Well, it's the safest form of political activity.
"We SHOULD be aiming to actually win, to affirmatively change the world for the better, not just fight off a few demons in the breach."
That's not so safe.
"You get a very clear sense in reading both The God of Small Things and many of her essays that Roy puts a premium on the "resistance" of the truly MARGINALIZED, not so much in addition to as at the expense of MASS politics."
Mass politics is dirty. You get your hands dirty. You become involved in a struggle for power. Power is dirty, and you must not touch. If you are part of a privileged stratum, your power is invisible to you. You tell yourself that you speak softly because you have class/wisdom. In fact, you can speak softly because everyone around you is trained to listen to you. To acknowledge that you have any power is to acknowledge that, on some level, you are part of the problem, you are at least complicit with the oppressors. "Resistance" is political action that refuses the possibility/desire of taking power. It bestows the great gifts of "innocence" and "self-righteousness." What more could any comfortable, middle-class leftist ask for?
Joanna