Listening To Grasshoppers: Field Notes On Democracy

By Arundhati Roy

From the 2002 genocide against Muslims in Gujarat to the attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, this extraordinary series of linked essays bravely tracks the faultlines that threaten to destroy India's precarious democracy and send shockwaves through the region and beyond.

Daring to speak out against the lies of both state governments and murderous special interest groups, Arundhati Roy makes a powerful case for the relevance of articulate activism. If nothing is done, she argues, Muslim and Hindu extremists will continue to tear apart both each other and India's pluralist nation, bringing Pakistan and India ever closer to nuclear war, and making yet worse the undocumented plight of the half of India's citizens subsisting below the poverty line.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jul 14, 2009
• ISBN: 9780143178699

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is an award-winning film-maker and a trained architect. She is the author of ‘The God of Small Things’ which won the 1997 Booker prize.

Reviews for Listening To Grasshoppers

[the7ken7petersen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book directly after 'Democracy: A Life' by Paul Cartledge and the comparison is interesting (at least, I think so!) I would imagine that Arundhati Roy would freely accept that Professor Cartledge is a more learned source upon the subject of democracy: certainly, the Prof's book is filled with far more facts and statistics. It is, however, totally devoid of the chief ingredient of Mr. Roy's opus: passion. The prof tells us, Mr Roy lets us share his emotions.Roy's book is made up of a collection of essays upon the subject of Indian democracy: an institution which so many right wing Brits are proud to say, that we gave to them. Reading this work makes it clear how many similarities there are between the two systems. Roy bemoans the distant nature of India's ruling class; the fact that politicians are a weak bunch who cannot help themselves when faced with corruption. This is surely true of the bigger guns within British politics too and, probably inevitable from any system that passes its ruling down from above. Everybody wishing to climb the greasy pole must kowtow to those higher up.This is a series of polaroid photographs of democracy, Indian style; don't look for the quick solution: vote for X and all our problems will be over, but, like a photograph of a disfigured face, we may stare, without embarrassment and the imperfections are clear to all. A thoroughly thought provoking book.

[remikit · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting view on how the same forces at work here are at work in India.