Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers

By Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is among the most well-known writers and social justice activists in the world today, with a committed global audience. Her best-selling 1997 novel "The God of Small Things" and her courageous, popular interviews and essays on war and peace, contemporary India and Kashmir, U.S. imperial power, and a renewal of popular democracy across the world, have earned her a large audience and international profile. Roy's writings on Southeast Asia come at a time of renewed interest in the subcontinent. But Roy offers an essential counterpoint to the caricatured Western image surrounding India's precarious version of secular democracy. As indicated by the title of the book, the topics Roy explores are also of global concern. These include war, terrorism, national and ethnic identity, social inequality, the environment, and globalization itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Release date: Oct 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781608460052

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 Field Notes on Democracy

[remikit · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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

[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.