"We Need Ambedkar--Now, Urgently..." The Booker prize-winning author on her essay The Doctor and

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NARENDRA BISHT
INTERVIEW
"We Need Ambedkar--Now, Urgently..."
The Booker prize-winning author on her essay *The Doctor and the Saint* and
more
SABA NAQVI<http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=3900&author=Saba+Naqvi>
INTERVIEWS ARUNDHATI
ROY<http://www.outlookindia.com/peoplefnl.aspx?pid=4112&author=Arundhati+Roy>
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?289691


*Almost half of the 400-page book is Roy's essay, the other half *Annihilation
of Caste*. Roy writes about caste in contemporary India before getting into
the Gandhi-Ambedkar stand-off. Taking off from what Ambedkar described as
"the infection of imitation", the domino effect of each caste dominating
the ones lower down in the hierarchy, Roy says, "The 'infection of
imitation', like the half-life of a radioactive atom, decays exponentially
as it moves do