Saswat Blog

My father calls this, not the Independence day, but the Victory Day.

For, on August 14-15, 1947, peoples of the brave revolutionary land of India finally won the long war against British Imperialism. The war, spanning more than 200 years was fought with occasional non-violent demonstrations of millions of people, and more importantly, was fought with organized revolutionary peasants and workers movements which finally forced the Empire to concede defeat. It was perhaps the largest victory of the landless peoples over the landlords and invaders in the history of world. In doing so, peoples from the Indian subcontinent regions demonstrated that they would not concede a wee bit either to accommodate the foreign imperialists nor allow any rule by the homegrown royal families. The “purna swaraj” declaration by the radical left freedom fighters, although facing strong opposition from religious chauvinists who were in cohort with British colonialists, finally forced the expulsion of the rulers and silenced the communal politicians.

However, religions as addictively dangerous they are by nature, spread the poison of hatred incited by the British in their centuries old misrules. The ‘divide-and-rule’ tactics of old guard imperialists continued to show colors in the divided land of India. Not only were they successful in dividing the country into India and Pakistan, two regions who shared the same history of struggles, they also left behind a legacy that continued to help their former informers—the right wing Hindu fanatics who were backed by the British authorities to disrupt the harmonious ways of living, that were characteristic of the people of the land.

Today, sixty years hence, we still feel the uprising of the right wing colonial assistors. These are the same religious elements who stop at nothing in order to create environment of suspicion and foster an insecure climate for the religious and atheistic minorities. These are still hands-in-gloves with the oppressor classes worldwide who comfortably rule in various names, but propagate hatred, war, and feelings of hostilities which help them in targeting countries that practice different religions. In the name of religion alone, they have fought all the wars of the world so far. And they believe they will continue to kill people without even facing opposition, since they have already created the notions of God, cultures of religion, and politics of intolerance.

Today they are targeting Lebanon. Yesterday they targeted Mumbai. Day before that, they targeted working people of London. All in the name of a philosophy they created to sustain their ruling class status. The philosophy is called Religion.

Sixty years have passed since the day became sacred to Pakistan and India, for their peoples’ revolutionary overthrow of the imperialists. Yet it seems the enemy grows stronger. The religious fanatics in the name of their various Gods have been ruining the peace we deserve to have in this planet.

So I thought it will be worthwhile to reflect and tell to each of us and to each of our children, that enough has been lost. Now is the time for social justice. Now is the time to regain our lost causes. Not another life in the name of religion. Not another child to be declared religious. Not another war in name of religions, nationalities and moral standards. No more Christians and Sikhs. No more Muslims and Hindus. Just human beings who respect the roots of our shared history as peaceful, cooperative peoples. Just radical human beings.

I have translated Sahir Ludhianvi’s poem “Tu Hindu Banega Na Mussalman Banega” for this occasion. The poem was addressed to a child who did not know of his parents. Naturally enough, the child had no surname yet, no religion yet and no nationality yet! And such a joy was this child to the poet!

Full of hope and twinkles of determination. Sahir was not just the voice of the landless and oppressed, orphans and women, he was also the voice of the future, of a future that belongs to all of us, without private properties, mindless competition, needless nationalities and fanatic religions. Here it is:

Happy Victory Day!

Shudder them with deaths, a revolutionary you will be
A gift of this new era, a radical human being you will be

(Trans. By Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet)

The original poem by Sahir:
(more…)

As Lebanon bleeds, it kills.

It kills our conscience every single day,
as we carry on with our mundane plans
to further petty bourgeois career paths as usual.

Lebanon kills our ability to reason with truth,
as we carry on with our
CNN
and BBC
and New York Times.
Lebanon kills our faith in human good,
as we rationalize
that it is human nature to sustain warfare.
Lebanon kills our trusts in our own potential to rise up,
look into our comfortable shining mirrors on the walls,
and discover how unabashedly wretched we must look
if we smile to ourselves today.

Lebanon kills all that is beautiful,
all that is innocent,
all that is glorious,
all that is humane,
all that is kind,
all that is generous,
all that we mean by understanding for social good.

Yes, Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.

