On Thursday, April 27, Amar Chitra Katha (ACK), an iconic comics publisher known for its religious and historical comics and graphic novels, published a Facebook post about controversial ultra-left-wing propagandist Arundhati Roy.
The Facebook post by The Amar Chitra Katha Studio talked about Roy’s life and career as an author and screenplay writer. “Born in Shillong in 1961, Arundhati Roy is an architect, screenplay writer, and author. Her first novel, The God of Small Things, became a global phenomenon, winning the Booker Prize in 1997. Apart from her work in fiction, she has authored non-fictional books and essays, about various political and social causes. Her work in screenplay writing has also been appreciated, with her first screenplay winning the National Film Award,” the Facebook post read. The said facebook post has now been deleted by ACK Studio.
OpIndia checked the website of Amar Chitra Katha to find more on what the ACK opines about Arundhati Roy, in our search we found Roy’s author profile (archive) on ACK’s website written by one Mrinalini Manda. The author’s profile describes how Arundhati Roy is opposed to US foreign policy and India’s nuclear weapons policy, economic growth, and industrialization. It further mentions that Roy had campaigned alongside another ‘activist’ Medha Patkar during the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
It is notable that Medha Patkar had made it difficult for the state government to complete the Sardar Sarovar Dam project. It was only after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge at the centre that the blockades in the Sardar Sarovar Dam project were cleared.
Interestingly, while Anant Pai’s Amar Chita Katha is accredited with revolutionalizing Hindu religious education, particularly for children, Arundhati Roy is often in controversy for her anti-Hindu comments as well as for peddling fake news.
Here are some instances when Arundhati Roy created and peddled fake news.
In 2002, Roy wrote a story for Outlook wherein she claimed that a friend of her friend named Sayeed was caught by a mob, her stomach ripped open and stuffed with burning rags, and an ‘Om’ symbol engraved on her forehead after she died. However, when Balbir Punj, a BJP MP back then decided to follow up on the case and ensure justice for the victim, Roy blatantly refused to cooperate and made excuses like the police had no power to summon her.
‘Who knows who set the train carrying 59 Karsevaks on fire’: Arundhati Roy lied before a foreign audience
In 2013, Arundhati Roy while speaking at Northwestern Law School in Chicago said that a train full of pilgrims returning from the destruction of the disputed Babri mosque in Ayodhya ‘caught’ fire adding that no one knows who set the train ablaze.
“A train full of pilgrims coming back from the destruction of this Ayodhya mosque which was disputed. The train caught fire; nobody knows who set fire to the train,” Roy said.
Despite the fact that the Babri structure demolition took place in 1992 and the Godhra train burning incident happened in 2002, moreover, a special court sentenced the accused, many of them to death in 2011, Roy decided to lie since the American audience would not be much informed about events taking place in India.
When Arundhati Roy asked people to lie during NPR
A police complaint was lodged against Roy in 2019 for inciting people against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Population Register (NPR) in her speech at Delhi University. Arundhati Roy asked people to lie during NPR or give fake names such as Ranga-Billa and fake addresses. She also claimed that NPR is nothing but a tactic for collecting data for NRC.
“Now what is NPR? NPR has happened before. In NPR, they will come to your house, they won’t ask you anything, they ask you for your name and phone number. It is a database for NRC,” Roy said back then.
This came despite the fact that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had clarified that neither any documentation is required for NPR nor anyone’s citizenship will be revoked if their name misses out from NPR.
When Arundhati Roy accused RSS of running a ‘deep’ movement to turn India into a Hindu nation
In a 2019 interview with ‘journalist’ Karan Thapar, Roy claimed RSS has initiated a ‘deep’ movement to transform India into a Hindu nation. Referring to the Sabarimala incident, Roy said that the fascist RSS is working towards majoritarian politics, marginalization of the minorities while declaring that Muslims in India are being terrorized. By doing so, Arundathi Roy not only indulges in fake propaganda against the present dispensation as she does not specifically presents any facts to prove her conjectures but also indulges in fear-mongering and Hinduphobia.
When Arundhati Roy vilified Hindus and claimed that the Modi government was using Coronavirus for Muslim genocide
During an interview with DW in 2020, Roy had said that she does not consider COVID-19 a crisis as she does not trust the government-released numbers. Roy went on to claim that the Hindu nationalist government was using Coronavirus to ghettoize and stigmatize Muslims just like how Nazis used Typhus to do the same. Although, she did not furnish any evidence to back her claim. She went on to claim the Modi government is building detention centres for Muslims in India.
When Arundhati Roy peddled lies about PM Cares Fund and India’s Covid vaccination drive
In an article for the British daily The Guardian, Roy peddled several lies and disinformation. She claimed that PM Cares Fund operated like a ‘private trust’ and lacked accountability. Contrary to Roy’s assertions, the PM Cares Fund is a relief assistance fund headed by the Prime Minister and its trustees include Minister of Defence, Rajnath Singh, Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, and Minister of Finance, Nirmala Sitharaman in the Government of India. In addition, the PM Cares Fund is independently audited, and its audited statements are publicly available.
Besides she also claimed that the Modi government allowed Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute of India to roll out the most “expensive vaccines in the world”. Roy, however, did not mention that millions of people were provided free vaccine jabs and that the Indian vaccines were comparatively cheaper than foreign-made Pfizer and Moderna vaccines.
When Amar Chitra Katha fired an intern after his anti-Hindu comments sparked outrage
Coming back to Amar Chitra Katha, in March 2021, an anti-Hindu statement by a person named Abu Aman who was an intern at ACK sparked outrage on social media following which the ACK had to issue a statement informing that the intern in question was sacked. Though he was sacked for the breach of contract even before his internship began. Abu Amaan had derided Hindu culture, by mocking the architecture and sculptures of medieval Hindu temples in India.
