DALIT LEKHAK SANGH INDIA

Malkhan Singh (b 1948)
-1-
Listen, O Brahmin

the travail of our slavery began
the moment you stepped on this earth
and it’ll end
when you are wiped clean from its surface .
listen, Brahmin,
our perspiration smells foul in your nostrils
do what I say
send your wife with mine to clean latrines,
and you, you come with me
we’ll together treat leather,
send your son with mine.
But if you don’t like what I say
then listen, you Vashistha,
and you too, Dronacharya
we hate you
and spit at your past, your injunctions
do not forget that our hard-working shoulders
are no longer willing to carry your load.
Look! look beyond the walls of your fortress
the ice is melting
young calves are frolicking
and bullocks are munching sulight
and Eklavya is heating in fire
his old, rusty arrows.
Translated: RK Shukla

-2-
I’m angry

Once
mother cleaned latrines
father slaved unpaid
and I collected the left-over food and ate it.
What has changed since then is this:
my wife has gone to clean latrines
son has gone to school
and me! writing poems.
I had realized when only a child
that education cannot change caste
that the belly and the tail are inseparably close
that the belly needs bread
and bread demands the wagging of tail ,
therefore when I see my son
stretching tight his tail and grunting furiously
I become angry but frightened as well
because grunting denotes rebellion
and rebellion is no mistress of the money-lender
who may be trifled with, and
called by any name, any colour
nor a crumb of bread to be gulped at will.
Today ,after fifty years of freedom
we remain slaves, born slaves
slogging and bartering our labour without any return
slightest slackness inviting slaps and kicks
on buttocks with thorny sticks
or starvation till death
on my own buttocks I carry numberless scars
which I do not wish to see to see on my son’s
and that’s why
I become angry and frightened.
dying, father had told me
son, honour, justice and basic rights
are all human’s ornaments but not of slaves’
believe my words
give up the dream of becoming human
for your offspring and keep your lips sealed
ever since I have remained dumb
dumb like a smouldering statue
but when I see my son whining
on being hit on an unsuspecting limb
my dried up wounds revive
my old blood becomes a boiling cauldron
and my mind like a bull gone crazy
wildly risen to throw away the yoke.

Translation by RK SHUKLA

Soorajpal Chauhan
-1-
Invitation

You
proclaim with pride
that in the village resides
the spirit of Bharata,
that if there’s any paradise
that’s in the village,
but me
and my paradise!
come
for a few days only
to that paradise in the bhangi quarters.
Believe me ,Sir,
your dreams would come crashing down
your nostrils would burst with stench
flooding you with nausea
when you see filth floating all around
pigs grunting, their snouts dripping with night soil
dogs wallowing in stinking drains
point to a new paradise
come just once
to the bhangi quarters of my village ,
I invite you.
Translation: RK Shukla
-2-
You were pleased
When I wrote a poem
on the realities of my village
you were outraged ;
then I wrote a poem on my mother
you turned your eyes with disgust
I noticed lurking in your eyes a wish
I wrote a poem to tell you the difference between
Gandhi’s Harijan and Ambedker’s Dalit
your anger broke all bounds
your eyes spouted fire.
I wrote a poem to please your wish
in line with you taste
you were mighty pleased
and called me a modern-day sage .
The contrast is between past and present
that was why you were pleased
probably.
Translation: RK Shukla

-3-
When that dawn?
When shall that dawn
descend on my locality?
when shall we hear
birds chirping ,warbling their morning songs ?
when shall father go,
with the plough on his shoulder to till the fields ,
his own fields ?
when shall that dawn break out
when we stop saluting
the murders and calling
others’ fathers as our own ?
I ask my mother, naughtily
when will I ask for
cows’, buffalo’s milk ?
when will that dawn visit us
the groom would come mounted on a horse
to wed my sister or my daughter
and then
go round the village streets?
When?
Could anyone say?
Translation: RK Shukla

4
My Mother
My mother
sweeping the road clean
before day -break
was in fact scratching with her nails
the face of the iron system.
My mother
crossing the road
balancing on her head
a bucket brimming with stinking filth
was in truth carrying on her head
the rotting decomposing corpse of the system.

