The Ministry of Utmost India is Exposing the Marginalization or Subaltern State of Minorities in India

 

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 better to announce a Hindu Colonial Rule as a matter of fact. When people are marginalized and live in subaltern state even after getting independent from the foreign rulers then what’s the use of calling the State as a Secular and Open for all faiths, races, communities. Subaltern mindset suit the rulers to keep a hegemony of their own ideology, to be implemented on a vast population. To explode and exploit the public sentiments and to get votes, and to stay in power like we have recently witnessed the Gujarat Ka Lala, once again in power. The subaltern theory is still persistent as it induces fear amongst many people, and they are bound to act as the people in authority wants them to be. It is another state of slavery that local rulers keep on enjoying even after the end of colonial era in India.

Here is how Arundathi Roy has depicted so many subaltern and margalized characters from the mnainstream Indian society in her novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”.

i - Anjum - A transgender and subaltern

        The main protagonist Anjum (formerly Aftab) is marginalized and subaltern being an object of fear, hatred, and rejection by the society’s set parameters.  She has to take refuge in a graveyard where dead people won’t humiliate her and put her in a difficult situation. She called her residence there with “Jannat - Paradise”. It is in fact  A literary slap on Indian Subaltern psyche. She was marginalized as per Spivak’s theory when she/he had to leave the school at the age of nine, due to a non-conforming gender identity. Later, she had to renounce the music which was inbuilt in her nature. Then she had to leave the home of her parents as they could not afford a Hijra at the place, and this specie of subalternity had to take refuge in Khawabgah, under Transgender Guru named “Ustad Kulsoom Bi’.

ii - Tilo – Subaltern on the basis of unknown fatherhood and color

         A second protagonist whose intellect and emotional state is not a matter of concern only because she is having a skin color black like Africans, and supposedly being an illegitimate child. Social stigma in Indian society and culture does not allow people from different walks of life to clearly admit her abilities and showcase respect unless she has a cushion of some respectable names like Naga, Biplab Dasgupta (Hobart Garson) or Musa Yeswi (Kashmiri Freedom Fighter). She is so much marginal and subaltern as colonial rulers made children out of wedlock or even rape as a sign of hatred and rejection. It was present in the Indian society for unknown times but the colonial rulers had a special sense of rejection. We can see that William Wordsworth, famous English poet had to leave her mistress along with his biological daughter in France, only due to the social stigma of the British culture and traditions.

iii- Saddam Hussain

       A marginalized and subaltern in Indian society as he belongs to lowest caste of Hindus. Dallit, Chamar or Untouchable is a word used for people of his caste, and his father along with companions were killed due to carrying a carcass of a dead cow. They didn’t kill the cow but a subaltern mindset allowed the Higher Caste Hindus to paly and kill them as they wished for. Isn’t it a sign of marginalization and subalternity as Spivak has pointed out in her said essay? Yes, it is the case and who will raise a voice for these people when India is fast shrinking into a Brahman or Higher Caster Hinds State, as per Arundhati Roy is her essays and recent interviews. We see that the guy embraced Islam as a revolt, way to take revenge and somehow felt comfortable with Muslims who didn’t treat him the way, and in whose name his father and uncle were brutally murdered. So, we can see that the subaltern communities have a mutual show of respect and understanding of how others live. That is why they all gathered at a graveyard “Jannat Guest House”, a place of solace and refuge for all those who are highly marginalized by Brown Men, following the footsteps of their earlier Masters and “White Men”.

iv - Miss Jabeen the Second

      An abandoned child very much like Tilotoma due to a gang rape of another marginalized and subaltern community – the tribal castes of Assam and Nagaland by Indian officials. Her Mother named “Revathy”, a victim of freedom struggle and from a place where Indian atrocities are using rape as a weapon of mass destruction, to showcase that Spivak is right when she talks about genocide, oppressed women, rape as a weapon against the powerless, and the margins within the highly marginalized collective society called India. Off course, her position and future life could not be better predicted than what Tillotoma had done. She suffered all her life with that stigma so she took no time in adopting that child, who was left on the side path of an Old Delhi street.

v- Musa Yeswi

      A Kashmiri freedom fighter who is devoted to his religion and to get independence from Indian oppression. How far Indian atrocities have gone to torture, dehumanize the factors or war, and to create horrific torture, rape and humiliation of Kashmiri Muslims. They are subaltern as Indian forces and government acts same like colonial rule there. But their freedom movement is not subject to a stop so much like the 1947 India-Pakistan independence movements. Musa, Airfa, Miss Jabeen, Captian Gulakak and all people of Kashmir have been made marginal and they live a life of subaltern as Spivak has defined in her essay.

