THE END OF IMAGINATION BY ARUNDHATHI ROY

 

Table of Contents:

1. Analysis

2. Themes

3. Theory of Deterrence and Roy's argument against it

4. Flaws in the Pro Nuke Defenders' Common Rhetoric

5. Dismantling Nuclear Weapons With a Pen 

THE DEHUMANIZING EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS - ANALYSIS

AARTHI T

Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist who is well known for her novel God of Small Things. She has won Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997. She is also a political activist who has written wide range of essays on social causes. She is a spokesperson of Anti-Globalization movement. In her essay, The End of Imagination published in 1998, Roy opposes India`s nuclear policies. This essay is a response to India`s nuclear testing in Pokhran. She elaborates how nuclear weapon dehumanizes human beings. Pokhran-II is a series of nuclear testing conducted by Indian government under former prime-minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who justified the testing as a means to make India secure against its enemies. Roy received severe criticism for her essay, calling her hypocrite for accepting the western prize which has long of nuclear weapons. She was called Anti-Indian and Anti-Hindu for her bold critique on India`s nuclear testing. She condemns Indian government for carrying such an act without the consent of its people.

 Roy says that even though many humanist and social thinkers had expressed the horrors of nuclear warfare before, she feels it`s her individual responsibility to give a caution against it. She says that nuclear weapons destroy the elements of nature. Roy attempts to foretell the consequences nuclear warfare would create. It will create a huge impact on human beings and ecology. Cities and forests would burn for days, rivers would turn into poison and smoke will cover everything turning water into toxic ice. Roy predicts a catastrophic future as people will be left with the “cancerous carcasses” of their children. She even satirizes the safety measures of Bhaba Atomic Research Centre which advices people to stay indoors, taking iodine pills and avoiding milk on the outbreak of nuclear warfare. Roy asserts that on the possibility of nuclear warfare, our enemy will not be China or Pakistan but Earth itself. As nuclear technology develops, the weapons would become easily accessible to anyone.

The newspapers gave wide popularity to the nuclear testing with headlines as “Explosion of Self Esteem”, “Road to Resurgence”. The supporters of the Indian government wanted to distribute the Pokhran radioactive sand as a Prasad all across the country which Roy condemns as ‘Cancer Yatra’. She even sarcastically comments about the statements ministers and officials gave regarding nuclear weapons. She questions whether the praises were about nuclear weapons or about Viagra. She says that India waging nuclear war against Pakistan is similar to waging war on our self as both the counties share the same air, sky and border. Both India and Pakistan justify their nuclear testing through the ‘Theory of Deterrence’. She condemns the government for not warning its people about the consequences of the nuclear weapons. Roy asserts that Indian government had neglected its indigenous people who still struggle for survival. In the name of scientific development, the rights of tribal people had been neglected. She sarcastically comments about how the youths of BJP protest against the western culture but embrace nuclear weapon as it`s our ‘age old tradition’. India in an attempt of showing its superpower status to world failed to eradicate poverty. Roy points out that bombs cannot satisfy the thirst and hunger but only cause destruction resulting in total annihilation of the society. Thus, Roy through her essay shows how the nuclear weapons dehumanize the human beings and urges the people to act against the nuclear policies of the government.

THEMES

ANUSHIYA MARY Y

“Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease.” (Arundhati Roy, The End of Imagination)

Her writing is as flawless as a summer sky, and her themes are those that will haunt humanity forever: justice, violence, and how to make a better world for everyone. When Arundhati Roy won the Booker in 1997, she was seen as a poster child for the Indian literary boom.

She has the face of an angel and the toughness of a tiger. Whatever she does, she does it brilliantly, with consummate style and candor. Her writing is as flawless as a summer sky, and her themes are those that  will haunt humanity forever: justice, violence, and how to make a better world for everyone.

The End of Imagination brings together five of Arundhati Roy's acclaimed books of essays into one comprehensive volume for the first time and features a new introduction by the author.

This new collection begins with her pathbreaking book The Cost of Living--published soon after she won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things--in which she forcefully condemned India's nuclear tests and its construction of enormous dam projects that continue to displace countless people from their homes and communities. The End of Imagination also includes her nonfiction works Power Politics, War Talk, Public Power in the Age of Empire, and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire, which include her widely circulated and inspiring writings on the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the need to confront corporate power, and the hollowing out of democratic institutions globally.

Arundhati Roy is a superhero. She wears a sari instead of a cape. She has written one novel – The God of Small Things – and it won the Booker Prize. She is an award-winning screenwriter and an award-declining dissenter. She is an architect by training and an activist/intellectual by vocation. She has the face of an angel and the toughness of a tiger. Whatever she does, she does it brilliantly, with consummate style and candor. Her writing is as flawless as a summer sky, and her themes are those that will haunt humanity forever: justice, violence, and how to make a better world for everyone.

