Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers

Since the two things that Roy hates most are democratic capitalism and Hindu fundamentalism, it makes sense that she would try and connect the two. Unfortunately, she has no evidence of any kind for such a connection, and so we are given passages such as this one: “It’s interesting that just

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around the time Manmohan Singh, then the finance minister, was preparing India’s markets for neo-liberalism, L.K. Advani [a BJP leader] was making his first Rath Yatra, fueling communal passion and preparing us for neo-fascism. In December 1992, rampaging mobs destroyed the Babri Masjid. In 1993, the Congress government of Maharashtra signed a power purchase agreement with Enron.” This is equivalent to saying that in 1995 Michael Jordan returned to the NBA and in 1996 Bill Clinton was re-elected president. Roy adds, pathetically, that “the inexorable ruthlessness of one process feeds directly into the insanity of the other.” One is tempted to remind Roy that correlation does not prove causation, but since she has not even bothered to prove correlation, the point would be futile.

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