For more of the video, please click on Video 2 and then follow the links from there
Karan Thapar interviews Arundhati Roy for CNN-IBN (in continuation of yesterday's news, now that the transcript and the video are available):
Karan Thapar: ...You have said earlier this week that a military solution to the Maoists' struggle is not an option. What then is the solution?
Arundhati Roy: I think the first thing would be to pull back the army and to stop this nonsense about air force will fire in self-defence and all that.
Karan Thapar: No military operations even if it includes just police and paramilitary?
Arundhati Roy: No military operations. I would say that that is going to provoke a situation.
Karan Thapar: What's the second thing?
Arundhati Roy: Then I would say that you should come out with all the MoUs that you have signed for all the mineral wealth which is really the key issue. I mean just the bauxite in Orissa is worth 4 trillion that's with 12 zeros.
Karan Thapar: Do you really believe that the dispossessed and poor in Orissa would be concerned about the MoUs signed by the Government of India, they are not aware of them.
Arundhati Roy: Are you joking? They know it better than you or me. This is what I would say – come clean, tell us what the MoUs are and the companies involved.
Karan Thapar: After coming clean, what's the next stage?
Arundhati Roy: For example, on October 12, there was supposed to be a public hearing in Lohandigura (Madhya Pradesh) where Tata is setting up a steel factory, in the name of operation "Green Hunt". There were barriers that prevented people from going there and expressing what they had to – their approvals or disapprovals.
Karan Thapar: So you are saying let people express themselves and voice their dissents?
Arundhati Roy: Let them voice their dissent, let them be at these public hearings, make all the MoUs public, remove your army and then let's see what happens.
Karan Thapar: If the Government were prepared to take your advice, would you in return go to the Maoists and say it now behooves you to also abjure your violence. If the Government is reaching out with one hand, you must return with the other. Will you take that step?
Arundhati Roy: If you are talking about me as an individual, I am nobody but I am sure there are people who would take that step. It has been done before. In the interest of the future of this country, all of us are concerned.
Karan Thapar: What you are saying is that the initiative should come from the Government first.
Arundhati Roy: I think so. There should be unconditional talks.
Read the full transcript on ibnlive.com
Also read, an earlier interview with Arundhati Roy on CNN-IBN: Govt at war with Naxals to aid MNCs: Arundhati:
For 30 years in places like Chhattisgarh, there have been Naxals. Why is the situation now being made to sound like there is this huge upsurge? The real fact is - and I believe this - that it is the Government that wants a war to clear out the forest areas because there is a huge backlog of MoUs in Jharkhand as well as Chhattisgarh that are not being activated.
Incidentally, on the same subject, Ashok Mitra, writing in the Telegraph on Friday had lamented that unlike the Dalits who were fortunate to be gifted a cult figure in Bhimrao Ambedkar, the Tribals and the adivasis have only had Naxals, and gone on to offer another useful reminder:
In this situation, the Maoists are laying their bet on the Union home minister. Were he to succeed in persuading his cabinet colleagues and party bosses that enough was enough and it was time to declare total war on the Maoists, the latter will be delighted beyond measure. They will love the civil war that will ensue, a war where the country’s army will battle against some of their own compatriots who happen to be mostly adivasis. It may even appear to the world as an ethnic war where the usurpers of power are trying to liquidate the remnants of the country’s original inhabitants.
The Union home minister, the Maoists presumably hope, will be the answer to their prayer.