Roy is experiencing the vicarious thrill all reporters yearn for—walking the jungle with rebels. The critical difference between real journalists and Roy is that she accepts what she is told, does not question much and romanticizes the revolutionaries, whereas someone like Alma Guillermoprieto in The New York Review of Books describes what she sees in Latin America, reminding us—and herself—how complex the world is, because there are at least two sides to every story. In Roy’s adventure in the Dandakaranya forest (a name resonating with Ramayana metaphors) there is “good” and “evil”; in the Marquezian landscape of Guillermoprieto, there are no angels, only devils of different hues.
To be sure, democracies are flawed, and to Roy’s credit, she forces the cheerleaders of “shining India” to reflect on what makes a large part of India writhe in agony. She rightly excoriates the Indian state for betraying the Constitution, justifiably refuses to condone the state’s duplicity, and questions the media for its complicity. But she is stunningly credulous in accepting Maoist claims about what they say they do to the policemen they kidnap, and how they spare civilians, even cows. Even they care for the Hindu vote.
I am not a big fan of Miss Roy. She overemphasizes one-side of the story as Sali points out!