Lebanon kills our sense of empathy
when children of Beirut
are massacred in name of
democracy.
Lebanon kills our feelings of cooperation
when we indifferently watch
hapless humans murdered in name of
freedom.
Lebanon kills our pride in our identities
as we stoically listen to
blatant propaganda against Islam.
Lebanon kills our amicability
the moment we buy into
media definition of terrorism.
Lebanon kills our cognition
when we start believing
that there ever was a
kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.
That such kidnapping
has anything to do with the war
against humanity.

Yes, Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.

When we overlook Israel
as one of the biggest militarist regions
of the planet,
Lebanon kills.
Lebanon kills our intelligence
when we start assuming
a national defense establishment
is protector of anything human,
be it the armed forces of India,
America,
Pakistan
or Israel.
Lebanon kills our sense of proportion
when we mistake the grieving
agonized
and affected
peoples as the terrorists.
Lebanon kills our basic values of decency
when we have anger
at the defenseless
and support
for Abu Gharibs.
Because we think
the Iraqi prisoners
were terrorists
and invading military rapists
are victors,
Lebanon kills.

Lebanon kills our children
and their children
and theirs,
because we have taught them the history
invented by
Rupert Murdorch,
not history
relived by
Howard Zinn.
Lebanon kills our fathers,
and their fathers
and theirs,
because they did not teach us
not to discriminate people
or disown gods,
and Lebanon kills us,
because we have still not learnt enough.

Yes Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.

When the so-called world leaders call
their lavishly delicious meetings
and use profanities
to address the suffering people,
Lebanon kills.
When the leaders perpetrate military race
by aiding Israel’s quests,
Lebanon kills.
Lebanon kills our memory
when we conveniently forget
that Israel is the only country in the world
that practices Apartheid even today.
When its lost on us that Israel has not one,
or two,
but 11 different classes of people
who are required to carry identifications
with their ethnic categories
so that they can be officially discriminated,
Lebanon kills.

When its lost on us that Israel as a state
works to benefit its “first class citizens”,
whereas the rest are
condemned in different degrees,
most even not allowed
to own residence in
nine-tenth of the country,
Lebanon kills our knowledge
of contemporary racist history.

Lebanon kills our curiosity to know and grow,
when we conveniently ignore the fact
that Israeli citizens of the
lower classes are routinely arrested,
and tortured
without trial for indefinite periods,
by Israeli ruling class
just as the fascists ever did.
Lebanon kills our power to look beyond
when we do not think twice
even as Palestinians have been living under unethical
inhuman
military occupation since almost 60 years now,
without land,
without rights,
without hopes,
and any sense of belonging
in a land that rightfully belongs to them
and wrongfully occupied now.
That we do not pause
to think 60 years is a human lifespan,
Lebanon kills.

Yes Lebanon kills, when it bleeds.

We, the torchbearers of freedom
and trumpets of liberty
and voters of democracy
are fittingly comfortable
within our definition of these words
whereas using these words
we mandate our leaders
to go ravage millions of innocent women
and children
just because they do not want
our shallow words in their dictionary,
and that is why Lebanon kills.
We the killers of Edward Said
and annihilators of Mesopotamia civilization
are so proud of our conquering heritage
while leaving behind no history for “terrorist children”,
that Lebanon kills.
We visitors to mocking war memorials
and lying history museums
and readers of western civilizations
that validated slavery in name of gods
are so muted by our ignorance
that Lebanon kills.
We fanatic supporters of colonial
and imperial powers of Europe
that forced the Jews
and compelled the Arabs
and enslaved the blacks
and looted the working men and women
of the entire world,
are so happy to be psychologically numb,
and its so sad
that Lebanon kills.

Lebanon kills those that refuse to acknowledge
that revolution is the prerogative of the landless
against the landgrabbers,
just as
reactionary military occupation
is the prerogative of
the religious-military-industrial nexus.
And to those of us
who side by the authorized militarists
and take them for agents of freedom,
Lebanon kills.
Lebanon kills us
when we start believing in nationalities
as ends to human aspirations,
not as temporary means
to solve the question of bread,
so temporary
that after bread,
land
and peace,
we should know no nations
in order to embrace the worldwide working class.
And worldwide working class
should know
no national boundaries
and ethnicities
and religions,
because these are tools of the oppressors,
if it must come together,
and many of us refuse to believe this,
and hence Lebanon kills.

