A political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.
ARUNDHATI ROYA political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.
ARUNDHATI ROYI’m not ambitious. I don’t want to get anywhere, I don’t want anything more. I sometimes think that for me that is the real freedom, that I don’t want anything. I don’t want money or prizes. I want people to know that a war is going to be fought.
ARUNDHATI ROYAs 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 ROYViolating human rights is integral to the project of neoliberalism and global hegemony.
ARUNDHATI ROYWhen people say “the people” or “the public” as though it’s the final repository of all morality, I sometimes flinch.
ARUNDHATI ROYThe American people ought to know that it is not them, but their government’s policies, that are so hated.
ARUNDHATI ROYEither way, change will come. It could be bloody, or it could be beautiful. It depends on us.
ARUNDHATI ROYHe folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.
ARUNDHATI ROYMaking bombs will only destroy us. It doesn’t matter whether we use them or not. They will destroy us either way.
ARUNDHATI ROYWhatever else their faults may be, they were not radical Islamist states – Iraq was not, Syria is not, Libya was not. The most radical fundamentalist Islamist state is, of course, your America’s Saudi Arabia.
ARUNDHATI ROYIt was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened.
ARUNDHATI ROYI could weep for a river-valley, and I have. But for a country? Oh man, I don’t know.
ARUNDHATI ROYI am a woman who is a granddaughter of a lady who used to be beaten on the head by her husband, of a mother who went through hell because she was divorced and had to bring up these kids. And I can take 10 men out to lunch and pay the bill, and nobody even thinks twice about it. So don’t mess with me.
ARUNDHATI ROYPeople 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 ROYMany people have accused me of having a romantic view, whereas I personally I feel sorry for those who have lost romance in their lives.
ARUNDHATI ROYPeople who promote the free market and growth are far more romantic, and far more ideologically driven and blinded by their vision than somebody who goes in and comments about the beauty of a forest or the stars in the sky.
ARUNDHATI ROY