Azadi Fascism Fiction & Freedom (PB)

The chant of 'Azadi!' - Urdu for 'Freedom' - is the slogan of the freedom struggle in Kashmir against what the Kashmiris see as the Indian Occupation. Ironically it also became the chant of millions on the streets of India against the project of Hindu nationalism. Even as Arundhati Roy began to ask what lay between these two calls for freedom-a chasm or a bridge?-the streets fell silent. Not only in India but all over the world. Covid-19 brought with it another more terrible understanding of Azadi making a nonsense of international borders incarcerating whole populations and bringing the modern world to a halt like nothing else ever could. In this series of electrifying essays Arundhati Roy challenges us to reflect on the meaning of freedom in a world of growing authoritarianism. The essays include meditations on language public as well as private and on the role of fiction and alternative imaginations in these disturbing times. The pandemic Roy says is a portal between one world and another. For all the illness and devastation it has left in its wake it is an invitation to the human race an opportunity to imagine another world.