India says novelist Arundhati Roy could be tried under antiterror law

Although Modi was forced this week to form a new coalition government after a shock election result on June 4 reduced his seat count in Parliament, the Indian leader has projected an image of confidence as he kept his cabinet unchanged in key positions and vowed to double down in his fight against his political opponents, whom he called corrupt.

V.K. Saxena, the BJP lieutenant governor of New Delhi who sanctioned Roy’s antiterror case, did not offer comment. But several BJP spokespeople defended the move and portrayed Roy as a traitor backed by the opposition Congress party. On a primetime debate show, BJP national spokesman Tuhin Sinha accused Roy of seeking to demoralize the Indian Army. Another BJP spokesman, Shehzad Poonawalla, compared the writer to convicted terrorists in a video statement published on X.

“Arundhati Roy said that Kashmir is not an integral part of India when the Congress was in power,” Poonawalla said in his post Saturday. “Congress and its ecosystem support people who want to break India into many pieces.”

Roy, who is now 62, first faced a criminal complaint after she told an audience at a conference in New Delhi that Kashmir was never a part of India before it came under occupation by Indian troops. Roy’s comments sparked immediate protests by BJP supporters, but the criminal case faded away. It was resurrected 13 years later, in October, when Saxena sanctioned her prosecution on charges of promoting enmity between groups and threatening India’s national integrity.

On Friday, Saxena allowed the case to be escalated by announcing that Roy could be prosecuted under the Unlawful Activites (Prevention) Act, a provision that allows terrorism suspects to be held preemptively without bail for many years before charges are brought. Crucially, the UAPA has no statute of limitations and it would allow authorities to levy charges against Roy even though her alleged offenses took place in 2010.

One of the most controversial parts of the Indian legal code, the UAPA has been invoked by the Modi government in recent years against student activists in New Delhi, journalists in Kashmir and the Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, who died in prison in 2021 while facing terrorism charges. Mary Lawlor, the United Nations human rights special rapporteur, has criticized Indian authorities of using the law to “criminalize human rights defenders.”

Another speaker at the 2010 conference, the Kashmiri law professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain, will also face investigation under the UAPA, Saxena’s office announced.

Roy’s lawyer, Rebecca John, called the case politically motivated.

“If the Delhi police took 14 years to investigate a case, where the only charge against Ms. Roy is one of making a “speech” which admittedly did not lead to any violence or other “unlawful activity,” I am afraid it speaks poorly of the investigating skills of the police force,” John said in a text message. “Clearly, the case against Ms. Roy is political in nature given her unfailing commitment to human rights.”

After shooting to international prominence with her debut novel, “The God of Small Things,” in 1997, Roy has campaigned against a broad range of issues, including the Indian administration of Kashmir, the building of dams and U.S. foreign policy. Since Modi’s rise to national power in 2014, Roy has become one of his most visible critics in international forums by frequently writing essays in Western publications and delivering public speeches.

On Saturday, politicians from several opposition parties accused the BJP of authoritarian behavior.

“If by prosecuting Arundhati Roy under UAPA BJP trying to prove they’re back, well they’re not,” Mahua Moitra, member of Parliament from the Trinamool Congress, said on X. “This kind of fascism is exactly what Indians have voted against.”

Anant Gupta contributed reporting