Lebanon kills us
when we blindly lend our support
to the orchastrators of global terrorism
in order to divide and rule our world,
and install their undivided Empire
those who for six decades
now in the name of war
against Communism
and “terror”,
had been working
to in fact cause wars
against working class humanity
in Korea,
in Vietnam,
in China,
in Italy,
in Greece,
in the Philippines.
Also
in Albania,
in Eastern Europe,
in Iran,
in Guatemala,
in Costa Rica,
in Syria,
in the Middle East,
in Indonesia,
in British Guiana,
in Soviet Union,
in Cambodia,
in Laos,
in Haiti,
in Algeria,
in Ecuador,
in The Congo,
in Brazil,
in Peru,
in Dominican Republic,
in Cuba,
when the militarist combines assaulted societies
and bombarded destabilization
in name of promoting “democracy”,
and yet we applaud their victories,
Lebanon kills.

Despite their illegal interventions
also
in Ghana,
in Uruguay,
in Chile,
in Bolivia,
in Iraq,
in Australia,
in Angola,
in Zaire,
in Jamaica,
in Seychelles,
in Grenada,
in Morocco,
in Suriname,
in Libya,
in Nicaragua,
in Panama,
in Bulgaria,
in Afghanistan,
in El Salvador
and now
against the American working class,
we keep silent
and worship their billionaires
and deride the working class communities
of immigrants
and the blacks
and the Muslims,
it really sucks;
and Lebanon kills.

Lebanon kills when it bleeds,
because through our callous indifference,
and our reactionary supports
to the national defense forces
that thrives on the military industrial complexes
owned by a handful of global capitalists,
we have allowed the free rein
to exploit the indigenous,
the poor,
the working class people
by infusing in us
vast sea of ignorance
so that we would not challenge
the structure.
In fact
Lebanon kills
our mere existence
as beings
as we so submissively let our minds
be colonized yet again,
by raising toast to their victory,
by worshipping their gods,
by using their profanities,
by playing by their rules,
by spreading their hatred
among ourselves
in the name of their religions,
their moral standards
and their male supremacist,
heterosexist,
individualistic,
self centered,
nationalistic,
oppressive,
religious,
capitalistic,
god-fearing,
inhumane
corporate orders.

Lebanon kills
because we live comfortably
in our racist,
anti-Islam
world of lies,
and we let our world leaders
orchestrate occasions,
deliberately neglect law and order,
and find reasons
to commit genocide
of innocent people
in months of
September
and July
and rest of the year,
in London,
New York
and Mumbai
and rest of the cities,
so that
they can carry on their own agendas
to conquer country after country,
oil fields after oil fields,
economies after economies,
peoples cooperatives after peoples cooperatives,
tribal lands after tribal lands,
indigenous peoples after indigenous people,
forests after forests,
and in fact declare our world as theirs,
as a capitalistic,
patriarchal,
conservative structure.
And hence Lebanon kills,
so that
when we are no more,
our children will at least
have got rid of us all
and a ravaged Lebanon
will guide a new world,
full of hope
because all despairs are getting rid of now,
each moment.

Lebanon must kill,
even as she bleeds.

-Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2006

As Nepal is declared normal, I find something is clearly missing…and I thought….

People of Nepal have finally “gained victory”
Although why the Crown relented appears a mystery
After weeks of active resistance; in face of military excesses
Took 14 deaths for the King to grant freedom to his subjects

For the comrades: before the battle is won, the war has been lost!
Powers have hijacked the purpose of resistance at every single cost!
For I believe, freedom is ours to possess; not for the Royals to offer
Even as they recreate their myths, and even as we continue to suffer…!

