Arundati Roy defends her 'anti-India' statements

New Delhi, Oct 26: Writer and activist, Arundati Roy, who is facing the threat of being booked for sedition over her statements concerning Kashmir, on Tuesday, Oct 26 issued a statement to defend herself.

Stressing that her now controversial speech was "fundamentally a call for justice", the Booker-prize winner wrote from Srinagar, "I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years."

"I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state."

“In the papers some have accused me of giving 'hate-speeches', of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride," she added.

Regarding the government mulling action against her as well as separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani under sedition charges, Roy accused the authorities of attempting to 'silence writers who speak their mind".

Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily, who earlier termed their statements as “unfortunate", had defended the government's move saying, "Yes, there is freedom of speech...it can't violate the patriotic sentiments of the people."

Roy, who has invited the ire of the government several times in the past as a Naxal sympathiser, stirred up a storm for making what is now being termed as 'anti-India' statements at convention on 'Azadi—The Only Way" last week.

The writer had said, “Kashmir has never been an integral part of India. It is a historical fact. Even the Indian government has accepted this."

OneIndia News