ROY, Arundhati, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”

Review: “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arundhati Roy

By Dr Gideon Polya

(originally published as Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arundhati Roy – Empathy”, Countercurrents, 12 October 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/10/12/review-the-ministry-of-utmost-happiness-by-arundhati-roy-empathy/ ).

After Arundhati Roy’s Booker Prize-winning novel “The God of Small Things” the world had been waiting for 20 years for her second novel. Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” has been well worth the wait – it is a marvellous feast of poetry, prose, characters, causes, good, evil, the expected and the unexpected by a master story-teller and truth-teller that does justice to Humanity and specifically the poor and marginalized of India. At its heart is a deep well of empathy.

Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” [1] is set largely in New Delhi and Kashmir with small excursions to Gujarat, Kerala and America, and has a much bigger locational and political advocacy stage than her first novel “The God of Small Things” (1997) that is set in a village in Kerala [2, 3]. “The God of Small Things” is a deep and complex novel about a riven and esoteric multicultural family that shocks with the deadly consequences of familial and societal nastiness, in particular relating to caste. The realities of mass poverty, political activism and police repression are unavoidable elements of an intense family story set in a hot and lush village in Kerala. The novel explores family, racism, caste, discrimination, hatred, power, violence, love, kindness, forbidden love and betrayal. Controversially, the twins Rahel and Estha have sex in consummating their intimacy and guilt over the violent death in their childhood at the hands of police of their older and good friend Velutha, the kind, Communist, untouchable carpenter and lover of their mother, Ammu. How times have changed – by way of comparison, D.H. Lawrence’s “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” (published privately in 1928) , was banned for 32 years in the UK because of its subject of inter-class adultery and use of a then-unprintable word [4, 5].

A brief sketch of Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” can be given as a tale of 2 heroines but without revealing too much of the story. The first heroine to be presented is Anjum, born into a New Delhi Muslim family, named Antab at birth, and an hermaphrodite. As a teenager Anjum eventually leaves her family and goes to live with other hijras (variously male to female transgender people) in the Khwabgah (“House of Dreams”, noting that in Hindi “Kharaab Gahr” means “Bad House” ). Anjum eventually has surgery that removes her penis and unsatisfactorily enhances her vagina. Anjum becomes a celebrity, a “sought-after lover” and also a mother after finding and adopting a lost baby Zainab. Anjum travels to Gujarat with her elderly friend Zakir Mian but are caught up in the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat under Chief Minister Narendra Modi (in the novel India’s present Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) PM Narendra Modi is “Gujarat ka Lalla” (Gujarat’s Beloved); Atul Behari Vajpayee, India’s BJP PM from 1999-2004, is “the Poet Prime Minister”; and Manmohan Singh, the Indian economist and politician who served as the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) PM of India from 2004-2014, is “the Trapped Rabbit”). Anjum’s friend is killed by the mob but Anjum is spared because she is a hijra and the killers are superstitious about killing hijras. In Anjum’s absence, Zainab started sleeping with Saeeda and calling her “Mummy” too. Eventually Zainab goes over to Saeeda completely as Anjum becomes increasingly upset. Anjum, now 46, then leaves the Khwabgah and makes her home in a graveyard. This home is visited by others (including Saeeda and Zainab) and becomes a home (the Jannat, or Paradise, Guest House and Funeral Services) for hijras and other marginal people, notably one Saddam Hussein who is involved in the transition of the story to the second heroine.

Saddam Hussain is a low-caste Hindu called Dayachand from a family of skinners. His father and his companions routinely pick up a dead cow but the police reject their bribe as insufficient, they are imprisoned and then beaten to death as “cow killers”. by a Hindu mob Saddam Hussein adopts his Muslim name and identity to get a job as a mortuary worker, and thence reverts to Dayachand for a security guard job (“because every idiot knew that in the prevailing climate a security guard with a Muslim name would have been considered a contradiction in terms” ([1], page 75). Anjum, Saddam Hussain and others attend a gathering of variously impoverished, discontented and political activist people next to the Jantar Mantar (the famous observatory in Delhi that consists of 13 architectural astronomy instruments). A notable figure at the Jantar Mantar gathering is a vocal activist, Dr Azad Bhartiya, who publishes a progressive “News and Views” news sheet and represents all those indignant Truth-Tellers for Humanity, including Arundhati Roy herself and those publishing indignant articles in progressive Alternative Media such Countercurrents. Dr Azad Bhartiya is the last person to see the removal of an abandoned baby by our second heroine, “S. Tilottama, publisher of Dr Azad Bhartiya’s News & Views” , but does not deliver her up despite a beating from the casually violent police ([1], page 133). Saddam Hussain and another Jannat resident, Ishrat-the-Beautiful, track Tilo and baby by horse-drawn cart to her apartment, they and the baby-carrying Tilo wave to each other (she from the window of her second floor apartment), and the Jannat duo depart after leaving their “Jannat Guest House and Funeral Services” card.

