1857: Search for Material

the battles of 1857 –
once so distant,
are now the battles ever so close

in this age of remorse and crime
when every mistake appears to be self-done
one can still hear
the trumpets of rebellion –
a pure Hindustani cacophony:
the murmuring of brokers and informants
and the restless moves of seat holders
ready to change loyalties –

perhaps this is an imprint of later novels
and popular cinema –

but this surely is not the cacophony
of those 150 crore rupees
that government of India has sanctioned
to celebrate the ‘first war of independence’
penned by a prime minister
who is ashamed of all wars of freedom
and goes apologetic for that, around the globe
who is ready to sacrifice anything
for the national goal of a better servitude

It is the remembrance of that fifty-seven
which was wiped clean by a pan Indian elite
by Bankimchandras and Amichands and Harishchandras
and their descendants, placed comfortably on their seats
they too desired nothing
more than a better servitude

of that fifty-seven
for which
Moolshankars, Shivprasads, Narendranaths,
Ishwarchandras, Syyed Ahmeds, Pratapnarayans,
Maithilisharans and Ramchandras
had nothing but silence and disdain
and of that fifty-seven
which was remembered first in the elite canon of Hindi
by Subhadra
a good seventy-eighty years later

It is the remembrance of a continuum
made alive, 150 years later, by
the suiciding farmers and weavers of this land
whom its difficult even to call rebellions
and who, in a sad, grey, anarchic parade
are marching from the Special Economic Zones
out to collective graves and cemeteries
swallowed on the way by the data
of National Development and National Hunger
Who has made them so lonely?
Dust and dirt was perhaps
common people’s destiny in 1857 –
accepted by all
but now
it’s to be a terrible crime

Battles are often left unfinished
to be fought later –
in some other times
by some other means
And sometimes,
challenging the living –
who are perhaps more dead –
the dirty-dusty dead
themselves rise to resume the battle
They inquire about their platoons, battalions and commanders
or mistaking them as sympathizers
start telling that now they head to Nazafgarh
or ask which way leads to Bakhtavarpur?

The dead of 1857 say
forget our feudal leaders
forget the lost estates for which they were fighting –
if this is what we died for.

Speak of your own

is there no injustice in your times
or is it just that you don’t know what to do about that?

(Translation: Giriraj Kiradoo)