Githa Hariharan’s In Times of Siege: Can We Practise Human Rights Even Today?

Abstract

Githa Hariharan’s In Times of Siege, incontrovertibly demonstrates egalitarian ideology interrogating an individual’s right to democracy. There are few questions which take place on the mind of the reader. Can we practise human rights or is it under constant threat? The paper addresses the issues of the ideals of liberals and also of people who try to express their resentment despite being politically inactive. The paper analyses how the lives of common men get affected if they assert their individual opinion in the light of saffronization and communal disharmony.  These kinds of the crisis have been observed in times of demolition of Babri Masjid, the war in Iraq and of course during Gujrat Carnage. In Times of Siege, sets an example where ordinary people are pushed to a point in which they are forced to speak up for the basic human rights that hold their world in place.