The second heroine Tilo and her 3 male admirers are central to most of the remainder of the novel. Tilo is the out-of-wedlock child of a remarkable Keralan woman who is an innovative educator. Tilo is an architecture student at Delhi University together with Kashmiri student Musa Yeswi, and in 1984 (30 years before the baby acquisition in 2014) joins the cast of an English play “Norman, is that you?” that includes history masters students Nagaraj Hariharan (Naga) who plays “Norman” and Biplab Dasgupta who plays the character “Garson Hobart”. Tilo always refers to these 3 men who love her as Musa, Naga and Garson Hobart, respectively, this latter affectation being crucial when Dasgupta wants to anonymously contact Tilo when she and the baby finally end up with Anjum in the Jannat Guest House ([1], page 207) and, earlier, when Tilo, detained by the Indian military in Kashmir, is released by violent Indian Army torturer Major Amrik Singh after Tilo writes the message “Please call Mr Biplab Dasgupta, Deputy Station Head India Bravo Give him this message: G-A-R-S-O-N H-O-B-A-R-T” ([1], page 380). Tilo becomes a graphic designer, Musa Yeswi becomes a leading Kashmiri insurgent, Naga becomes an ostensibly progressive journalist who profits from secret and mutually beneficial Indian Intelligence connections, and Biplab Dasgupta becomes a senior figure in Indian Intelligence. Enough said, read the novel for this absorbing tale by a master story teller.

In between her 2 novels Arundhati Roy has became a leading activist for important humanitarian causes within and outside India, of which a list of 12 is presented below (with some amplifying, quantifying and documenting comments in brackets) :

(1) supporting the impoverished and marginalised people of India (the annual per capita GDP in India is a mere $1,709 as compared to $56,064 for the US [7]; 4.5 million Indians die avoidably from deprivation each year as compared to essentially zero in North America, Western Europe, China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea [8, 9]; and India ranks 97th out of 118 countries in the Global Hunger Index with 15% of the population malnourished and 39% of under-5 year old children stunted [10]).

(2) opposing the Narmada Dam project, the huge Sardar Sarovar Project for power and irrigation in Gujarat (this and other like major projects have created 50 million “internal refugees” in India since Independence [11], noting that poverty kills, with 350 million Indians dying avoidably from deprivation in the period 1950-2005 [8, 9, 12] );

(3) opposing US imperialism, notably the war criminal and indeed genocidal US Alliance invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with Arundhati Roy being a notable participant in the seminal World Tribunal on Iraq [13-15] (deaths from violence plus avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in brackets: post-1950 US Asian wars (40 million, 1950-present), the Palestinian Genocide (2 million, 1920 – present), the Korean Genocide (5.2 million, 1950-1953), Laotian Genocide (1.2 million, 1955-1975), the Vietnamese Genocide (15.3 million, 1955-1975), the Cambodian Genocide (6 million, 1965-1975), the Congolese Genocide (30 million, 1960 - present), the Guatemalan Genocide (2 million, 1960-1966), the Afghan Genocide (9 million, 1978 – present; 6.0 million, 2001- present), Iraqi Genocide (9 million, 1914 – present; 4.6 million, 1990 – present; 2.7 million, 2003 – present), the Somalian Genocide (2.3 million, 1992 – present), the Libyan Genocide (0.2 million, 2011 – present), Syrian Genocide (1.0 million, 2012 – present), the post-9-11 US War on Muslims, Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (32 million Muslim deaths from violence, 5 million, or deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity), and the deprivation-driven Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (1,500 million avoidable deaths from deprivation, 1950 – present; 17 million such deaths annually) [9, 16-24].

