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Tag: #NoCAANoNRC

Love Jihad

-On the first anniversary of the CAA

Yesterday evening,
as we walked through Kotla Gaon,
the clamour of a ragged wedding band
mingled with the call to prayer,
and for a moment, I swear,
two bright sparks lit up the smoky sky,
and I thought of how worried I’d been
that day last December
when you texted from a police bus
on the outskirts of the city,
and how I bit down on my tongue
when you said that when they freed you, 
you would go right back again.
But when we met at Jantar Mantar,
I knew you had been right;

love is always a struggle—
we struggle because we love.
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How to Be a Home Minister

-after Jeet Thayil

First, remember, your job
has little to do with homes,
and much to do with security.
You’ll have to choose:
security for whom?

If you choose security
for the powerful and rich,
expect to remain powerful and rich;
throw a party, invite the people
who matter. Understand,
you draw strength from sycophants,
snitches and men who wield
lathis and guns; hold them close.
Study the snake, the guard dog,
the jackal.

If you choose security
for the common people,
you’ll have to move fast—
your time here may be short.
Set your affairs in order,
tell your children you love them,
open libraries and hospitals—
hold festivals in parks. Dance,
sing, have a drink and pray.
Study crows, elephants,
and all creatures that gather
in flocks or herds. Do not fear:
we will not forget you.

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Republic Day Bad Translation Blues

Friends, these are confusing times and everywhere
I go I hear people using words in confusing ways—
it’s like we’re living in some kind of twisted fever dream
or a second rate postmodern language poem. In Kashmir,
torture has long been known as ‘interrogation’,
but now martial law is called ‘development’,
and if you chant or write azaadi in bold letters,
in many states, it’ll be translated as ‘sedition’.
Almost everyone refers to police lynchings
as ‘encounters’ or ‘rough justice’, but at JNU,
the police and their masters now say ‘accused’
when referring to victims of a crime,
and at Jamia they seem to understand library
to mean a ‘place to lob tear gas’,
not a place to read and discuss books—
and speaking of reading, if you’re a Dalit leader,
the police now says reading aloud the constitution
on the steps of a mosque is ‘instigating violence’,
and that, my friends, can land you in Tihar Jail!
(In a related matter, to celebrate the approach
of Republic Day, the Lieutenant Governor
has decreed that if you do land in a Delhi jail,
you can be held without lawyers or charges,
at least until April. But don’t worry; our leaders
have assured us that this is a ‘routine matter’.)

Yes, friends, these are confusing times—
but between us at least,
let’s try to be honest and clear:
when used together,
inquilab and solidarity mean
‘a meeting of power and love’,
and as long as we remember that,
they won’t divide us,
we’ll win.

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December 20: Rising

-for Chandra Shekhar Azad

When they finally write the history
of how we won this fight,

they’ll say the tide turned
at Jama Masjid

when Chandra Shekhar Azad
held up the constitution,

and a photo of Dr. Ambedkar,
before leading the charge that freed

first Daryaganj, then Delhi
from the idea that we could be

so easily cowed and beaten.
That evening we all somehow knew

that somewhere in Lutyens’ Delhi
the Home Minister was pacing

and pounding his fists on a wall—
and though the Chief

later turned himself in,
by then we all understood

that neither police, nor army—
nor the devil himself

can turn back the sea
when it rises.

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Mandi House

-December 19, 2019

Though we had seen what
they’d done to the students,

something changed
that day in Delhi;

the police filled bus after bus
with people like us

who had come simply
to stand for our own rights

and for those of our neighbors.
Dropped on the edge of town,

hundreds returned to be taken again.
It is worse than we thought,

but I am fine now—
many have it much harder,

is what you told the children.
Later you showed me

the boot-sized, black bruises
on both of your legs

and confessed
you had cried while bathing.

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