Capitalism: A Ghost Story by Arundhati Roy review – excess and corruption laid bare

A bold polemic to rattle the Indian plutocracy’s cage from the Booker prizewinner

You will know Arundhati Roy as a novelist, who won the Booker prize in 1997 for The God of Small Things, but, not long into this book about rampant capitalism in India, you realise she is also a criminal. On page 19 of her compelling polemic, she refers to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, and says they “make even thinking an antigovernment thought a cognisable offense”.

Hang on, I thought, that’s a bit much, so I checked Wikipedia and noted that “The [Unlawful Activities Prevention] Act makes it a crime to support any secessionist movement, or to support claims by a foreign power to what India claims as its territory.” And the latter Act “bars the media from carrying reports of any kind of ‘unlawful activities’ in the state”. So while the Acts are meant to stop anyone talking about Kashmir, there is a larger purpose behind them: according to the UAP Act it is also a crime to say as well as write anything “intended to cause disaffection against India”. But boy, is she going to cause disaffection among readers of this book.

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