Translation: RK Shukla

Dayanand Batohi
Hear These Poems, Dronacharya

Hear, Drona, hear
when winds blow and pass me whispering
I, Eklavya feel the pain
that becomes suddenly fresh.
I do not remember any warm words of yours
but O, my guru, my memory revives and I fondly recall
how deeply had I lodged you in my heart
you know, my guru, the high esteem I had for you
but, I must tell the world now
you asked me to gift my right thumb to you.
I do not grieve over it
But to tell you the truth
Whenever now I see an archer
my arms, my hands become charged.
I’m not untouchable
No, I’m not
cannot be, I know it .
My guru, you had told me
‘no body is born untouchable
untouchables are made
by us, blind self-seekers.
I know you are not untouchable’
But your hollow words smack of your designs .
Every drop of my blood
is bathed in guru-shakti
I never said so but felt blessed by it
you hurt and wounded me
I sought blessings not curses from you
O my guru,
your values have now become obsolete .
I’ve warned
no more Eklavyas, no, no more
we’ve chosen Ambedkar as our guide, our guru
study like him ,frame laws like him
not as Manu did.
Earth shivers
So does the entire human history,
which has the power to cheat.
True it is
personal ambition brought me in your tutelage
and was never in a mood of total submission
always in war against my own self-division
and now you too do the same
the whole system is equally conflict-ridden .
Hear all of you, admirers of Drona’s conduct ,
prepare no more traps
leave it all
leave us to get used to the dark caves
go, let our pain renew itself
let Drona come
I was Eklavya once
and so am I to this day
now I know why
you demand the gift of thumb
‘Practical’ follows the theory of ‘fail’
Drona, this is the crookedness of your ethics.
Ethics may be well or bad
I have nothing to say
Only Drona should follow our path
no longer there be any more Eklavyas
love your guru if you must
now none will demand the thumb
I’m failed in practical
deserving top but placed at bottom
caste smells in the tail of name
creates discord between mind and soul
traditions sound hollow
I no longer believe in them
Allow new paths to those
who want them
Drona, do not hide yourself
I am the same Eklavya
even now as devoted as ever.
Translation:RK

Sudesh Tanwar
1
The Puzzlement

I am puzzled
why no woman ever
raised a finger at Tulsi
who declared:
‘drums, rustics, shudras, women
are meant to be beaten’.
I am puzzled
why no woman ever
burnt Manusmriti
that chained them
in endless slavery
I am puzzled
why no woman ever cursed
that Rama
who refused to accept the pregnant ‘mother’
even after her ordeal of fire
and sent her in exile
I am puzzled
why no woman ever
heaped disgrace
on Krishna
who, though called ‘Yogeshwar’,
felt no shame in filching
the bathing young girls’ clothes;
who openly indulged in erotic games
I am puzzled
why no woman ever
castrated that Indra
who violated
his own preceptor’s wife
I am puzzled
why no woman ever
condemned those who
proclaimed women only
to be ‘objects’
used as pawns
in a game of dice,
to be disrobed
before a whole legion of impotent warriors
I am puzzled that
to think that to date
no woman ever raised her voice
against the abduction of
Ambalika – Sanyogita
in broad daylight
and I am puzzled that even
after all this
women shower their piety on them
deify them as gods, bhagwans .
shame overpowers me when I
observe their acquiescence
should I praise their tolerance
o call it the peak of psychic enslavement?
Translation;RK Shukla
-2-
I do not know
Gandhi!
your house is burnt
you taught them love
but your words were hollow
or your acolytes were a bunch of blackguards
I cannot say.
Gandhi!
all your life
you wore only a loincloth of purest khadi
then how is it
your house turned saffron ?
I do not know.
Gandhi!
when old
you walked with a supporting lathi
how come that tridents got into your house?
I fail to figure out.
Gandhi!
all your life
you kept a bald pate
how come then that long tufts of hair
grew in your house ?
I cannot say.
Gandhi!
you called mandir and masjid
abodes of Ishwar and Allah
how come that masjid was consigned to flames ?
I do not know.
Translation:RK Shukla

