Arundhati Roy’s Commitment for the Subaltern Cause: An Exploration of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Arundhati Roy’s international fame rests not only on her The God of Small Things winning the Booker Prize but more so on her activism for the subalterns in India for whose cause she had been a vocal fighter for more than two decades. The novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a part of that vocal narrative that brings the concerns of women, Dalits, and the hijra community. The research paper “Arundhati Roy’s Commitment for the Subaltern Cause: An Exploration of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” explores the subaltern consciousness and sensibilities of present-day India to manifest the ways how the new India needs to take into account the subaltern concerns. Writing about a postcolonial writer is always getting into a political act. When it is Arundhati Roy, it is more of choice to “commitment” to the downtrodden sections of the society who often lack a voice of their own and needs to be represented in different forums for not just adequate representation but also for the sake of getting what is rightfully due to them constitutionally and otherwise. After the success of The God of Small Things which won the prestigious Booker Prize, Roy delved into activism and pursued her writing career sporadically in non-fictional works that narrated her concerns with the marginalized and victimized people in the world, especially from India. Keeping along with his activism and concern for the subaltern, Roy’s recent novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness has also similarly attempted to deal with the subalterns who are being victimized for a long time and are never able to voice their concerns in appropriate forums for the lack of knowledge of means and ways to protest. Moreover, their financial and cultural (caste, class and gender) status does not allow them to attain what is rightfully due. In the paper “Arundhati Roy’s Commitment for the Subaltern Cause: An Exploration of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness”, an attempt has been made to understand the ways in which Arundhati Roy not just traces the unfair, unjust and illthought ways in which the victimized lot live their lives, but also tries to give voice to these subalterns through her literary endeavour. It is a political choice that she has made, which shows her commitment to the cause of the