Arundhati Roy - The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

What caste am I? That is your question? With such a huge political agenda as mine, you tell me, what caste should I be? What caste were Jesus and Gautam Buddh? What caste was Marx? What caste was Prophet Mohammed? Only Hindus have this caste, this inequality contained in their scriptures. I am everything except for a Hindu. As an Azad Bhartiya, I can tell you openly that I have renounced the faith of the majority of the people in this country only for this reason. For that my family does not talk to me. But even if I was President of America, that world class Brahmin, still I would be here on hunger strike for the poor. I don’t want dollars. Capitalism is like poisoned honey. People swarm to it like bees. I don’t go to it. For this reason I have been put under twenty-four-hours surveillance. I am under twenty-four-hours remote control electronic surveillance by the American Government. Look behind you. Can you see that blinking red light? That’s their camera battery light. They have installed their camera in that traffic light also. They have their control room for their cameras in the Meridian hotel, in the dogs’ room. The dogs are still there. They never went back to America. Their visas were extended indefinitely. Now because the American Presidents come to India so often, they keep their dogs here, permanently stationed. At night when the lights are on they sit on the windowsills. I see their shadows, their outline. My distance vision is very good and getting better. Every day I can see further and further. Bush, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Ceausescu are members of a one hundred member club of leaders that are plotting to destroy all the good governments in the world. All the American presidents are members, even this new one.

Last week I was hit by a white car, Maruti Zen DL 2CP 4362 belonging to an Indian TV Channel funded by Americans. It crashed through the iron railing and drove onto me. You can see that part of the railing is still broken. I was sleeping, but alert. I rolled to one side like a commando, and so I escaped that attempt on my life, only my arm was crushed. It is now under repair. The rest of me was saved. The driver tried to escape. The people stopped him and forced him to take me to Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. Two people sat in the car and slapped him all the way to the hospital. The government doctors treated me very well. In the morning when I came back, all the revolutionaries who were here that night, bought me samosas and a glass of sweet lassi. They all signed or put their thumb impressions on my plaster. See, here are Santhal tribals from Hazaribagh, displaced by East Parej coal mines, these are Union Carbide Gas victims who walked here all the way from Bhopal. It took them three weeks. That Gas-Leak company has a new name now, Dow Chemicals. But these poor people who were destroyed by them, can they buy new lungs, new eyes? They have to manage with their same old organs, which were poisoned so many years ago. But nobody cares. Those dogs just sit there on that Meridian Hotel windowsill and watch us die. This is Devi Singh Suryavanshi’s signature; he is like me, a nonaligned. He has given his phone number also. He is fighting against corruption and the cheating of the nation by politicians. I don’t know what his other demand is; you can phone him directly and ask. He has gone to visit his daughter in Nashik, but he will come back next week. He is a eighty-seven years old man, but for him, still, the nation comes first. This is the rickshaw union Rashtravadi Janata Tipahiya Chalak Sangh. This thumb impression belongs to Phoolbatti from Betul, Madhya Pradesh. She’s a very good lady. She was working in a field as a daily laborer when a BSNL — Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited — telephone pole fell on her. Her left leg had to be amputated. The Nigam gave her money for the amputation, fifty thousand rupees, but how is she to work now, with only one leg? She is a widow, what will she eat, who will feed her? Her son doesn’t want to keep her so he has sent her here to do a satyagraha to demand a sedentary job. She has been here for three months. No one comes to see her. No one will. She will die here.

You see this English signature? This is S. Tilottama. She is a lady who comes here and goes. I have seen her for many years. Sometimes she comes in the day. Sometimes she comes in the late night or in the early morning. She is always alone. She has no schedule. She has this very good handwriting. She is also a very good lady.

These are the Latur earthquake victims whose cash compensation has been eaten up by corrupt collectors and tehsildars. Out of three crore rupees only three lakh rupees reached the people, 3 percent. The rest was eaten by cockroach people on the way. They have been sitting here since 1999. Can you read Hindi? You can see what they have written, Bharat mein gadhey, giddh aur sooar raj kartein hain. It means India is ruled by donkeys, vultures and pigs.

This is the second assassination attempt on me. Last year on 8th April, Honda City DL 8C X 4850, drove onto me. That same car you see in the advertisement there on the toilet except that my car was maroon, not silver. Driven by an American agent. On 17th July, Hindustan Times city section, HT City reported it. My right leg was fractured in three places. Even now it’s hard for me to walk. I have to limp. People joke and say that I should marry Phoolbatti so that we have one healthy left leg and one healthy right leg for two of us. I laugh with them even though I don’t find it funny. But it is important to laugh sometimes. I am against the institution of marriage. It was invented to subjugate women. I was married one time. My wife eloped with my brother. They call my son their son now. He calls me Uncle. I never see them. After they eloped I came here.

Sometimes I cross the road and fast on the other side, with the Bhopalis. But it’s much hotter there.

Do you know what this place is, this Jantar Mantar? In the old days it was a sun-dial. It was built by some Maharaja, I have forgotten his name, in the year 1724. Foreigners still come to see it with tour guides. They walk past us but they don’t see us, sitting here on the side of the road, fighting for a better world in this Democracy Zoo. Foreigners only see what they want to see. Earlier it was snake charmers and sadhus, now it is the superpower things, the Bazaar Raj. We sit here like caged animals, and the government feeds us useless little pieces of hope through the bars of this iron railing. Not enough to live on, but just enough to prevent us from dying. They send their journalists to us. We tell our stories. For a while that lightens our burden. This is how they control us. Everywhere else in the city there is Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code.

See this new toilet they have built? For us, they say. Separate for ladies and gents. We have to pay to go inside. When we see ourselves in those big mirrors, we get afraid. DECLARATION

I do hereby declare that all the information given herein above are true to the best of my knowledge and no material has been concealed therefrom.

FROM HIS VANTAGE POINT on the pavement Dr. Azad Bhartiya had seen that far from being alone, the baby that had disappeared had three mothers on the pavement that night, all three stitched together by threads of light.

The police, who knew that he knew everything that happened at Jantar Mantar, descended on him to question him. They slapped him around a little — not seriously, just from habit. But all he would say was: