Everybody wants a piece of them
The land,
The tree,
The tiger,
The bauxite,
The development.
But I wonder,
Why not the shackles?
Why not the screams?
Why not the gunshots?
Why not the misery?
Even the white man came twice for them,
all the way from the farthest West,
First as Lord Irwin,
Then as Sir Purshottamdas Thakurdas,
Then now as his son, Amit Shah.
The Baron, the Broker, the Bureaucrat,
hitherto have all sown the bullets of their greed
and sin into the skin of the Adivasi,
All of which shall be remembered,
but shall not remain.
There shall come a day when Dandakaranya,
with her continued pain and agony,
shall ignite a flame unseen by mankind before,
And that shall be the day!
When even great empires may vanish
themselves into mere nightmares in fear!
O reader, what is it that you desire?
The Jal?
The Jangal?
The Jameen?
Or the mere lifeless words of this poetry?
Then beware,
The wrath!
The rebellion!
Will strike you too, one day!
