Painful

-for Professor Ratan Lal

The feelings of powerful people
are so easily hurt, lately–

the police investigate satire
as if wit were a felony.

Reason, humour, history
are now enemies of the state;

solidarity’s called ‘terror’; 
they see love and say ‘hate’.  

But what do they find most painful?
A Dalit who speaks his mind, friends!

(If Ambedkar were alive today,
Tihar Jail is where you’d find him.)