This movement has no short cuts,
It’s a caravan that sets its own course
as if following a law of nature.
Once, there was a deep chasm in this path
it would leave you stunned, just to imagine
how many sacrifices it took to fill it up;
We, the oppressed,
have the highest kind of love for these sacrifices.
We,
crores of people, know
from every lived moment
How to endure
To cower
To live
To fight
To die, quietly,
To raise our fists and wave them in the air, sometimes,
To cherish life.
All these filled, layer by layer,
the deep foundations of our path -
At some spots, blossoming like a flower
at others, dissolving into lava.
The histories of each word in the texts
recounting these experiences
are as deep as our sighs -
Does this text need any ‘introduction’?
I don’t think so.
But what I don’t understand is
this one thing -
In the name of ‘solidarity’
Will you do just anything you like?
Using the parachute of your social privileges
Will you land and install yourself ahead of this caravan too?
And tell us
How to walk?
How to think?
At a time when our agitating people, across the nation,
are using words as flaming sparks
to challenge the darkness your vile community has spread -
You want to tell us
How these sparks should blaze?
Don’t jump on our heads in the name of solidarity!
Interrogate your own oppressor community first,
put yourself in our shoes, walk with us
in our pain, in our sighs, quietly suffer with us
look at the mirror each time!
After all, solidarity demands certain ethics!
As for Gandhi This movement has surged far ahead of him
Please update yourself!
~ Gurinder Azad
Translated from Hindi by Akshay Pathak and Naren Bedide
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