The Prosecution Of Roy Is A Stark Warning From Modi To His Critics Salil Tripathi

This month, the highest ranking bureaucrat of the state of Delhi, Vinai Kumar Saxena, permitted the Delhi police to prosecute Arundhati Roy (pictured), and Sheikh Showkat Hussain for remarks they made at a public event 14 years ago.

- Salil Tripathi

The opposition Aam Aadmi party governs Delhi, but the capital's police reports to the central government's home ministry. While the prime minister, Narendra Modi, lost his parliamentary majority in the recent elections, the prosecution of Roy shows that those who expected a chastened government willing to operate differently are likely to be disappointed.

Hussain and Roy are to be tried for making speeches at a conference called Azadi [Urdu for "freedom"]: The Only Way, which questioned Indian rule in the then state of Jammu and Kashmir. Hussain is a Kashmiri academic, author and human rights activist. Roy is among India's most celebrated authors, with a wide global following.

After Roy won the Booker prize in 1997, for The God of Small Things, she became the nation's darling. It was the year of India: the 50th anniversary of independence, and the year Salman Rushdie, the first Indian-born winner of the Booker, published a volume anthologising new Indian literature. Roy became an idol. Indeed, in Mira Nair's 2001 film Monsoon Wedding, a character who wants to pursue creative writing is told by an uncle: "Lots of money in writing these days. That girl who won the Booker prize became an overnight millionaire."