Controversial author Arundhati Roy`s book launch disrupted

The launch of Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy`s new book ‘The Broken Republic’ was disrupted by a group of protesters at the India Habitat Centre here late Friday.

The protesters barged into the venue and shouted slogans like ‘Arundhati Murdabad’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and threw pamphlets at the audience, denouncing the book.

They threw some pamphlets. However, policemen overpowered them and escorted them outside the auditorium."I paid them to do that," Roy said later joking about the incident.

Delhi police had booked Roy under sedition charges in November last year for her alleged "anti-India" speeches at a seminar here on "Azadi- The Only Way" where she shared the dais with Hurriyat hawk Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Later, Roy also performed along with a music band.

On her book, Roy said it examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global super power and asks fundamental questions about the modern civilisation itself.

"War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country...It is democracy in Greater Kailash but not democracy in Dantewada," she said.

Roy is the author of Booker winning fiction God of Small Things (1997) and non-fictions Algebra of Infinite Justice (2001), Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2005) and Listening to Grasshoppers (2009).

The book examines the Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra.