The Hindu : Arundhati Roy donates Rs. 1.67-cr. award money

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 23, 2003

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Arundhati Roy donates Rs. 1.67-cr. award money

By Gargi Parsai

New Delhi Jan. 22. The United States-based Lannan Foundation has awarded its fourth annual Prize for Cultural Freedom to the writer and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy, for her "precise and powerful writing highlighting her commitment to social, economic and environmental justice.''

Ms. Roy will receive $ 3,50,000 (Rs. 1.67 crores) in prize money. She has announced that the money will be shared by 50 people's movements, publications, educational institutions, theatre groups and individuals in India, a Lannan Foundation press release said. Last year, the award was won by the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish. The foundation will formally honour Ms. Roy at a reception in New York in May.

Ms. Roy said here that she had accepted the award knowing well that there were many people around the world who deserved it more than she did.

"In these times, when all over the world democratic spaces are being usurped and violated in the name of corporate globalisation and the war against terror, when fascism is staring us in the face (in India, it is beating down the doors), it is a sign of great hope that there are so many people's movements and individuals who see through the charade and are committed to resisting this process.''

It was not easy for her to decide what to do with the prize money (Rs. 1.15 crores after tax deduction), she said. Over a period of several days and discussions, she drew a list of 50 remarkable people's movements, publications, educational institutions, theatre groups and individuals who are engaged in the struggle of making India a real democracy instead of just a notional one. "Each in its own way is working to challenge the entrenched power structure of the society in which we live.''

Ms. Roy said she was aware that there were many people and organisations whose names were not on the list, not because they did not deserve to be, but because of the limited nature of the task.

She would have liked to share part of the prize money with independent and alternative media groups in the U.S. — Democracy Now, Indymedia and Alternative Radio — but could not do so because the Indian law did not permit her to do so.

In 1998, Ms. Roy donated the Rs. 15-lakh Booker Prize money she received for `The God of Small Things' and Rs. 20 lakhs she earned as royalty for her essay, `For the Greater Common Good,' to the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

In September, 2002, Ms. Roy spoke at Sante Fe (New Mexico) for the Lannan Foundation's Readings and Conversations series, where she delivered the lecture "Come September,'' a critical examination of the effects of the U.S.-led corporate globalisation, the "war on terrorism'' and the history of U.S. interventions in Chile, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Iraq.

According to the foundation president, J. Patrick Lannan, Jr. "as both an artist and a global citizen, Arundhati Roy writes about civil societies that are adversely affected by the world's most powerful governments and corporations. We are honoured to celebrate her life and her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity.''

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