Field Notes on Democracy
Listening to Grasshoppers
Essays on what Indian democracy looks like from below — the courts, Kashmir, Maoist insurgency, communal violence.
A collection of Arundhati Roy’s political essays from the years after the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, published in the United States as Field Notes on Democracy. Roy writes on the trial and execution of Afzal Guru, the Gujarat violence of 2002, the Maoist insurgency in the forests of central India, and the treatment of Kashmir, arguing that India’s democratic institutions have hollowed out into procedure while the state’s violence against its poorest citizens intensifies. The title comes from a Nazi-era instruction to listen for what cannot be said aloud.
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Pankaj Mishra
These are not immediately apparent in a place like China, where poverty and inequality are not so visible. In India, they are part of the disquieting experience of a foreign visitor. Roy’s book actually helps you understand that experience, it explains why these grotesque inequalities exist, and why India today, in addition to being a vibrant democracy and booming economy, is also an extremely violent place.
Interview · March 2011
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