Vision Factor

  Subaltern Characters in the Novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”         The marginalized and subaltern communities in the control of powerful elites of the society is actually a desire. A craving for power and subjugation is quite clear with making some people excluded of basic civil rights, and in fact to be considered to be mere creatures. It is shown clearly in the novel by Arundhati Roy as “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness showcase the existence if a vast range of people in Indian culture who are supposed to be treated or just ignored. This social psychology is persistent and in fact rapidly raising its part as religious extremism is taking the society by storms. The public sentiments can be raised against a community for the sake of getting political gains. The cow slaughter incidents with Muslims is one such big example and Roy has a clear stance on it.        Roy has said in one of her interviews that if the ruling elites want to run Indian State like that then it bet

  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a literary rebellion by Arundhati Roy on the predefined norms and culture of Indian society. One that is highly influenced by the colonial psyche and a contempt to make so many individuals and communities as marginalized or subaltern, as term that Gyatri Spivak used to describe the post-colonial ethics and rules in India. Roy is not satisfied with surface value of ‘Secularism’ and ‘Shining and Incredible India’, when so many people are suffering within its geographical boundaries. Secular and Marxist by heart, she wants a social justice for all classes. She cannot bear the consequences of having a subaltern state due to an unspecified gender identity like Anjum. He as Aftab had to stop attending school at the age of nine as his/her gender identity was not defined as per social but subaltern rules. Later, she had to leave the music classes as sound of gender discrimination keeps on mongering in his ears like he-she-he-she-he-hehe…!! She cries fo

      India is currently ruled by a Prime Minister, Narindra Modi and his part BJP is verdicted of grand genocide of Muslims of Gujarat. Roy has shown us a glimpse of how people were massively killed, women and girls were raped and kidnapped, properties and lands were burnt, and millions of people were displaced. The reason was the Chief Minister of the State of Gujarat was the same Narindra Modi, who was given a title by his masters as “Gujarat Ka Lala”, discussed again and again in this very novel by Arundhati Roy. She mourns over the social and cultural decline of Indian people who have made him a prime minister of India where not only Muslims but many other communities following different faiths live. What is the future of a state where a man with a genocidal is in rule for the second term? India is a place where Muslims are either killed, beaten up or burnt on the name of cow slaughtering. Ironically, human life is less precious for Hindus than an animal and no judicla or lega

Modi & Anti Muslim Laws Arundhiti Roy in one of her interviews in 2018 to a foreign media channel openly said that India should be declared as a “Hindu Colonial State” unlike the secular and interfaith status which was set by its founders, right from its birth in 1947. She is open in her boycott of the current political system and by not accepting a killer as her prime minister.  If we look at the philosophy of Rashtriya Savek Sangh (RSS), the mother organization of Bhartya Janata Party (BJP), then the whole theory and practical steps are understandable. RSS was founded during colonial rule with a vision that after independence from the British Colonial Rule, there will be a state purely dedicated to serve Hindus of elite castes.  The Hindustan was expressed to be the land of their gods (devtas), and it would be cleansed from the impurities of the lower caste Hindus  and of other faiths. Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jains, Adivasi castes and other communities have to

Arundhithi Roy Roy has said in one of her interviews that she has lived for more than ten years with the characters of the novels in the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. She has not presented characters of her novels out of mere imagination but the factual realities. Even, the non-biased critics of the novel have acknowledged that Roy has documented historical and cultural facts f current India, or the state that came into existence after getting independence from British Colonial rule. The sparks of denouncement and explosive hidden psyche is clearly visible in the marginalized characters of the novel.  Arundhiti Roy has not only written a novel for the sake of mere fiction, but a critical analysis or post- mortem of her own country whom she loves from the core of the heart. She want it to be true secular and liberal state, and that’s why we can the clear statements of revolt in her novel under study which is very much like the essays she had switched to after the suc