Sooraj Badtiya
-1-
History – I
History is never dumb
It may become a bonded slave sometimes
or, possibly turn out simply to be the annals of slavery
rendered speechless and abandoned,
may lie in a corner
and ceaselessly sob and wail,
and your tongue, your story
may become
history’s tongue, history’s story
but
this is not always so
history cannot for ever
remain your handmaid or mistress .
It has the tongue of a Socrates, a Jesus
a Luther
and will sing
songs of liberation of the Blacks
and sometimes may issue forth
from Marx’s pen
as the blood of the downtrodden ,
may seep into the words of weaver Kabir
or gently waft in the bhajans of Raidas
but historians of your ilk
turn history into a zero
and sing the songs of death
roaring Hitlerian laughter
setting out to bury deep
the races of mankind.
you plan to make history
your mistress
and exalt Shankaracharya and Tulsi
as figures of history
you bring in the savarna crowd
of Rammohan, Gandhi and Dayanand
to belittle Kabir, Raidas, Phule
and call it the dawn of a new age.
Translation:RK Shukla

-2-
History – II

You
persistently peel off history
because for ‘you’
it is nothing more than a savarana brothel
where you bear bastard progeny
and your shameless smritis
you have enthroned Bapu
so as to belittle Baba
as the redeemer of dalits
but now
history has broken its silence
refusing to be debauched and defiled
now it speaks
writes its own account
and when it does so
then Joothan, Tiraskrit
Akkarmashi, Uchakka
and Apane, apane Pinjare
script a parallel history.
Translation:RK Shukla

-3-
History – III
Today history
looks restless, perplexed
terribly wounded and bleeding
its forehead wrinkled and lined
its hair dishevelled and dry
its clothes tattered and torn to shreds
and
all its ideas, values
terminally thrown in the sacrificial fire.
It’s lonely as of now but
wants to speak, say a thing or two
it has recovered its tongue, its speech
and is determined to seek justice
in the past
in the present
in future
and keen to enlist loyal and true wayfarers.

Translation;RK Shukla

-4-
Freedom
Hear friends,
the fragrance of freedom
now runs in our veins
it has pulled down Bapu,
his songs of ‘Harijan uplift’
and enthroned Baba Saheb’s ‘dalit emancipation’
the fragrance of freedom released in ‘47
was locked in the harems of the imbecile children
of caste- proud merchants before it could float in the air
and made infertile.
That fragrance now wafts across the parapets of the Red Fort.
Now we wish to proclaim
that we have written a new chapter of freedom.
Harmu has said no to the zamindar
and thus has written a new book of labour
Hear, friends,
the reign of Shankaracharya’s offspring
is about to end
the dalit quarters are turning into Buddha vihars
Hori has turned out the priests
from the village temples
Dhaniya runs schools in them
to train new soldiers of the vanguard
labour has been defined anew by baba saheb
Budhia has now discovered to her surprise
the dharmviri lesson of illicit sex is only a new version
of the injunctions of Manu and Vedic seers
set in motion by the modern-day Manu
and that’s why
the broom in Shanti’s hands has become a gun,
that has changed the cosmetic socialism
into dynamite
and there in the harem
impotent children of saffron legislators
are writing a new grammar of assault .
Do not fear, friends
it’s the time when history changes sides
time of the last groans of
the dying flames of sacrificial fires.
the vanguard soldiers of dalit youth
are chanting the song of freedom
hear this song, learn it by heart
this is our freedom’s anthem
a new lesson of our hard, protracted struggle
Hori,Dhania,Harmu,Shanti have refused to hold in their hands
the three-coloured cloth
wrapped in a brittle lathi
but the violet colour of our skies
the song of our dawn
which has reached their hands
the colour is new and so are nouns and verbs
come, friends
this is the crop of our own hard work
which our ancestors had sown
and the time has come for us
to harvest it.
Translation:RK Shukla