Sahir Ludhianvi (1922-1980) is the poet who was neither afraid of authority, nor afraid to be outspoken. Neither afraid of going to jail nor to voice against the prison system. Neither afraid of the momentary life, nor of the eternal death. His involvement in the Left politics in the pre-and post-independent India, in organizing the peoples’ theatres, in writing for the peasants, farmers and the factory workers should serve a reminder to the wordsmiths of the present day that there is indeed a tool to choose a side with. But that’s a side between the material and the mystical; between the working class and the owning class; to side with the profit-hungry or the wage-hungry.

To Sahir, just like to Robeson , and to Neruda there was nothing to debate about which side an artist must choose. The question is redundant. The artist cannot afford to establish bonds with the heaven and the promises of spiritualism. The artist must cry with the beloved oppressed peoples all over the world. The choice is clear, as Robeson said: “Every artist, every scientist must decide, now, where he stands. He has no alternative. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of man’s literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of national and racial superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. This struggle invades the former cloistered halls of our universities and all her seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear. The artist elects to fight for freedom or slavery. I have made my choice! I had no alternative!”

In the following attempt to translate a poem by Sahir, I have tried to remind ourselves of our desirable commitments, and a sheer lack of choice. We are not free to make a choice anymore in regards to who we need to lend our support to. As the world is increasingly growing individualistic in the euphoria around capitalistic utopia, we need to recollect our personal experiences in the shared human history of our age, that is stifled with pain, remorse and tears of the majority.


Rajaata pasanda hum, ke tarakqi pasanda hum maim
Isa bahasa ko fizula-o-abasa janata hum maim

Duniya ne tajurbata-o-havadisa ki sakala mem
Jo kucha mujhe diya hai voha lautata raha hum maim
(by Sahir Ludhianvi)

Am I conservative by outlook, or progressive by orientation
A non-issue this is, its redundancy to me is well known

All that I have to return to you, to give back in word
Is what I have gained from my experiences in this world..
(Trans. by Saswat Pattanayak)

Just thought of penning down some afterthoughts. My tribute to Tookie….

They finally killed Tookie.
After all, he needed to die.
To perpetuate the system
To uphold the mayhem
To continue the mental slavery
Since it’s our collective mockery.

Of course, Tookie had to be killed
He posed to empower the reviled
How long more would they let him write
How much more they could let him fight
Sinners don’t preach, its privilege of the saint
Tookie’s pen had to justify every word he meant

We live in days of certainty, of high conformance
Of how to demarcate thin lines of adherence
Fast answers to many a riddles of our times
Between social constructs, judgments worth a few dimes
Of course Tookie was absolutely the criminal
Agitating children against gangs can be fatally banal

Tookie did not watch Fox TV to be enlightened
Or learnt of Law and Order from episodes televised
He spoke of ways he was turned towards the evil strait
During the times they would not let the blacks integrate
The system then produced petty thieves and killed their colors
Oh now, the system is itself the criminal, creating unjust wars

Some harmless lies over cocktail parties lead thousands astray
Vulnerable youths today then go kill few Iraqis and join the fray
National gangs are now validated everywhere across countries
Members sans convictions, nor any notions of their sanctities
Military industrial complexes abound with transnational spreads
They make the resistance gangs look like unwoven threads

Tookie said, my children, don’t join the gangs of the privileged
Times have changed for worse, and yet we are now educated
Let’s differentiate, take a stand, and make the most of our talent
Gone are the days when I had to survive, over them you don’t have to lament
I will sing the redemption song, and prove we now got better systems
Which educates street urchins, that rehabilitates the prejudiced dictums

I never made any money off the gangs to escape the charges
Never even made a revolution of sorts to replace the mental agonies
I played into the rich white man’s hands to continue the aberrations
And he could pass all bills to keep me under subjugations
Lack of identity, any education, no sense of my heritage
All I had was a dirty pond to beat the torrents of sabotage

Every move I made to get over, I had the moves monitored
Any time I did a narrating, I never felt quite absolved
Everyone wanted a sensational story, and I was almost stale
Just when I reflected at roots, and I thought I had to go tell
How the system bred me, sustained me, and had me uprooted
Just then they came at me, projected me as the most hated.

