Arundhati Roy: Mumbai was not India's 9/11

In the days immediately following the Mumbai attacks, I kept searching for something, anything, by Arundhati Roy.

That's what public intellectuals come to stand for. In times of crisis, we look to them for a framework of critical thinking, a context, a backstory. A counter-narrative to offset mainstream media and mass hysteria.

When I couldn't find op-eds, interviews, even the smallest comment, I realized I'd have to do my own thinking. And digging. Sigh.

But here it is, finally. An essay in today's Guardian, that opens up the whole bloody, complex history of India's state-sponsored violence against minorities, military atrocities in Kashmir, deeply compromised role in "the business of terrorism".

Thank god for the truth-tellers. However stark their conclusions.

We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says Justice, the other Civil War. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.