3.2- Jannat Guest House – Symbolic of Social Isolation of Anjum and Tilo along with Other Subaltern Members of the Society

         Jannat Guest House is symbolic as the soul rests in peace only if it enters in Heaven or Jannat (Urdu Word for Paradise). Anjum is rejected by the cultural restraints that were long imposed by colonial rulers, and then taken intentionally or unintentionally by the predecessor Hindu rulers of India. Now the Jannat Guest House is a place where Anjum, Saddam Hussain, Tilo, Miss Jabeen the Second can find asylum along with other hijras and marginalized people. A place where the funerals and graves can be carved for the people who were rejected by normal society “Duniya”. A prostitute was bathed and buried named Rubina, Khawaja Sira from different parts of Delhi, Maryam Ipe’ last prayers and grave (Mother of S. Tilotoma), Saddam Hussain’s father grave – a sign of regard by the marginalized and subaltern transgender named “Anjum aka Aftab”. Jannat meant asylum and peace for lost souls of the community, and here Anjum is the Queen and Master of the land.

       Anjum and Tilo are subject to social outcast being abnormal in a society that is still governed by the Subaltern rules as per Gayatri Spivak. They are the sort of people whose voices shiver when they are either addressed directly or they simply try to stay mute. The westerners are still guiding the third world countries like India and Pakistan as to call what is normalcy and what as an abnormal. Anjum, being a transgender with different surgeries and not fitting into male of female suits is an object of shame for the Indian society. Same is the case with Tilo (S. Tioltoma – means Sesame Seed), being dark colored and the one whose fatherhood is not known. Her real mother had to abandon her to an orphanage, and then to accept her as a foster child later. The irony doesn’t last here as all through life she is admired for her intellect, wisdom, skills but still as a person who could be easily targeted and alleged. She was advised by “Musa Yeswi “, to take cushion of Naga as her husband, to safeguard herself from any further damage after her departure from bleeding Kashmir, and her typical subaltern torturous treatment at Shiraz Cinema’s Torture Cell, formed by Indian Occupying Forces and Intelligence Agencies.

          Anjum survived the Gujarat Massacre only due to her Hijra identity, considered a bad omen by Extremist Hindus to kill. Otherwise her fate could be like thousands of other massacred and raped there. It means that there was no sympathy or compassion amongst the powerful Hindu extremists, who were performing genocidal activities in Gujarat to please their leaders “Gujarat ka Lala aka Narindra Modi”, ironically he has been elected as a Prime Minister of India after his great show of humility in Gujarat, as a chief Minister in 2001-2002.

      Same is the case with Tilo, saved from Shiraz Cinema torture cell in Srinagar; only due to a connection with an officer of higher ranks in Indian Intelligence (Biplabab DasGupta) and later saved by another college fellow named “Naga”, being a son of a foreign ambassador. She was caught as a routine matter and to get a clue of Commander Gulrez – who was supposed to be the husband of Tilo. A fabricated story that is set against any person who is powerless or subaltern. Both Anjum and Tilo do not have their own identities and merits to be checked and respected by the so-called normal world of India – Duniya.

3.3-  Duniya – A Reference to Enclosed Indian Society as per Arundhati Roy (needs extend)

         The characters of Anjum, Tilo and Sadam showcase us more of Roy’s literary connection with Charles Dickens and Russian Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Insulted and Humiliated”. She is asking everyone as how and what is required by sane people to wake up and fight for the natural born rights of transmen or transwomen and of course of people who are unnamed like Tilo, or Saddam as converted from untouchable cast of Hindus. Roy is rebellious and outspoken but for the rights of subaltern or marginalized communities of India. Her novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is a plight for the people who are left without mention and stay unwanted and unnamed.

