[27] In India, E. K. Nayanar,[28] then the chief minister of Roy's home state of Kerala, especially criticised the book's unrestrained description of sexuality, and she had to answer charges of obscenity.

[35] The novel was chosen for the Man Booker Prize 2017 longlist,[36] and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in January 2018.

[37] Since publishing The God of Small Things in 1997, Roy has spent most of her time on political activism and nonfiction (such as collections of essays about social causes).

She opposes India's policies toward nuclear weapons as well as industrialization and economic growth (which she describes as "encrypted with genocidal potential" in Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy).

[43] It would do better to brush up her knowledge of history and know that the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir had acceded to the Union of India after its erstwhile ruler Maharaja Hari Singh duly signed the Instrument of Accession on 26 October 1947.

[43] She was charged with sedition along with separatist Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and others by Delhi Police for their "anti-India" speech at a 2010 convention on Kashmir: "Azadi: The Only Way".

[50] The court found Roy's statement, which she refused to disavow or apologise for, constituted criminal contempt, sentenced her to a "symbolic" one day's imprisonment, and fined her ₹2500.

While acknowledging her "courage and commitment" to the cause, Guha writes that her advocacy is hyperbolic and self-indulgent,[53] and that "Ms. Roy's tendency to exaggerate and simplify, her Manichaean view of the world, and her shrill hectoring tone, have given a bad name to environmental analysis".

[54] He faulted Roy's criticism of Supreme Court judges who were hearing a petition brought by the Narmada Bachao Andolan as careless and irresponsible.

America's favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of prime minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."

"[58]In the final analysis, Roy sees American-style capitalism as the culprit: "In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the major media networks, and, indeed, U.S. foreign policy, are all controlled by the same business combines".She puts the attacks on the World Trade Center and on Afghanistan on the same moral level, that of terrorism, and mourns the impossibility of beauty after 2001: "Will it be possible ever again to watch the slow, amazed blink of a newborn gecko in the sun, or whisper back to the marmot who has just whispered in your ear—without thinking of the World Trade Centre and Afghanistan?

"[59] In May 2003, she delivered a speech titled "Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (Buy One, Get One Free)" at Riverside Church in New York City, in which she described the United States as a global empire that reserves the right to bomb any of its subjects at any time, deriving its legitimacy directly from God.

[60][61] In June 2005, she took part in the World Tribunal on Iraq, and in March 2006 she criticised President George W. Bush's visit to India, calling him a "war criminal".

It was published in her collection The Cost of Living (1999), in which she also crusaded against India's massive hydroelectric dam projects in the central and western states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.

[73] In an editorial in The Hindu, journalist Praveen Swami wrote that Roy's evidence of state complicity was "cherry-picked for polemical effect".

[74] Roy also called for Guru's death sentence to be stayed while a parliamentary enquiry into these questions was conducted, and denounced press coverage of the trial.

Roy travelled to the area, visited the movement's leaders in jail, and wrote an open letter to the then Chief Minister of Kerala, A. K. Antony, saying: "You have blood on your hands.

"[79] In an opinion piece for The Guardian in December 2008, Roy argued that the 2008 Mumbai attacks cannot be seen in isolation, but must be understood in the context of wider issues in the region's history and society such as widespread poverty, the Partition of India ("Britain's final, parting kick to us"), the atrocities committed during the 2002 Gujarat violence, and the ongoing Kashmir conflict.

The Sri Lankan writer Ruvani Freeman called Roy's remarks "ill-informed and hypocritical" and criticised her for "whitewashing the atrocities of the LTTE".

However, I do believe that the LTTE and its fetish for violence was cultured in the crucible of monstrous, racist, injustice that the Sri Lankan government and to a great extent Sinhala society visited on the Tamil people for decades".

[85] Roy has criticised the Indian government's armed actions against the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in India, calling it "war on the poorest people in the country".

According to her, the government has "abdicated its responsibility to the people"[86] and launched the offensive against Naxals to aid the corporations with whom it has signed Memoranda of Understanding.

She stated that while "his means may be Gandhian, his demands are certainly not", and alleged that by "demonising only the Government they" are preparing to call for "more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources", adding that it "may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee".

In an interview with Kindle Magazine, Roy pointed out the role of media hype and target audience in determining how well hunger strikes "work as a tool of political mobilization" by noting the disparity in the attention Hazare's fast has received in contrast to the decade-long fast of Irom Sharmila "to demand the repealing of a law that allows non-commissioned officers to kill on suspicion—a law that has led to so much suffering.

"[99] Roy's comparison of the Jan Lokpal Bill with the Maoists, claiming both sought "the overthrow of the Indian State", met with resentment from members of Team Anna.

Medha Patkar reacted sharply calling Roy's comments "highly misplaced" and chose to emphasise the "peaceful, non-violent" nature of the movement.

She has expressed deep despair for the future, calling Modi's long-term plans for a highly centralized Hindu state "suicidal" for the multicultural subcontinent.

[128][129] In September 2023, Roy received the lifetime achievement award at the 45th European Essay Prize for the French translation of her book Azadi.

[130] In June 2024, Roy was announced as winner of the annual PEN Pinter Prize, given by human rights organization English PEN to a writer who, in the words of late playwright Harold Pinter, casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze on the world and shows "fierce intellectual determination ... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies".

[132][133] In August 2024, Roy and Toomaj Salehi shared the Disturbing the Peace Award, a recognition the Vaclav Havel Center accords to courageous writers at risk.