Umrao Singh Jatav
-1-
Message of Revolt
Storms are mindless monsters
used since your grandmother’s time
to frighten you
you have been floated on paper-boats
you have been cheated by this conspiracy
and turned into a mere sheet of paper
placed on the heap of emotions
mined by scriptures
crushed like ants under its weight
you wail being crushed

you forget your tattered body and battered mind
you carry on your shoulders
gods, goddesses, god-men and seers,
victims of their evil designs
you curse your fate and karma
you sob, you cry, you groan
come,
clear this rubbish heap from the chambers of your lives
because
you are chips and pieces
dispersed by a huge dust storm
defeated in mythical wars
searching for identity, unity
power you have and you have had patience
do not wait for a prophet to remind you;
the age of prophets is long past
and the dust storms you’ve run away from
have had these prophets at their helms.
Remember
storms know only storms
abide by them, yield to them
therefore come together you chips and pieces
and combine and a tornado
because
only tornados can push aside storms
to find their way.
Translation:RK Shukla

-2-
On the Wings of Protest
Standing on the other side of truth
readying the bow of arrogance
you’ll never understand
that under the weight of poverty and disgrace
in the shadow of weapons and sacred texts
how difficult it is to live like human beings
with heads upraised
because while you
climb the ladder of doles
proudly scaling the skies
and experiencing in your veins the thrill of enterprise
just below you we lurch upwards without a ladder
we work hard to keep you there
and allow ourselves to be crushed
you hurl at us
the false arrows of your hollow scriptures
and pierce us through with real arrows
wallowing in your caste-power
you burn our huts and brag about it
you violate our daughters and sisters
tear their dignity to threads
when you do all this
I find myself
trapped in your senseless scriptures
and cursed to total extinction
when at the break of day
still lost in your colourful nocturnal dreams
you open your eyes
and look at the mahawar-painted ankles of your beloved
and inhaling her beauty
rise from your bed drowsily
then in the light of the rising sun
I see that dried stale bread
I couldn’t deliver to my children
I look at the cracked ankles of my beloved
slogging in the scorching sun
insults and abuses her only wages
I softly run my fingers on her ankles
but in vain, without any relief to her
And you!
your body stinks with your own stench
rots and emits foul smell
but proclaims its clean character
after numerous misdeeds
and at my mere touch
becomes unclean
sending you to the Ganges
to make yourself clean in its waters
where buffalos too bathe
pigs wallow, half-burnt bodies float.
I am amazed that those versed in the social sciences
count you among human beings but
your shastras instructing you so
you proudly proclaim your clean ancestry
sole arbiters of grace and dignity.
And your womenfolk !
they whom your legends call
divine embodiments o warmth and self-sacrifice
immortalised as wet nurse Panna
who lull your kids to sleep singing lullabies
who are filled with joy by their smiles
I feel like asking them;
o mothers, o sisters, o daughters
when my children whine in hunger and cannot sleep
clutch their stomachs and writhe in pain
and during long freezing winter nights
their mother bends over them
to bring smile on their dry parched lips
then, o you incarnations of warmth and love
you, the image of Panna
can you fathom our young ones’ misery?
I know you don’t because you can’t.
I also ask those who feel miserable to see
dogs,monkeys,donkeys chased, beaten
and launch societies and clubs for their well-being
go about preaching compassion to dumb animals
and those who, careful not to hurt ants and insects
step out only when roads and streets are swept clean
and those who grieve and suffer when animals are ill
whether they ever
think of those children of humans
who only dream of belly-full meals
and whether there hearts melt and compassion arouse
when a child writhes in pain of hunger or fever
without any hope of medicines or doctors
waiting only to die
or if he survives then only to live among those who
dedicated to animal welfare
forget that there also live
hungry, homeless and unclothed
broken by penury, disease or filth .
One question haunts me night and day:
if there is that One as they say,
did he make human beings
only to look after animals?
In the forest animal eats no animals
this is the unchanging law of nature
which none can violate
but this two-footed animal called man
drinks the blood of another man
but never tires of calling him his kin
brags about his callous heartless culture
calls it most abiding and timeless
subsists on dalits’ blood
what a shame he calls himself man!
Translation:RK Shukla

