Arundhati Roy: 9 Is Not 11 (And November Isn’t September)
 
As comparisons between the attacks in Mumbai and the September 11th attacks continue to be made, Indian officials unveiled a massive revamp of the country’s security and anti-terror infrastructure last week. I am joined now by someone who warns of the dangers of comparing the attacks in Mumbai to the attacks in New York: award-winning novelist, essayist and activist, Arundhati Roy. Her latest article is called “9 Is Not 11 (And November Isn’t September).” It was published in India’s Outlook magazine, Britain’s Guardian newspaper, and on TomDispatch.com here in the United States.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s been over two weeks since the attacks and siege on the Indian city of Mumbai that left 180 people dead. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has now joined US and Indian officials in blaming the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba for the attacks and emphasizing Pakistan’s support for the group. Brown promised to increase counterterrorism aid to Pakistan and said, “The time has come for action and not words” from Pakistan.

       PRIME MINISTER GORDON BROWN: I’ve told President Zardari that three-quarters of the most serious terrorist plots investigated by the British authorities have links to al-Qaeda in Pakistan. So I’ve proposed to President Zardari a new UK-Pakistan pact against terror. My discussions with President Zardari have reassured me that his authorities are determined to act against those who were behind the Mumbai attacks. We will continue to expand our terrorist—counterterrorism assistance program with Pakistan, and it will be more than ever the most comprehensive anti-terrorist program Britain has signed with any country.

AMY GOODMAN: The British premier was speaking at a news conference in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad Sunday, following a visit to India. Pakistani [President] Asif Ali Zardari said that India had yet to offer conclusive evidence of Lashkar’s involvement in last month’s terror attacks but emphasized Pakistan would take strong action against any groups found to be responsible. Over the past week, Pakistan has arrested a number of Islamist leaders and cracked down on both Lashkar-e-Taiba and a charity believed to be linked to the LeT, Jamaat-ud-Daawa.

       PRESIDENT ASIF ALI ZARDARI: We want to have the best of relations with India. Terrorism and extremism are a common problem, which required cooperative efforts. Problems are not specific to a country, but are doable.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking in Kashmir Sunday, said he wanted India to “normalize” relations with Pakistan, provided Pakistan stops its support of terror attacks in India.

Senator John Kerry arrived in New Delhi today in a bid to calm tensions between the two countries and discuss counterterrorist cooperation between India and the incoming Obama administration. Senator Kerry is the third US official to visit India since the attacks and follows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

As comparisons between the attacks in Mumbai and the September 11th attacks continue to be made, Indian officials unveiled a massive revamp of the country’s security and anti-terror infrastructure last week.

Right now, I’m joined by someone who warns of the dangers of comparing the attacks in Mumbai to the attacks in New York and Washington: award-winning novelist, essayist, activist, Arundhati Roy. Her latest article is called "9 Is Not 11 (And November Isn’t September).” It was published in India’s Outlook magazine, Britain’s Guardian newspaper and on tomdispatch.com here in the United States. Arundhati Roy joins us now from her home in New Delhi.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Arundhati.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very good to have you with us. Can you start off by, well, beginning where you begin your piece “9 Is Not 11,” saying, “We’ve forfeited the rights to our own tragedies”? What do you mean?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I think, you know, what I mean is that while the attacks in Mumbai may have a lot to do with the consequences of 9/11 and India positioning itself as a quote-unquote “natural ally” of Israel and the US, it has more to do with the history—a very troubled history here. And for us to try and reduce it into something like 9/11, as though, you know, we’ve not suffered a terrorist attack since Pearl Harbor, is to make this history a bit ridiculous and to not look things in the eye and to try and act as though we aren’t who we are and we don’t have the history that we do. And it doesn’t get anybody anywhere. It’s a very dishonest thing to do, in many ways, and also it paves the way towards people trying to behave—I mean, in any case, India—you know, the Indian establishment and the Indian elite are very delighted with the idea of pretending to be a superpower like America and wanting to act like a superpower like America and do all the stupid superpower things that America has done. So my point is that, you know, India isn’t America, and Pakistan isn’t Afghanistan, and we don’t have to look at this through borrowed lenses.

