Arundhati Roy: “Non-violence is a piece of theatre”; “I am a Maoist sympathizer”

Enjoyable interview with arundhati roy on the adivasi (indian tribal/indigenous peoples) maoist uprisings in india. Roy says some pretty great things:

Guerrillas use violence, generally directed against the police and army, but sometimes causing injury and death to civilians caught in the crossfire. Does she condemn that violence? “I don’t condemn it any more,” she says. “If you’re an adivasi[tribal Indian] living in a forest village and 800 CRP [Central Reserve Police] come and surround your village and start burning it, what are you supposed to do? Are you supposed to go on hunger strike? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience? People have the right to resist annihilation.”

also:

Her critics label her a Maoist sympathiser. Is she? “I am a Maoist sympathiser,” she says.

also:

But has she sacrificed too much for the struggle – the chance to dance, children, perhaps even her second marriage? “I don’t see any of these things as sacrifices,” she says. “They are positive choices. I feel surrounded by love, by excitement. They are not being done in some martyr-like way. When I was walking through the forest with the comrades, we were laughing all the time.”

anyway you should check it out. it’s a follow-up to her article about her time with the maoist rebels in the forest called “Gandhi, but with guns”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/27/arundhati-roy-india-tribal-maoists-1