corrupt state. In fact, it is not a choice at all… it is a mutually profitable business contract between the private company (preferably foreign) and the ruling elite of the Third World.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Business Choice Present Privacy Rule World
There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Deep Force Ignorance Silence Voice
That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Care Love People Word
The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.
ARUNDHATI ROY

Money Politics Reaction Reality Reason Resistance Scare

As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I’ve spent my whole life fighting tradition. There’s no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.

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As a woman who grew up in a village in India, I’ve spent my whole life fighting tradition. There’s no way that I want to be a traditional Indian housewife.

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Popular Authors

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