Cops may charge Arundhati for remarks against Gandhiji

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The police are considering registering a case against writer and activist Arundhati Roy for her remarks against Mahatma Gandhi. The city police have sought details of her speech, including video clippings, from organizers of the programme at which she made the controversial remarks.
"We have not decided whether to register a case.The legal aspects of the matter have to be examined. We have sought the footage of the speech after receiving a complaint," Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner H Venkitesh said. The complaint was filed by Eby J Jose of Pala, Kottayam.
Meanwhile, home minister Ramesh Chennithala flayed the writer for her words. "Arundhati Roy's remarks against Mahatma Gandhi is condemnable. She should apologize," he said in New Delhi on Saturday, adding that a complaint in this regard from
Congress (S) leader Kadannappally Ramachandran has been forwarded to the state police chief. While speaker G Karthikeyan was the first to openly lash out against Arundhati Roy for her speech, chief minister Oommen Chandy later commented that her observations about the father of the nation were unacceptable.
Arundhati Roy had made the controversial statement at a lecture organized by the Mahatma Ayyankali Chair of Kerala University here on July 17. In the lecture, she accused Gandhi of being a casteist and demanded that institutions named after him be rechristened.
She went on to add that the process could begin with renaming universities, a reference perhaps to the Mahatma Gandhi University, a leading varsity in the state. Roy had also cited an essay by Gandhi in 1936 - in which he advises manual scavengers to convert urine and night soil into manure - as proof of his patronizing attitude towards Harijans and how it helped reinforce caste hierarchies.