3.4- How Roy has Given a Glimpse of “The God of Small Things” in her Current Novel

        Arundhati Roy got the fame from her very first fiction novel “The God of Small Things”. The novel was highly praised and got the Man Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious award and distinction for literary achievements. She got such fame and her novel took people’s hearts by storms. She proved to be a new face of India Intellectual Brigade. Her narrative was highly praised and the earthly references as well. But there was a huge fan falling of her youthful charm. Her novel had deep down philosophies about how people live in India under a colonial charisma like the whole family of Ammu. The love for English and foreign style was presented in an ironic but subtle way.

       Roy proved to be a Marxist, secular and a human rights vocalist for marginalized communities when the character of “Valutha” is presented. The way he was tortured and put to death has a strong coherence with the marginalization and warlike crimes against people of Kashmir, Assam, Nagaland and other places. So, we can say that her mind was very clear about what she wanted to say in her first novel. To raise a voice for the people who cannot speak for themselves. The suppressed Ammu can be seen in Anjum and Tilo’s characters to some extent. Maryam Ipe character seems to be straight from the novel “The God of Small Things”. Even at a place in the current novel in discussion “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, it is mentioned that S. Tilotoma could ideally be Ammu’s and Valutha’s daughter if the story had a different ending.

     The later literary and the prose contributions by Arundhati Roy has a significance as how she has paved her way to the current novel that is written exactly after twenty years of the first one. Her books of essays present the Kashmir issue, Consequences of Dams, Voice for the Marginalized Communities, the Freedom Movements, the Hindu Caste System, and the negative impacts of Hindu Extremism and Supremacy that is seen in Syrian Christian community of the novel “The God of Small Things”, and in fact a subaltern mindset trained by the British rulers. So, we can smell the tone and the transition of her first novel and the books of her essays as strongly echoing again and again in the current novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”.

3.5- Why a Historical Reference is required for Showcasing Serious Social and Cultural Issues?

 

     The historical reference becomes necessary at very many times to let the readers correlate the theory and the writer’s perception. The presentation of historical facts means that human nature is subject to environment and the situations. The basic nature remains the same but sometimes the invader’s influence is so strong that a nation or a culture loses its true values and principles. Then nobody can safeguard that civilization form internal or external disasters. That is what historical introspection of British Colonial Rule has had done with Sub-Continent. We are still suffering from the congestion, the deeper marginalization, and the discrimination on the basis of faith, race, color, and language, political and economic factors.

       A sad part of historical evidences given by Roy is the fact that Indian society was never so prejudiced and tightly screwed up before. Like the Mughal Era was a sigh of relief of different communities. Transgender community enjoyed not only freedom but power and a dignified role in social, and political scenario. Same is the case with the Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and others. They used to live in harmony and there was no bigger issue seen or observed by various historians. It means the historical evidences were given with truth and it proves the power of giving away respect and freedom of expression that India has lost, even after independence from British Colonial rule. It is the perception of Arundhati Roy, and she sticks to it in her novel as much like her essays and speeches on different global forums. She wants to change the subaltern and marginal state of people like Anjum, Tilo, and Saddam and at the same level for freedom vocals and fighters like Musa, Arifa, Miss Jabeen and victims like Revathy in other part of the same Indian society.

3.6- Arundhati Roy is influenced by Spviak’s Subaltern Theory?

 

     Gyatari Chovkorvorty Spivak has written an essay on the subject “Can the Subatlern Speak”. It is here that she has mentions her disagreement with western notion of talking about the marginal communities of Sub Continent and in fact about all nation that suffered colonial rules. The Subaltern is a term used for the post-colonial groups or communities whose voices have been suppressed with force, violence and economic or political reasons. She has condemned the west for being hypocrite and their show of interest of the “Others” is only based on the political and economic interests. The western academic researches and theories are biased and formed with their own set visions in minds.

