On the cover of Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy's new book, a woman clad in a black cloak scampers across a hostile looking dreary brown landscape clasping the hand of a tiny child.

That could almost be a metaphor for the role the celebrated author has
chosen for herself - defender of the defenceless, pen of the powerless.

 "An Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire", supremely filled with the sort of pincer irony that Roy revels in, has been published by Penguin. It is a collection of 14 of the author 's essays written between June 2002 and November 2004.

It could have well been termed  "An Ordinary Person 's Guide To (The
American) Empire ", because the book is filled with cutting-edge part-journalism, part-activism, intensive research into, essentially, that much-abused work called  "freedom ".

The writer had earlier hit out at America 's foreign policy in Afghanistan in her famous essay  "The Algebra of Infinite Justice ", where she famously hit out at the US administration for fighting wars  "against people it doesn 't know, because they don 't appear much on TV ".

Using her formidable insight and snappy analysis, Roy again demolishes myths of good governance, of the benevolence of nations and the Boy Scout-ness of the international community.

It is also a fierce indictment of Big Brother nationalism in India, where human beings are scattered and crushed in the name of  'greater good ' and non-violent protest is met with deafening silence.

 "When governments and the media lavish all their time, attention, funds, research, space, sophistication and seriousness on war talk and terrorism, then the message that goes out is disturbing and dangerous: if you seek to air and redress a public grievance, violence is more effective than non-violence, " argues Roy in the first chapter called  "Ahimsa ".

 "Unfortunately, if peaceful change is not given a chance, then violent
change becomes inevitable. That violence will be (and already is) random, ugly, and unpredictable. "

Most of the book is a bitter indictment of American policies - in
Afghanistan, in Iraq and elsewhere.

 "President George W. Bush, commander-in-chief of the US army, navy and
marines, has issued clear instructions  'Iraq. Will. Be. Liberated. ' (Perhaps he means that even if Iraqi people 's bodies are killed, their souls will be liberated.), " questions Roy.  "Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don 't think so. It 's more like Operation Let 's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees. "

With fierce erudition and brilliant reasoning, Roy dwells on Western hypocrisy and propaganda, vehemently questioning the basis of biased international politics.

 "Iraq has shown spectacular courage and has even managed to put up what actually amounts to a defence: a defence which the Bush/Blair pair has immediately denounced as deceitful and cowardly. (But then deceit is an old tradition with us natives. When we 're invaded/colonised/occupied and stripped of all dignity, we turn to guile and opportunism), " writes Roy.

 "Clearly for the  'Allies ', the only morally acceptable strategy the Iraqi army can pursue is to march out into the desert and be bombed by B-52s or be mowed down by machine-gun fire.

 "Anything short of that is cheating. "

As she sees propaganda being passed as the truth and press handouts passed for stories, Roy determinedly continues her three cheers for celebrated critics of the US government like Noam Chomsky and writes: "...if the Bush regime falls, there would be dancing on the streets the
world over. "