So --but, of course, the important thing in this is that, you know, one reason why India and the U.S. began to kind of cozy up was that this whole war on terror was sort of dovetailing into the communalization of India, which was done, of course, earlier by the Congress and thought to have peaked during the regime of the BJP, but in states like Gujarat, for example, it's like Nazi society there. You know, the Muslims are being ghettoized, they are economically boycotted. You know, there are a few big cases of those who were killed in the 2003 sort of pogrom, but otherwise, it’s a nasty, frightening situation. Hundreds of -- you know, some 150,000 driven from their homes, and that's all happening in India today, you know? So the Bush administration is also dovetailing into that bedrock of trying to create a communal divide.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Arundhati Roy, who, too, is in the streets protesting President Bush's visit. President Bush also went to Hyderabad, a hub of information technology. The New York Times reported Bush told an entrepreneur there, quote, "People do lose jobs as a result of globalization, and it's painful for those who lose jobs," he said. Can you talk about the significance of this trip?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, you know, first of all, to go to a country, which is basically a rural economy, and talk about jobs, is [inaudible]. But second of all, you know, since the so-called economic reform regime began, the number of farmers that have committed suicide is in the tens of thousands in India and in Andhra Pradesh, one of the states worst hit by that. So Bush nor the Indian government is talking about the fact that Andhra Pradesh is overrun by a radical armed struggle, Maoist armed struggle, you know? Every year, 200-300 people are killed, you know, disappeared in what they call “encounters” in Andhra Pradesh. And the previous Chief Minister [N. Chandrababu Naidu] escaped with his life. He lost the elections because he used to refer to himself as a C.E.O. of Andhra Pradesh, not as a Chief Minister, you know? So, it's ridiculous for him to commentate [inaudible] in India.

While they talk about this new big economy and the Sensex has crossed 10,000, they forget to mention that 1.1% of Indians have stocks in the stock market, and all these farmer suicides, they’re not counting, of course. Women committing suicide are not counted as farmers, because the land isn’t in their name. There's a sort of garroting of the rural economy. Then, there's a whole business of trying to take over, you know, the seeds, corporatize agriculture, make everybody somehow beholden to the corporates, which is something that's going to result in mayhem.

AMY GOODMAN: President Bush heads from India to Pakistan tomorrow, and there is a report he might go to Karachi, where the suicide bomb attack occurred Thursday outside the U.S. consulate there that killed an American diplomat and at least three other people. Can you talk about the significance of the trip to Pakistan, as well, and then this unprecedented deal that the President is making with India around getting them, selling them nuclear fuel and reactor components that would end this decades-long moratorium?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, nobody seems to have been suffering from the decades-long moratorium, so I don't know why we're acting if it's some terrible thing, some terrible prison that we are being released from. My position, when India conducted the nuclear test was that, you know, that now that you’ve done this, you're going to have to play by their rules, so it's not actually that you're freeing yourself, but you're selling yourself into kind of nuclear bondage, and this is exactly what is happening, that you’re no longer able to make an independent decision because you’re just going -- it's just like an orchestra.

You know, if you see – I mean, I've just been watching how the whole thing was scripted, you know? You see that Volcker Committee report that came out about, you know, about who had broken the sanctions and dealt with Saddam Hussein. First of all, you know, that just set the tone for the fact that the sanctions were right and whoever built them was wrong. The External Affairs Minister in India had to resign because actually he was the one that put the spoke in the wheel of Indian troops being sent to Iraq. Then the Minister for Petroleum was chucked out because he was trying to do the petroleum deal. Then the King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was sent here, you know, to say, “No, you can take oil from us.” Then the Indian Prime Minister has a kind of roundtable conference about Kashmiri people who all agree with them anyway. So, you know, it's not really anything. But the U.S. – Prime Minister mentioned it in his Asia Society speech.

Then we have this whole drama about fast breeder reactors being included or not included. Well, all of us know that that was all going to happen in India. So the theater is over now, and the conquest is complete. You know, that you are going to now play by the rules, and there are so many points of contact that if you disagree about one thing, pressure will be brought on from the 99 others to make you fall into line. That's the situation. Pakistan, of course, is an old ally of America's, and, you know, I keep joking about it: They’re like two begums in the Bush – in the Sheikh Bush’s harem, you know, vying with each other for his attention, and that's the situation, as I see it.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Arundhati Roy, you are headed to Pakistan, not to follow President Bush, but for the World Social Forum that will be taking place later this month. Can you talk about what you'll be saying there and the significance of this forum on the heels of this visit?

ARUNDHATI ROY: Well, actually, I’m not headed there, because -- I know that my name was announced, but that was done without anybody asking me. And, you know, I’m really thinking about all these things too much to be able to go and speak at the World Social Forum now, because I’m very worried about, you know, all of us who are involved in these things, spend too much of our energy sort of feeling good about the World Social Forum, which has now become very NGO-ized and, you know, a lot of – it’s just become too comfortable a stage. And I think it’s played a very important role up to now, but now I think we’ve got to move on from there, and I've already said this at a previous World Social Forum job, and I really don't want to, you know, carry on doing something when the time is over for it, you know? I think we have to come up with new strategies.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Arundhati Roy, I want to thank you very much for being with us and speaking to us from New Delhi. Arundhati Roy is the acclaimed writer and activist, has written a number of books, including The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile, War Talk, a book of essays, and what she is most well known for around the world, The God of Small Things.

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