      She outcasts the western theorists and says that they have used their research and knowledge, to favor their conquest and enslavement of oppressed cultures and societies. She does not accept western academic works for the subaltern communities as she thinks that western theorists want the subaltern people to hand over their miseries and sufferings to them. So, they can polish and present these to the world in their own retrospect, and that is highly non-recommendable. She strongly believes in the marginal communities being dismissed by colonial rulers, and they created more of subaltern species as a way to divide and rule. The voices of marginal or subaltern people still shakes in the post-colonial eras as the imprints of west have not wiped away.

       Spivak does not align her theories and researches with Marxist community. Though her subject matter is the underprivileged and people with low or simply no voice in Indian Society. She talks about gender biasedness, economic factors and how western people segregate Indians and Asians. She is called a colored professor while she is teaching at a prestigious educational institution of the United States of America. When there is a voice of prejudice against her who can speak and write “English” better than many Americans then what about the conditions of marginal communities in the Indian culture.

      Here we can see her perception and vision is highly fulfilled by Arundhati Roy in her 2017 novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, being a native Indian and a patriot. She has highly criticized the social dilemma that marginalized and subaltern people face in Indian Society. Here is a transgender “Anjum” who is long seen as an object of hatred and discrimination (colonial era’s gift).  An unrecognizable and abandoned child turned an architect “S. Tilotoma”. Saddam Hussain – a subaltern due to being a low caste Hindu later turned to be a Muslim. Miss Jabeen the Second and her real mother “Revathy”, a child born out of a brutal gang rape and unacceptable by subaltern people as well. The subaltern hegemony prevails in the marginalized communities as well. Spivak sees it and then says that they can do nothing about it as their voices shake when they talk about the people in power and authority.

      Roy is a perfect voice as per Spivak’s ruling in her essay “Can the Subaltern Speak”. She is not wiping the tears of colonized Indians being a non-Indian person. She has written what she has witnessed on first hand and about the issues she is all vocal about. Roy’s essays and her movements within India are about those marginalized communities. It is not difficult to say that she has given a face to Spivak’s theories and essays, and her contribution to make a mindset change is far greater by staying in India, and fighting for the rights of subaltern about whom Spivak is all that concerned. So, the credit of novel and giving the issues that are still considered immoral must be given to Roy. It is her individual effort and she has highlighted the Third Sex or Transgender as a dual Subalterend species.

       They are deprived of basic human rights of love, education, health, social identity, legal protection and a right of growing up independent. Then they live a humiliated life and are forced to stay away from the regular or normal life, which is denoted by “Duniya” in the novel. Transwomen like Anjum or Saeeda have all the feelings and guts to raise kids like Zainab or Miss Jabeen the Second. Would they get a legal right by Indian government to foster the kids who are even abandoned by their own parents?  The answer must be found out and at a sooner level to leave that White Man’s garbage thought process. To let the marginalized communities live with peace free from fears, and have their own social roles designed and aspired by them….!!

3.6.1 Muslims have become subaltern under Hindu extremist party’s rule

        Muslims have never gained that real freedom in India that Congress, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru along with Muslim leaders of the same part claimed. The genocide, mass rape and kidnapping and stealing of assets of 1947 is part of documented history. The statement doesn’t end here as there was always a class difference while dealing with Muslims of higher ranks in India. The results of the subjugation is visible in Arundhathi Roy’s novel under discussion named “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”. It is not a writing by a Msulim otherwise the fundamental Hindus must have labeled it as a biased opinion. She is Half Hind and half Syrian Christian, and she is depicting a clear picture of suburbs of red Fort and Jama Masjid of Dehli. It was an ancient walled city built be Mughal Emperor Shahjahan. So, the name is still chanting there as Shajahanabad and Roy has used it as the same.

        Here we meet Mulaqat Ali, his wife Saeeda begum, their trangender son Aftab/Anjum, the teacher, musician and the other characters. They are the predecessros of Mughal Royal family but they live a marginal life. They live in smelly, dirty and filthy old small alleys. They do not enjoy the luxuries of modern life and they are offered with little of what a capital of a multi-community country like India must have offered. There is light and sound show on regular basis, and the state activities are performed in Red Fort as well but the surrounding area and people are marginalized, not by white colonial rulers as Spivak keeps on pointing. But the colored ruling elites who either belong from the same city or at least from the same country.