Jai Prakash Leelawani

Why don’t you answer?
Our questions
on Varna and dharma
are always offensive
to this suffocating politics.
It’s justice is shorter than our predicament
as are the paper-boats that lie
rotting on the shores of the Arabian sea
In the tornado of oppression
Even huge trees shake and shiver
but we are humans
we have fought for life
in the hot waters of the Vedantins
we are convinced
that songs that dare against denials and deprivation
sow seeds of revolution
and revolutions are born
to change the face of winds
so that nobody decides that
the campaign for life only means
denying education to those
locked in the dark chambers of castes.
The hanging torsos of these ‘nobodys’
are enough for our war
and what an injustice is it
that the writings that proclaim our desires,
once drowned in the river of noisy ads,
are now dubbed uncreative, sterile
fit only as embellishments to their orations on democracy.
you ate ghee-smeared bread
and we grew
crunching between our teeth
sand-mixed left-over rice.
dalits have finally realized
that their gods are heroes
who preach unity and brotherhood
are nothing
but upraised moustaches
coated with wax.
O, you hypocrites
you allowed nothing we could call ours
except sobs and tears ,
blocked our experiences’ entry
in the huge vacuities of your aesthetic realm.
on the pages of our aged ghettos
all your writers only inscribed
sugar-coated names of blood-thirsty gods .
Translation:RK Shukla

Moolchand Sonkar
-1-
Cunningness of words
defeat hurts
but more hurting is to record it in verse
defeat is writ large in my book of life
and I wish to tear off those dark pages
that stare me in the face
cruelly reminding
victory is not for me
reading those pages
probing the reasons for defeats
reliving those moments again
moving from pain to pain
I’m thrown in blankness
day-dreams vanish
knowledge dawns on me
I’ve had no power over my destiny
no power to break through
the iron shackles of my soul-crushing dungeons
defeat reappears, repeats itself
events happen, leaving more defeats in their trails
history cheats, couching pain in colourful words
sets aside moments of joy and glory
manages to twist my pain
distorts it, manipulates it
to its convenience and purpose
cuts me to pieces
leaving me to groan in anguish
watch the cunningness of words
and wail ov’r the crookedness of language.
Translation: RK Shukla

-2-
......
Melodious words do not enchant me
nor the lilting march of sweet soft lyrics
I want my poems to roar and assault
I do not crave for softly gliding songs
but words sharp-edged as rapiers
not the smooth gliding lines
but rough-hewn hard-hitting prose.
A life drained of all softness
all soothing emotions and delicate fancies
dried and parched
heartless realities enveloping it
calls for a new language
a language smouldering
licking with its flames
the dormant supine humanity
and thereby arousing
feelings of warmth and love
that have been banished
and charging them to rise and return
Translation: RK Shukla

Jawaharlal Kaul ‘Vyagra’
-1-
Who Are You?
Moving or resting
sitting or standing
sleeping or waking
I’m haunted by a terrible question

