Ever since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister, anti-Hindu writer, leftist extremist Arundhati Roy has been among the loudest voices portraying India as a country sliding into authoritarianism. In speeches, essays and interviews, she has repeatedly suggested that democratic freedoms are under grave threat and that dissent is being systematically crushed.
Yet, in a recent interview with Scroll, Roy’s own words raise an uncomfortable question: Would someone living under a genuine dictatorship be able to speak this freely?
Reflecting on the recent Delhi protests, Roy described the experience in deeply emotional terms.
“I started the piece I wrote for The Wire by saying just for the first time in years it felt wonderful to be Indian because most of the time I go about feeling so ashamed of the things people accept…”
She went on to cite the anti-CAA protests and incidents of mob lynching, saying those events had left her ashamed of the country’s direction. But the recent protests, she said, changed everything.
“I swear I can die in peace now. I will die smiling. You know that this happened. I didn’t think I’d see it in my lifetime and I really have to give it to these young people.”
These were not measured observations. They were expressions of jubilation.
Roy described the protests as a watershed moment and lavished praise on the students who participated.
“It was a huge blow from our side and it was done by the most beautiful kids.”
She even expressed sympathy for those who, in her view, were unable to simply celebrate the moment.
“People who can’t celebrate it and start thinking ahead… I feel sorry… We have lost the ability to even celebrate a moment because happiness can’t last forever and politics changes fast.”
She made no attempt to conceal her political enthusiasm. On the contrary, she celebrated it openly, before cameras, for a national audience.
The interview became even more striking when the conversation turned to the slogans raised during the protests.
Asked what had made her laugh the most, Roy replied, “Well, I have a new national anthem, but I can’t sing it for you because it’s just too rude.”
She then laughed while recalling that the “most foul-mouthed kids were the girls.”
“The younger they were, the worse they were.”
Rather than expressing concern about the increasingly vulgar language that has become commonplace in political protests, Roy appeared to relish it.
She even recounted a personal anecdote about learning Hindi through swear words after moving to Delhi before narrating an incident involving her estranged father.
“The first thing he asked me was, ‘So, are you still foul-mouthed?’… He said, ‘Yeah, you were the worst.’… I brushed my cigarette against you and you just looked at me and said, ‘Chutiya.'”
Roy concluded that she could understand the young protesters because they were simply “enjoying the explosive moment.”
The question is far simpler.
If India is the dictatorship Roy and many others repeatedly claim it is, how is she able to publicly celebrate anti-government protests, ridicule the establishment, praise demonstrators, joke about obscene slogans, publish articles in national media, and broadcast all of it through a widely viewed interview without fear of arrest, censorship or disappearance?
Imagine a prominent writer standing in Beijing after an anti-Communist protest and declaring she could “die smiling.”
Imagine a public intellectual in Moscow celebrating a mass movement against the Kremlin as “a huge blow from our side.”
Imagine someone in Pyongyang or Tehran joking about vulgar anti-government slogans on camera before praising protesters as “the most beautiful kids.”
Would such interviews remain online?
Would those individuals continue writing columns, publishing books and giving interviews?
The comparison is not meant to suggest that India is beyond criticism. No democracy is. Governments deserve scrutiny, and citizens have every right to disagree with those in power.
But words matter.
A dictatorship is not simply a government one dislikes. It is a political system where dissent is systematically suppressed, opposition is criminalised, and criticism of the ruling establishment carries severe consequences.
Ironically, Roy’s own interview demonstrates something quite different.
She speaks freely. She criticises the government without restraint. She celebrates those opposing it. She laughs about the slogans they raised. She publishes her views in national outlets. She gives lengthy interviews repeating them.
The interview itself exists because she enjoys the very freedoms she suggests no longer exist.
That irony is difficult to ignore.
Roy is fully entitled to her opinions. She is entitled to criticise governments and advocate change.
But the ease with which she does so also invites a question that her critics have long asked: If this is what a dictatorship looks like, what exactly distinguishes it from a noisy, contentious democracy where even the government’s fiercest critics continue to speak, publish and mobilise without being silenced?
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