3.6.2- Urdu – A Diminishing Language Only as it Represents Mughal and Muslim Presence in the Sub-Continent

 

        Urdu is vulnerable to get diminished as people have stopped using it, considering it a language of Muslims of India. In Mughal era it was a public, educational and literary language of whole Sub-Continent that includes India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Now the language spoken by Anjum in the novel and the great heritafe of Mir Taqi Mir, Mirza Ghalib and rest of Urdu poets will no longer be cherished by Indians, being a languaue of Muslims. Narrative of extremist Hindus whose representative is the present government in India. Roy has shown her own grief of the situation in her current novel.

3.6.3- Anti-Muslim Campaigns and Violent Acts in Recent Years in India, Making it a More Marginalized State

 

      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 legal actions are taken against these criminals because they are state protected. Roy has pointed it out clearly in the novel, and the brutality of extremist doesn’t even recognize as if a mob is killing really some Muslims or a Lower Caste Hindu. A case of Saddam Hussain’s is presented in the novel for readers to look at the widespread psyche of hatred and killing for the sake of fun or a show of lust for more power over the already oppressed ones. It means that the Indian communities are more marginalized and more subaltern forms have been formed with open killings of Muslims and Dallits, and even Christians. Muslim actors, singers and intellectuals who are born Indians are reportedly threatened many times by the extremist Hindus. Actors, singers and sports persons from Pakistan were banned and threatened to be killed if seen or heard in India. Despite the fact that they were called by Indian producers and managers with legal work permits. It all shows hostility and hatred amongst the ruling Hindi majority, and here is no work of white man in creating this situation as Gayatri Spivak has a single sided opinion, and has not updated her readings and observation like Arundhati Roy has done so far.

3.6.4 Narindra Modi as Prime Minister is an example of start of Hindu Colonial Rule

 

      Arundhati 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 pratical 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 accept Hinduism as their religion otherwise they would be considered the servants of High Cast Brahman Hindus. No person from other faith can keep any form of assets or properties.

       BJP under the ruler ship of Narindra Modi, servant of RSS theology is fastly moving towards the same objective. They had announced it before 2019 eletions that rest of things have been settled. Only the special status of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir will be abolished as per their actual constitution, and secondly no non-Hindu would be allowed to hold any property or asset. They can serve their masters and earn their bread and butter. The recent election results have shown two pictures, either these were rigged or Hindu community of upper castes is unanimous in making India, a Hindu Colonial State under the leadership of Gujarat ka Lala means Narindra Modi, and along with his masters who stay behind but order as per their vision. If it happens then there will be countless more of Mulaqat Ali, Saeeda begum, Anjum, Tilo, Saddam Hussain, Musa Yeswi, Arifa, and Miss Jabeen. 

3.7- People of Kashmir are doubly subaltern by colored ruling elites of India

        The oppression by Indian Forces in Jammu and Kashmir is illegitimate as per the rulings and bills of United Nations organization (UNO). At the time of India-Pakistan partition in 1947, the people of states with different status of rulers were given a right to vote for the country with whom they wanted to merge. The State of Jammu and Kashmir was largely Muslim populated with 98% of its residents were Muslims. They voted in favor of merger with Pakistan. It was not accepted by its ruler and India. Indian forces entered Kashmir and tried to stop the freedom movement and announced it as part of India forcefully. People reacted and there was a war.

The case if Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir was taken in United Nations by India, and there it was decided that a plebiscite would be held where people could either vote in favor of Pakistan or India. It was India’s diplomatic defeat so no such referendum is held for last seventy two years. People of Kashmir had started freedom movement in late 80s. The Indian forces entered on heavy scale in the valley, and it’s the third decade ending but they are not succeeded in getting a full rule over Kashmir. They have massacred innocent Kashmiri people, raped their women as a weapon of mass destruction as per Gayatri Spivak, burnt their homes, shops, tourist destinations, crops, fruit gardens and other assets but people are more rebellious.