‘who are you?’
my interlocutor looks at me with ill-concealed swagger
I make out his intention
and shy away from replying
I decide to hide from him my identity
my insecurity sinks deep in me
my mind clears the haze
I blurt out my name my home
but he looks unconvinced
‘I mean your caste
come out clean
off such riddles’
he thunders
my mind once again goes over my details
my family, home, occupation, creed, colour, shape
but I do not answer
only breathe deeply
he eyes me sharply
watching me in utter dismay
‘you cheat, you playing hide and seek with me’
should I say brahmin but how
I haven’t fathomed the secret of Brahman
my head empty of knowledge!
and Kshatriya!
but how can I be a Kshatriya
with dried up, skinny arms and hands?
As for Vaishya, that not too
with no farm-land, no business
I’m not even shudra
my services wasted, unused
my feet numb, shaking
unable to fit myself in any category
I blurt out ‘I am human’.
‘You, an ass, everybody is human
is it an answer?’
he roared at me
I felt he was right
I am an ass, not human
I said humbly
‘Yes, sir, I am an ass’.
he roared again
‘You conceal, you are a cheat
trying to hoodwink me
hoodwinking your caste, your community’
my inquisitor left and went away
leaving me to figure out
Yes, who am I really
what was I giving out, what holding back?
Translation: RK Shukla

-2-
The Petition
Lying on the judges’ table
the petition prayed for relief
the petitioner had raised a crucial question
and come knocking the doors of justice
praying he is called a shudra, a bhangi
and can no longer bear
the ignominy heaped upon him by society
because the system that designates him so
does not claim him as its own
clever was the theory of chaturvarnas
the brahmin studied and taught
security was the Kshatriya’s duty
business to the Vaishyas and service to the shudras
Varnas changed with vocations
birth replaced vocation
offspring inherited varnas by birth
vocation fell apart.
‘ I am a shudra thus in the altered system
deprived of my original privilege
I studied, obtained degrees and diplomas
am a teacher now
I am a brahmin among the chaturvarnas
even so I am called shudra or bhangi or ...
it hurts me, my mind my psyche are deeply scarred
society’s insults, ignominies and denials
and much more, much more
I bear every moment, every day
dejected, disconsolate, unprotected
wishing to run away from this
vicious circle of caste or varna system
but I cannot run away, cursed to stay put
as the lowest in this Hindu system
which proclaims the learned as brahmins
how is it I am called a shudra
I’m not a shudra but a human being, Indian
learned and brahmin
in keeping with the old division
may the court deliberate and decide
and order my release
from this hypocritical lie of castes
and make mandatory for society
that nobody call me a shudra
that I be declared casteless
order my release from this rotten system
I’ll live without it
and seal within me for ever
the indignities and cruelties of this system.’
The judge was serious,
thought long on the petition
found the points cogently put and fair
arranged each aspect of the case in his mind
the defendant society, government
sought the court’s permission for more time
to reply .
Outside the court
a song was being sung
‘change, change this system’
the court adjourned for the day
voices supporting the petition
subsided.
Translation: RK Shukla

-3-
Two Skulls
drenched in mud and water
and fiercely arguing between themselves
there lay in the river two skulls
motionless they seemed
but advancing to each other furiously
‘Oh! shut up, you imbecile’, cried one
‘don’t boast, even now, in this condition
you give out only stench and filth
my caste is superior
and yours low
nothing’s common between you and me
mind your limits
say what you want, don’t fly into temper
better if you don’t speak at all’.
The other one thought, then replied
‘what use silence now?
true, am poor, pitiable
but you, always dull, unthinking
even now, you boast of superiority
and scoff at my lowness
isn’t it a stupid conceit
this high and low
meaningless and hollow and cunning words
better, you just lie silent
when one day rotten, decayed
we become one, lose our separate lives
then sense will dawn on you
you’d be past the desire to be born human
cast into castes high and low, superior and inferiors’
their argument still on, each trying to outwit the other
there came a dog, lifted them in his jaws
and deposited them together
cracked them into pieces
their teeth mingled, their mouths met
the chasm between them disappeared
and with it was gone
their anger, their tension
thus chastised they became one .
Translation: RK Shula

DALIT LEKHAK SANGH INDIA

Monday, May 11, 2009

DALIT LEKHAK SANGH E.C

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dalit poems

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