(4) supporting human rights and the will of the people in Kashmir, this leading to a charge of sedition against her (according to Arundhati Roy’s novel, in Kashmir there are “DEAD = 68,000 DISAPPEARED = 10,000” ([1], page 115) – the key issue should not be borders, sovereignty etc but human rights);

(5) accusing Apartheid Israel of state terror e.g. over its devastation of Lebanon in 2006 (the substantially UK- and US-backed Palestinian Genocide has involved 2 million Palestinian deaths from violence, 0.1 million, or imposed deprivation, 1.9 million, since WW1, versus 4,000 Zionists deaths at the hands of Palestinians since 1920; there are 8 million Palestinian refugees and all of the 14 million Palestinians are excluded from all or part of Palestine; of about 14 million Palestinians (half of them children), 7 million are forbidden to even step foot in their own country, 5 million are held hostage with zero human rights under Apartheid Israeli guns in the Gaza Concentration Camp (2.0 million) or in ever-dwindling West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (3.0 million), and 1.8 million live as Third Class citizens as Israeli Palestinians under Nazi-style Apartheid Israeli race laws; 90% of Palestine has been ethnically cleansed of Indigenous Palestinian inhabitants; of nuclear terrorist Apartheid Israel’s now 50% Indigenous Palestinian subjects, 74% are excluded from voting for the government ruling them; 24 million people have died avoidably from deprivation since 1950 in 5 impoverished countries variously occupied by Apartheid Israel since the inception of this genocidally racist rogue state [21, 25-27]).

(6) damning the UK-, US- and Apartheid Israel-backed Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka (horrendous human rights abuses, 100,000 Tamils killed, 800,000 displaced, circa 100,000 avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation [28, 29] );

(7) supporting Adivasi (Aboriginal) land rights (the 100 million Adivasis represent about 9% of the Indian population [30-33]);

(8) criticizing state terrorism and human rights abuses in the Indian government's armed actions against the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency, calling it "war on the poorest people in the country" [6]) (violence and terrorism must be deplored but high technology state terrorism vastly exceeds non-state terrorism in violence and deadliness – indeed the greatest crime of non-state terrorism in general is that of wittingly or unwittingly providing “excuses” for disproportionately deadly state terrorism, as exampled by genocidally deadly US state terrorism and Apartheid Israeli state terrorism [21-23, 25-27, 34-36]);

(9) supporting minorities, notably Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians, against dangerously fanatical Hindutva sectarian intolerance and hostility [33] ( since Partition that involved 1 million killed and 20 million refugees in an orgy of sectarian violence, communal violence has killed several hundred people each year in India in addition to the huge numbers killed or expelled in the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom (800 Muslims killed, thousands displaced [1]), the 1984 anti-Sikh riots (up to 17,000 killed, 50,000 displaced) and the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits (300 killed, up to 500,000 expelled) [37].

(10) opposing nuclear weapons and Indian acquisition of nuclear weapons (nuclear terrorism), a stance that has massive global support with nearly all non-European countries (but not nearly all European countries) overwhelmingly supporting a Nuclear Weapons Ban, and the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 (a nuclear exchange would wipe out most of Humanity (current population about 7.5 billion), successively through the initial instantaneous destruction of cities, subsequent deaths from burns and radiation sickness from radioactive fallout, and finally through a “Nuclear Winter” decimating agriculture through stopping photosynthesis and photosynthate-based life in general; the upper estimates of stored nuclear weapons are as follows: US (7,315), Russia (8,000), Apartheid Israel (400), France (300), UK (250), China (250), Pakistan (120), India (100), and North Korea (10). India , Pakistan, Apartheid Israel and North Korea have not ratified the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) [38]);

(11) supporting sustainable living [30, 31] (it is now too late to avoid a catastrophic plus 2 degrees Centigrade temperature rise but we are all obliged to do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for our children and grandchildren [38-41]; there is a steadily worsening Climate Genocide and it is estimated that only 0.5 billion people will survive (i.e. about 10 billion people will perish) this century in the absence of requisite action to curb and reverse man-made global warming from greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution [42]); and

(12). giving support by courageous example for free speech for truth and on behalf of the disempowered. In accepting the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize, Arundhati Roy stated, “There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard” [32]. There is massive Mainstream media lying by omission and lying by commission about the crimes of the rich and the suffering of the poor. Lies of omission are far, far worse than repugnant lies of commission because at least the latter admit the possibilities of refutation and public debate [43-47]. Arundhati Roy on simultaneous First World crimes and First World denial (2004): “The ultimate privilege of the élite is not just their deluxe lifestyles, but deluxe lifestyles with a clear conscience” [48].

Indeed Arundhati Roy’s causes include those enunciated by the unfailingly earnest and morally committed Dr Azad Bhartiya in “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”: “I am fasting against the following issues: I am against the Capitalist Empire, plus against US Capitalism, Indian and American State Terrorism/ All Kinds of Nuclear Weapons and Crime, plus against the Bad Education System/ Corruption/ Violence/ Environmental Degradation and All Other Evils. Also I am against Unemployment. I am also fasting for the complete obliteration of the entire Bourgeois class Each day I remember the poor of the world, Workers/ Peasants/ Tribals/ Dalits/Abandoned Ladies and Gents/ including Children and Handicapped People” ([1], page 126).

