New Delhi: When Aruna Roy first visited a household in Rajasthan’s Tilonia village in 1975 for a conversation, the woman told her to “get lost.” This was Roy’s first brush with village life without the trappings of power. She had resigned as an IAS officer to work with an NGO. After this incident, she realised that without the “symbol of authority,” her life as an activist was going to be challenging.
Fifty years later, Roy has released her first book, The Personal is Political: An Activist Memoir, reminiscing about her life as an activist. It took Roy 10 years to write it. With a smile, she said activists are very reluctant to write anything beyond press releases, discussion notes, and petitions, causing a packed Kamaladevi hall at the India International Centre (IIC) in Delhi to erupt in laughter.
‘The personal is political’ is a slogan popularised during the second wave of the feminist movement in the turbulent 1960s. In the book, Roy has woven her stories around the invisible village women whose personal and political lives are intertwined. According to her, good slogans rarely have a single author; they come from the “collective experience sifting through years of struggle.”
The core idea behind writing the book was that “activism needs to be unpacked,” said Roy, addressing a gathering of hundreds at the hall during the launch of her book. The Personal is Political delves into Roy’s five decades of engagement in the political and public spheres, exploring what goes on in the mind of an activist.
From CPI general secretary D Raja and Booker Prize-winning author-activist Arundhati Roy to Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh and human rights activist GN Saibaba, the audience encompassed a range of public figures, including historians, politicians, and students.
“This might not be a great piece of writing, but it is something that will provoke conversations that can help India,” said Roy, dressed in a green saree and black blouse with her signature large maroon bindi – a look that has remained unchanged in the last 50 years.
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Activism and freedom
Aruna Roy, with her activism and leadership that helped enact the Right to Information (RTI) Act 2005, has impacted many lives. For Pamela Philipose, a journalist and researcher, Roy familiarised her with the significance of the Act, something that has always stayed with her.
Philipose was a young journalist when the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), founded by Roy, Nikhil Dey, and Shankar Singh in the 1990s, led the struggle for the enactment of the RTI Act. As the speaker at the book launch, she recalled asking Roy why RTI was so important.
“If you have freedom and the right to freedom of speech but no information, what good is it? Conversely, if you have the right to information but no freedom to speak, what good is that? Each actually complements the other,” Philipose recalled the answer by Roy.
Political scientist Niraja Gopal Jayal referred to Roy’s book as an “impressive testament to an extraordinary life.”
“This book is a theory of activism. Activism is the mode through which she has done public service. This memoir is not linear.”
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Grit and grace
The launch event also had poet and literary critic Ashok Vajpeyi in attendance. He praised Roy, saying that her book “restores our trust in the wisdom of the ordinary people”.
Having arrived late, Vajpeyi started with an apology and said that “these are the times when women have more courage than men.”
“And Aruna is one of them. She is a dreamer and a doer. Not everyone can do that. Her book restores our trust in the wisdom of the ordinary people.”
As Vajpayei was speaking, someone could be heard delivering a lecture in another hall.
“I guess downstairs there is a discussion on how to make India a developed country,” an audience member commented. Everyone laughed.
With the intrusive sound of the lecture fading, Vajpayei resumed speaking about Roy: “She is a person of grit and grace.”
“She is persistent and there is grace and she wears what she does.”
To this, Roy laughed and said, “You have endorsed my life of 78 years.”
“We are ordinary people. We are not urban naxalites. We are not andolanjeevis. We do have something to say. And in quick time, we have become anti-national,” Roy quipped.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
The Print should exercise discretion in publicising and thereby propagating a person or his ideology. Ms. Aruna Roy and Mr. Nikhil Dey were the Big Boss of Manmohan administration and virtually ran the government. The National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by them was NOT a Constitutional body. It was and always remained an extra-constitutional body having illegitimate authority over all spheres of decision making.
By publicising and thereby propagating the memoirs of such dubious people The Print does great disservice to the nation.
However, Ms. Sagrika Kissu is a repeat offender. Her tweets on X clearly reflect her commitment to this ulta-Left cabal and their weird ideology.