        The people of Kashmir have faced rape, killings, all sorts of brutal tortures that Arundhati Roy has depicted in the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, along with her essays and global speeches on the Indian Force’s oppression in Jammu and Kashmir. She has witnessed it closely and somehow we can see the character of Tilo as of her own. The people of Kashmir are doubly subaltern if we apply Spivak’s theory here. Firstly, they are oppressed and tortured for being Muslims (a dilemma on the whole of India), and then secondly subaltern due a plight for freedom for India, and to live in their own State with their own perception pf government as per the principles if Islam. They want to merge with Pakistan and here are some groups that are fighting for the Independent Kashmir. It is up to time as if they get freedom for which they are bleeding and paying high prices of their loved ones as what will be fate of these millions of people. But, we see Roy is standing beside Kashmiri people and become a voice of them, even in her fictional novel ‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”.

3.8-  Hindu Religion and caste supremacy theory has made other communities as marginalized ones

       The ironic twist in different tales that are told in the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” comes when we see the oppressed others as well. Upper caste Hindus brutally killed Saddam Hussain’s father and uncles (a low cast Hindu converted to Islam as a rebellion), and the only allegation was that they were carrying the carcass of a cow as part of their job of being “Chamar” or the Sweepers. Same is the case with Tilotoma, being a daughter of a Syrian Christian mother, she is bullied and used as an object of discrimination and subalternity by majority Hindus. It is only that she was not a higher ranked Hind and her parentage was not identified.

        The Maoist movement in Assam, Nagaland and Bengal is very vast and it is not of the Muslims but Hindu majority treats them almost the same way as the Kashmiri Struggle. The Indian rulers do not try to understand the problems of those communities, and how they can find ways to solve the issues. The mass killings, gang rape, burning their assets and a clear show of hatred and discrimination is their way of solving the issues. Revathy, the mother of anonymous baby in Jantar Manter, who was adopted by Tilo and named as Miss Jabeen the Second is a perfect example of state backed tortures and killings. Revathy was gang raped, for being part of a protesting community by the Indian police officers who were brown like her, a subaltern damaging the rights of other subaltern if we use Spivak’s theory. No white man or western person is involved. Her mother lived under the pressure as she was born black and her baby brother luckily a black as well. Whole village of her maternal side prayed for a black boy, to prove the loyalty of revathy’s mother to her husband otherwise there was a stigma of adultery on her character. Where the world is heading and Roy asks as if Indians are moving with time or they live in their own states of poor wisdom and cultural taboos.

Conclusion

Arundhati Roy is a Champion of Human Rights in Extremist and Subaltern India

 

        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 realties. 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. Arundhati 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 success of her first novel “The God of Small Things”.

      When people of Indian ad around the globe were praising her for the new choice and beauty of herself as a new generation of writers. She immediately switched to write about the rights of people who were affected by dam construction, and the Godhara train incident. Here in the novel she remain mostly in Delhi and then into Kashmir. Delhi is town where she has spent most of her adult life, and Kashmir is her focal point as being a witness and observer of the direct crimes of Indian forces and governments against the people of Jammu and Kashmir. So, we can the bewilderment and lots of intermingled and separate subject matters in the novel. It is because of the fact that she wanted her readers to be aware of different historical and current situation in India. She deliberately wanted to pour the matters of concerns and how Indians are still divided and ruled by another set of colonist mindset. The only difference is that they are not white skinned, blonde haired and have a foreign language. But the local invaders and trespassers who invade the hearts, minds and souls or their own countrymen.

It is high time for the intellectuals and serious minded people of India, to think about their country as where they are heading. They should be more vocal and clear like Suzanna Arundadhti Roy, who has written the novel “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, with a purpose of highlighting the issues of the different marginalized, outcaste and subaltern people whom we observe in our own daily lives. What is actually happening to them and how the authorities and and the society can make a bigger and better difference in their lives, first by non-conditional acceptance. Secondly, by looking at their troubles and to find ways to provide them a chance to have a normal and decent life. To embrace them as equal partners of the society and with a provision of all sorts od legal, economic, political, social, educational, medical and cultural rights as every civilized society is offering nowadays.