Arundhati Roy dedicates “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” “To, The Unconsoled” and the characters of the novel reflect her activism and empathy for the variously threatened, non-empowered and unconsoled in India, the poor, the transgender Hijras, low caste Hindus (Dalits), Muslims, Kashmiris, Communist activists, and Adivarsis. The abuses suffered by her characters range from sidelining, rejection, and intimidation to occupation, dispossession, trauma, violence, imprisonment, torture and death. The novel is wonderfully polemical and at its core is deep empathy for the richness of Humanity and the Biosphere that is being destroyed in the name of neoliberal-driven progress, whether the inhabitants, society and environment of the drowning Narmada River valley or the Adivarsis in their jungle retreats being supplanted by mining and industry.

Arundhati Roy’s deep empathy for the “unconsoled” is expressed in a poem by Tilo towards the end of the book: “How to tell a shattered story? By slowly becoming everybody. No, By slowly becoming everything” ([1], page 436). One is reminded of the deeply moving and empathic movies of Bengali film-maker Satyajit Ray, and a profound statement by brilliant Bengali scholar and writer Rabindranath Tagore: “We have come into this world to accept it, not merely to know it. We may become powerful through knowledge , but we attain fullness through sympathy” [49].

It is possibly unfair to contrast Jane Austen and Arundhati Roy but the exercise is useful. The brilliant English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817) wrote beautifully crafted novels about truth, boy-meets-girl and romantic love set in her environment of the English upper classes whose wealth heavily derived from the remorseless and deadly exploitation of Indians. The real world of starving Indians (e.g. 10 million Indians starved to death under the rapacious British in the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine) , slavery and wretched conditions for the English working class (1 in 6 women in London were prostitutes) scarcely intruded into the calm and wealthy world of Jane Austen’s novels in which the key moral issue was “truth” in oh-so-polite interpersonal relations. However every artist has a right to choose the subject and scope of the canvas and Jane Austen’s brilliant novels carry the profoundly important message that we are all empowered by the rational and articulate use of language [50].

In sharp contrast to Jane Austen’s measured and genteel articulation, the powerful poetry and soaring prose of Arundhati Roy’s complex novels deal with the horrendous truths of the Indian social realities of mass poverty, disempowerment, discrimination and deadly violence. One notes, however, that in “Sense and Sensibility’, the most “Indian” of Jane Austen’s novels, Jane Austen the truth-teller presents a very detailed but very cleverly disguised version of the well-hidden story of her Bengal-born cousin and sister-in-law Elizabeth de Feuillade (the model for Jane Austen’s more advanced female characters) who was the product of the adulterous relationship in India between Jane Austen’s paternal aunt Philadelphia Hancock and Warren Hastings (the first de facto Governor-General of India from 1772 to 1785). However just as horrendous Indian famine events from the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine (10 million victims) to the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British with Australian complicity [50-52]) have been largely white-washed out of the monolith of British historiography, so too has the Jane Austen-revealed family story about Warren Hastings’ adulterously fathering of Jane Austen’s Bengal-born cousin has been overwhelmingly deleted from the huge mountain of academic and non-academic literature about Jane Austen and her novels [50]. Jane Austen, like Arundhati Roy, was committed to truth but this extraordinary lying by Western Mainstream editor, writer, journalist, politician and academic presstitutes continues today with massive and pervasive Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission [43-47].

The complexity, poetry and polemical sweep of Arundhati Roy’s “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” is more than justified by the compelling need to present the wrongs in a people-moving way that only a great artist can, in a fashion that rises above the horrendous statistical realities of Arundhati Roy’s humanitarian causes as quantitatively outlined above. Of great pertinence to brilliant and passionate activist writer Arundhati Roy versus the actively and passively homicidal, neoliberal State, French writer Albert Camus stated (1946): “Over the expanse of five continents throughout the coming years an endless struggle is going to be pursued between violence and friendly persuasion, a struggle in which, granted, the former has a thousand times the chances of success than that of the latter. But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the face of circumstances is a coward. And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions” [53].

References.

[1]. Arundhati Roy, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” , Hamish Hamilton, 2017.

[2]. Arundhati Roy, “The God of Small Things”, Flamingo, 1997.