When Arundhati Roy won the Booker in 1997, she was seen as a poster child for the Indian literary boom. She joined a coterie that included Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Rohinton Mistry, and others. (Some clever soul once described this boom as “the empire strikes back.”) But instead of remaining the darling of the elites, Roy embarked on a string of essays that were highly critical of India’s political class and which ranged across numerous issues:

𒊹︎︎︎ Hindu  extremism 𒊹︎︎︎political corruption, 𒊹︎︎︎the displacement of communities for dam projects.As she grew into her voice, she went beyond criticizing her home country, the world’s largest democracy, and found further, broader targets in globalization, environmental destruction,  U.S. hegemony, and the tyrannies and illegal wars that have pockmarked this century.

THE THEORY OF DETERRENCE

ATCHAYA R

     The Theory of Deterrence advocated justifying the making of nuclear bombs favours the opinion that nuclear weapons are for peace, not war. To support their case, the advocates of deterrence theory claim the credit for preventing the Cold War from turning into a Third World War.

The Author's Argument Against The Theory Of Deterrence

     Arundhati Roy says that the theory of deterrence has some fundamental flaws in it. The first is that it presumes to understand the psychology of the enemy. The fear of complete destruction will deter the enemy. The author does not accept this belief. She argues that a suicide bomber is not deterred by the fear of death. In any case, the ‘you’ and the ‘enemy’ are not permanent. Both are only governments which keep changing. Their responses cannot be predicted with any certainty. The second flaw stated by the author is that it is based on fear. Because of fear no country will try to attack others having a nuclear weapon, claim the advocates of this theory. Their claim is rejected by the author by stating that it has not been fear that has prevented nuclear war. This theory is not more than a joke for the writer. Fear, however, is born out of knowledge. Only those will fear who understand the true extent and scale of the devastation that nuclear war will cause. Nuclear weapons do not automatically inspire thoughts of peace. Thus it is not fear that has prevented the nuclear war from breaking out but the endless, tireless work of people who have boldly and courageously denounced nuclear weapons and staged marches, demonstrations and documentary films to educate people about the horrors of nuclear war to avert or postpone it.

THE FLAWS IN THE PRO NUKE DEFENDERS' COMMON RHETORIC

ANULEKHA M

In her essay "the end of imagination", acclaimed novelist and activist Arundhathi Roy boldly contests the common rhetoric used to defend the existence of nuclear weapons and exposes the flaws in their flimsy logic. 

The most common defense of nuclear weapons is the fact that our government uses it to protect our country from even bigger powerhouses with even more nuclear power. This according to them, stalls them in fear of retaliation. They even go as far as to say that the cold war prevented world war 3 because the increasing nuclear power between America and Russia stalled both the countries from acting against each other. Roy contests this rhetoric and says that this theory of deterrence is flawed, because of the fact that world war 3 just means that it should happen after world war 2. And that means, it can happen anytime now. Blindly believing the reasoning of the government that nuclear weapons are just for the protection of the people just means that we lack the common understanding of our power and political structure. This underestimates the lengths our government have gone and will go to keep it's people, us, in control. She asks the question of what's to say that it wouldn't use the nuclear power to keep it's own subjects under control, essentially creating a dictatorship of the pro nuke elite. Prevalence of capitalism and our flawed political structure would both effectively contribute to the commercialization of nuclear weapons, which would become detrimental to humanity. 

Even if we don't think in such a dystopian way, assuming that everyone would fear what we fear is redundant. Roy questions this logic by giving suicide bombers and terrorists organizations as examples of people risking their lives to cause destruction to the others. 

Roy also questions the ethics and morals of the defenders of the nuclear weapons as scientists and heads of health and safety organizations have asked people to take iodine pills as a safety precaution against nuclear weapons. This is ridiculous considering the sheer magnitude of environmental and genetic destruction and mutation a nuclear blast can cause. This according to Roy, proves that the people who defend this weapon lack any kind of empathy and humanity and essentially have their own agenda in supporting the nuclear power, as it is now proven that their rhetoric is flawed and are just false propaganda.

DISMANTLING NUCLEAR WEAPONS WITH A PEN

ABITHA S

     where can we find real courage in  this topsy-turvy world?

Not every people do really exhibit their true self or inner conflicts, but Arundhati roy by her pen exposes her harsh feelings, cross cutting realities in her hometown. One such among her works is the end of imagination where she courageously  picked out the nuclear weapons.

She spoke her heart, "the nuclear bomb is the most antidemocratic, antinational, antihuman, outright evil thing that man has ever made.” At one point, she asks a question that is left unanswered even today: “Who the hell is the prime minister to decide whose finger will be on the nuclear button that could turn everything we love…to ash in an instant?

With the flourish of pen, roy tries to dismantle the power of system and describes how nuclear weapons dehumanizes all of us. 

Since few decades India and Pakistan were dancing with the nuclear waltz. In order to expand their nuclear capabilities, Pakistan released series of nuclear tests seventy days after Indian's pokhran test in 1998. If the crisis is unnoticed, it would turn to be nuclear warfare.

As Roy simply put, “Though we are separate countries, we share skies, we share winds, we share water…any nuclear war with Pakistan will be a war against ourselves.

 Countries around the world are taking up the issue, banning of nuclear treaties.

Are nuclear weapons worth more than the life?