SABKA HARYANA--SABKA HINDUSTAN

The Virus of Communalism: What will be our response?

INDIA 2002: DESPAIR

" Where the mind is filled with fear and the head cowers in terror,
Where knowledge is communalized and commercialized,
Where the world has been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls
of caste, class, religious faith, ethnicity and occupation,
Where words come out from the superficiality of untruth, contrived, misinterpreted,
Where tireless activity stretches its arms towards promoting hate, avarice and fear,
Where the clear stream of reason has lost its way in the dreary desert sands of dead habit
And the stormy winds of communalized frenzy,
Where the mind is closed and stunted by ever widening circles of hate and despair,
Into ever widening chasms of strife and destruction,
Into that hell of bondage why hast thou let my country descend?"

-With Apologies To Rabindranath Tagore
Adapted From Geetanjali)

First they came for the Dalit
And I did not speak out because I was not a Dalit,
Then they came for the Adivasi
And I did not speak out for I was not an Adivasi,
Then they came for the Muslims
And I did not speak out because I was not a Muslim,
Then they came for the Sikhs
And I did not speak out for I was not a Sikh,
Then they came for the Christians
And I did not speak out because I was not a Christian,
Then the they came for the Secular Hindu
And I did not speak out for I was not a secular Hindu,
Then the came for the Social Activist who worked for the Poor or Marginalized,
And I did not speak out because I was not poor or marginalized.

Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for any one,
No Dalit, no Adivasi, No Muslim, No Sikh, No Christian, No Secular Hindu,
No Social Activist
No poor or marginalized. No me....

R.S.Dahiya