[3]. “The God of Small Things”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_of_Small_Things .

[4]. D.H. Lawrence, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, 1928.

[5]. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Chatterley%27s_Lover .

[6]. “Arundhati Roy”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy .

[7]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Inglorious India. What the British did to India” by Shashi Tharoor”, Countercurrents, 8 September 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/08/review-inglorious-empire-what-the-british-did-to-india-by-shashi-tharoor/ .

[9]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web : http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/ .

[10]. Subodh Varmal, “India ranked 97th of 118 in global hunger index”, Times of India, 13 October 2016: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-ranked-97th-of-118-in-global-hunger-index/articleshow/54822103.cms .

[11]. Arundhati Roy, “The Cost of Living”.

[12]. Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna, Cambridge Stevenson Prize And Dire Indian Poverty”, Countercurrents, 20 November, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya201111.htm .

[13]. “The World Tribunal on Iraq”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tribunal_on_Iraq .

[14]. Arundhati Roy, “The World Tribunal on Iraq: opening speech Arundhati Roy”, Information Clearing House, 24 June 2005: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9259.htm .

[15]. Richard Falk, “Kuala Lumpur Tribunal: Bush and Blair guilty”, Al Jazeera, 29 November 2011: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111128105712109215.html .

[16]. Gideon Polya, “Hitler, Churchill, Trump, Aung San Suu Kyi & Genocidal Intent To Destroy”, Countercurrents, 29 September 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/09/29/hitler-churchill-trump-aung-san-suu-kyi-genocidal-intent-to-destroy/ .

[17]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[18]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[20]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[21]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[22]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “The US Has Invaded 70 Nations Since 1776 – Make 4 July Independence From America Day”, Countercurrents, 5 July, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050713.htm .

[24]. William Blum, “Rogue State”.

[25]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East Conflict - From Oil to Climate Genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[26]. William A. Cook, editor, "The Plight of the Palestinians. A Long History of Destruction", Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

[27]. Gideon Polya, “Review: "The Plight of the Palestinians. A Long History of Destruction"”, Countercurrents, 17 June, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya170612.htm .

[28]. Francis Boyle, “ The Tamil Genocide by Sri Lanka: The Global Failure to Protect Tamil Rights Under International Law”.

[29]. “Sri Lankan Civil War”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Lankan_Civil_War .

[30]. Arundhati Roy, “Re-imagining a word beyond capitalism and communism”, Adbusters, excerpted from Arundhati Roy, “ Walking with the Comrades”: http://www.adbusters.org/article/arundhati-roy/ . .

[31]. Arundhati Roy, “Walking with the Comrades”.

[32]. Aabid Firdausi, “On Adivasi development and resistance in India. Existential questions faced by the subaltern”, Public Seminar, 9 June 2017: http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/06/on-adivasi-development-and-resistance-in-india/#.Wd1Y_Ds3W70 .

[33]. Shoumojit Banerjee, “Minorities, Dalits living in fear: Arundhati Roy”, The Hindu, 29 November 2015: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/minorities-dalits-living-in-fear-arundhati-roy/article7928332.ece .

[34]. “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ .

[35]. "State crime and non-state terrorism": https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/ .

[36]. Gideon Polya, “Riyadh speech: state terrorist Trump’s fake news ignores Muslim Holocaust and American Holocaust”, Countercurrents, 26 May 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/05/26/riyadh-speech-state-terrorist-trumps-fake-news-ignores-muslim-holocaust-american-holocaust/ .

[37]. “Religious violence in India”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_India .

[38]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[39]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .

[40]. “Methane Bomb Threat”: https://sites.google.com/site/methanebombthreat/ .

[41]. "Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .

[42]. “Climate genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .

[43]. Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission”, Global Research, 1 April 2017: http://www.globalresearch.ca/mainstream-media-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/5582944 .

[44]. Gideon Polya, “Australian ABC and UK BBC fake news through lying by omission”, Countercurrents, 2 May 2017: http://www.countercurrents.org/2017/05/02/australian-abc-and-uk-bbc-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/ .

[45]. “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home .

[46]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .

[47]. “Lying by omission”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .

[48]. Arundhati Roy and David Barsamian, “The Chequebook and the Cruise Missile”, Harper Perennial, New York, 2004.

[49]. Rabindranath Tagore quoted in “Moloch” by Henry Miller.

[50]. Gideon Polya (1998), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .

[51]. Gideon Polya (2011), “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .

[52]. “Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”, Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust .

[53]. Albert Camus, “Neither Victims nor Executioners”, 1946.

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ; Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .