The futility of demanding purity

In the biblical account of the women accused of adultery, Christ said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her,” thereby invoking a purity test against the powerful. In the contemporary times, however, such purity tests are sometimes misplaced, directed not against the structures of domination, but paradoxically against public intellectuals, writers or artists who seek to give voice to the marginalised. This inversion of the biblical test often shifts the burden from real dominant forces and freezes or burdens those who in essence attempt to resist or critique the powerful. An example of such a misplaced purity test, invoked against Roy, appeared a few days ago in a piece titled “Penguin, Palestine and the price of Roy’s Resistance,” carried by Middle East Monitor.

While no public intellectual is above accountability, writers, scholars, and artists who assume the role of conscience must be questioned, even challenged. Arundhati Roy herself has often reminded us that dissent is meaningful only when it refuses comfort and convenience. So, it is reasonable to seek accountability. But the framework for such an accountability must be analytical, rational, and consistent. It cannot be conjured from thin air, applied selectively, or used as a tool for moral exhibitionism.

The reasoning offered in the piece is simple, since Roy published her new book with Penguin, she has lost the moral ground, and her lifelong critique of Zionism, Hindutva, and similar structures is merely rhetoric as she has adopted the role of a co-opted intellectual. We are reminded that Penguin publishes Nerendra Modi on Kashmir, so to publish with them is to compromise moral position and equivalent to shaking hands with empire. At first glance, such reasoning appears uncompromising and righteous, but critical assessment reveals glaring inconsistencies, bias, and contradictions. This argument exemplifies a slippery slope of impossible purity, in which no intellectual can ever meet the standard, and every critique is disqualified. If we follow this argument strictly, then Noam Chomsky, the most tireless critic of US foreign policy becomes the “abettor of colonialism,” simply because he spent his career at MIT, an institution that receives enormous funding from the Pentagon and US defence contractors. By this standard, his lectures against US wars are all tainted, because the electricity in his classroom was paid by state. Yet no serious observer confuses Chomsky’s institutional affiliation with his politics. His authority lies precisely in his ability to carve out dissent within compromised institutions.

 

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We are also reluctantly tempted to invoke biblical moral test for the writer himself, can he discredit Roy for publishing with Penguin, because it publishes Modi.  Obviously, we don’t indulge in such a futile moral posturing, as we are fully aware and appreciate the struggles of research scholars striving to reclaim spaces of dissent, while their own identities and positions are constantly under scrutiny. The question, however, is, can we expect the same courtesy offered to Roy? To decline that to her would be to assume the existence of an impossible Archimedean vantage point, untouched by history, state and capital. Such a perspective ignores the complex realities in which we all operate and risks holding intellectuals against standards no human engagement can ever meet. The inconsistency grows when we consider the thinkers the writer himself invokes: Talal Asad, Edward Said, Achille Mbembe. Every one of them taught at Western universities funded by states that waged wars, occupied lands, and built colonial empires. If we apply the same guilt-by-association test used against Roy, then these intellectuals too must be condemned as “co-opted.”

The deeper danger of such purity framework lies in the trivialisation of complicity in genocide, by shifting the spotlight from actual enablers or collaborators to those offering critique. In this zero-sum moral calculus, everyone is a sellout or guilty and in essence no one is accountable and as such betrayal or complicity is emptied of its meaning. Pertinent to mention here is, Roy’s unique sense of never, unlike others, trying to appropriate the struggles of marginalised. For instance in the context of Kashmir, when asked, what should happen to Kashmir, she honestly replied, “I am nobody to say what should happen to Kashmir, my position is that  Kashmiris  should be given a chance to express their opinion fearlessly, what do they want.” Also important to mention is the enormous personal cost the dissenters continue to bear, Roy has stood a trial for sedition, endured surveillance, and lives under constant risk of arrest for her uncompromising stand on Kashmir and displacement of tribals. These acts carry a cost far greater than the comfort of choosing a “pure” publisher. In such an environment invoking bizarre purity tests against her is akin to biblical spectacle of throwing stones at the accused women, an act of cruelty in essence, disguised as righteousness.

Amidst the chaos of contemporary times, we are confronted with realities so stark that they need no embellishment. A televised genocide unfolds before our eyes in Gaza, Kashmir remains politically suffocated and Indian Muslims struggle under the relentless pressure of right-wing government that thrives on exclusion and othering. In such a landscape, it is not the moral absolutism or purity tests, however seductive, that can guide us forward. In the end, such a framework collapses into spectacle and performs the work of power itself, fragmenting dissent and turning intellectuals or people against one another. What we need instead is not the exhibition of moral superiority but the cultivation of solidarity, the patience to discern allies from adversaries and the humility to recognise that no one stands outside the strains of history or capital. We need not a chorus of accusations but the building of durable, courageous alliances, messy, imperfect, but oriented towards justice and humanity. Sanity, clarity and the refusal to abandon those under siege must become our compass.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.