AMY GOODMAN: You write that if you were watching television, you wouldn’t realize that ordinary Indians died in the Mumbai attacks, and you talk about the places that were attacked.

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, that and as well as the fact that the Mumbai attack was only the most recent of a whole state of attacks that has taken place just this year in India. And in Mumbai, they attacked two sort of five-star hotels and a small Chabad center, a small Jewish center. But many of the killings took place in a railway station, where just ordinary people were mowed down.

But the Indian media was just so fascinated by the fact that, you know, finally, this sort of last barricade, the barricade of super citizens in the superpower was somehow attacked and breached. And, of course, partly it had to do with the fact that the drama in these places went on and on, because the—it was like, you know, a siege that lasted many hours. But even now, you know, the television channels, which are behaving like—making Fox News look like radical and left-wing, are just going on and on and on with this elite coming out and making the most shocking suggestions and saying the most shocking things and acting as though it’s the first and only time that such a thing has happened in India.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the other attacks that we don’t hear about, this latest in Mumbai being, as you write, only the most recent?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, I mean, in the first—let’s say, in this period, you know, soon after September 11th, there was an attack in Kashmir on the parliament, and then there was a very obviously internationally read-about attack in 2001 on the Indian parliament, when six terrorists attacked Indian parliament and, you know, five of them—six of them were killed. And then India moved a half-a-million troops to the border with Pakistan and almost started a war, said the same thing, of course, that it was the Pakistan ISI behind this, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad and the LeT were the militant groups that were named.

And there was a trial that lasted many years. They arrested—the day after the attack, they arrested four people and a lecturer in Arabic called S.A.R. Geelani and said he was the mastermind. And there was this orgy of nationalism and what turned out to be complete lies that was planted in the press. And eventually, after the trial, three of the four were acquitted of the charges they had been convicted under. S.A.R. Geelani was let off by the Supreme Court. And the fourth person, Mohammad Afzal, has been sentenced to death, but the Supreme Court, in a written judgment, said that we have no evidence to prove that he belonged to any terrorist group, but in order to satisfy the collective conscience of society, we are sentencing him to death. And in the process of this trial, it was made clear that, you know, evidence had been fabricated, arrest memos had been fabricated, witnesses had lied. Everything was deeply suspect. So, today, we don’t know really who attacked parliament.

After that, of course, there was the burning of the Sabarmati Express in Gujarat, which led to the genocide against Gujarati Muslims. That, too, we don’t know, even today, who burned that train. You know, inquiries have been sort of sabotaged all the time. Subsequent to that, you know, for example, this year, there’s been a series of bombings. Last year, there was a bombing of—you know, Bombay was bombed, Bangalore was bombed, Ahmedabad, Gujarat. There was a bombing of this train called the Samjhauta Express going to Pakistan, and I think 150 people died. Once again, Pakistan was blamed. Then—but now, recently, the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Maharashtra arrested a serving army officer belonging to a Hindu supremacist group that they said they suspected of bombing the Samjhauta Express.

And then, there have been, this year, bombings in Jaipur, in Bangalore, in Delhi, in a small Muslim-dominated town called Malegaon, and in all these attacks—you know, some of them, the police have arrested Muslims, and some of them they’ve arrested Hindus, all Indian nationals. There’s been a lot of questioning of these arrests, too. There was a situation just in August, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police went and sort of shot dead two Muslim students in a place called Jamia Nagar. And this created a huge outcry in Delhi.

AMY GOODMAN: Arundhati Roy, we have to break for a minute, then we’re going to come back to this conversation.

ARUNDHATI ROY: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Next up, after we finish talking to Arundhati Roy, we’ll be joined by the filmmaker, by the director and producer Ron Howard about this new film called Frost/Nixon. We’re talking to Arundhati Roy, the great Indian writer. Her novel The God of Small Things won the 1997 Booker Prize. Her latest essay is called “9 Is Not 11 (And November Isn’t September).” We’re speaking to her in New Delhi. Stay with us.