Tookie needs to die so that we can continue defocusing
We can have an easier life with the thought of some goons dying
Of course God will continue blessing America no matter what
Through the periods of slavery, colonies or civil rights cast
God has his favored children who get heard with more sympathies
Even as they commit thousands murders at their sadistic victories

But Tookie needed to die so that the system could teach
That nay, howsoever low you are, you ain’t above the preach
Poor, black, homeless, uneducated, misled, without a job
Be destined not to aim like Malcolm, not a lawyer, not a cop
Stick to your guns, your drugs and the poor church congregation
End up in our system, so that we can continue to impose segregation

Gil Scott-Heron’s poem on Peace is a deep resonant voice during times of war. Peace is not just absence of war, but also absence of preparation for war….

Work For Peace—-
Introduction:
Back when Eisenhower was the President
Golf courses was where most of his time was spent.
So I never paid much attention to what the President said
Because in general, I believed the General was politically dead,
But he always seemed to know how muscles were going to be

flexed
He kept mumbling something about a military-industrial complex.

The military and the monetary
The military and the monetary
The military and the monetary

The military and the monetary
Get together whenever they think it’s necessary
They have turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries,
They are turning the planet into a cemetery.

The military and the monetary
Use the media as intermediaries.
They are determined to keep the citizens secondary
They make so many decisions that seem arbitrary.

We’ve been standing behind the ‘Commander-in-Chief’
Who was under a spotlight, shaking like a leaf
Because the ship of state had landed on an economic reef
So we knew he’d be bringing us messages of grief.

The military and the monetary
Were ‘Shielded’ by January and went ‘Storming’ into February.
They brought us pot-bellied Generals as luminaries.
Two weeks before I hadn’t heard of the sons of Bitches
And then all of a sudden they were legendary.

They took the honor from the honorary
They took the dignity from the dignitaries
They took the secrets from the secretary
But they left the ‘bitch’ in ‘obituary’

Yeah, they had some ‘smart bombs’
But they had some dumb ones as well
They scared the hell outta CNN in that Baghdad hotel.

The military and the monetary
The military and the monetary
The military and the monetary

Get together whenever they think it’s necessary
War in the desert sure could seem scary
But they beamed out the war to all of their subsidiaries
Tried making ‘so damn insane’ (Saddam Hussein) a worthy

adversary

Keeping all of the citizens secondary
Scaring old folks into coronaries
Making us all wonder if all of this was really, truly necessary.

We’ve got to work for peace.
We’ve got to work for peace.
If we all believed in peace we could have peace.
The only thing wrong with peace is that
You can’t make no money from it.

The military and the monetary
Get together whenever they think it’s necessary
They’ve turned our brothers and sisters into mercenaries
We are turning parts of the planet into a cemetery.

We hounded the Ayatollah religiously,
Bombed Libya and killed Qadafi’s son hideously.
We turned our back on our allies, the Panamanians
Watched Ollie North selling guns to the Iranians
Witnessed Gorbachev slaughtering Lithuanians
So we better warn the Amish, they may bomb the

Pennsylvanians.

We’ve got to work for peace
Peace ain’t coming this way.
We’ve got to work for peace.

Peace is not (merely) the absence of war
It is the absence of the rumors of war and the threats of war
And the preparation for war.
Peace is not (merely) the absence of war
We will have all touched the power of peace within ourselves.
Because we will have come to peace within ourselves.

Peace ain’t gonna be easy.
Peace ain’t gonna be free.
We’ve got to work for peace.

[Now and Then: The Poems of Gil Scott-Heron, Payback Press/Canongate
Books, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2001, p. 29-31. Recorded on the “Spirits” CD, TVT
Records, 1994.]

I call myself a Peoples Poet. Representing the peoples. Our aspirations and despairs. Which are mine, too. Our anguish and anger. Again shared. Our loves and sorrows. It’s all here in my poems. The words are mine. But the feelings are shared. I owe it to all of us and all those who cant understand this language. Because the feelings are shared, anyway.

I write because I have to write. I give back what the world has given me. I share with you what I have experienced being myself. Because I am our product. Of our world. Hence the words are mine, but the work is ours. It’s a collective product. Use without searching for copyrights. I am not copyrighted. There is no privacy law. No secret code to the feelings. No passwords to hide. No exclusivity in feelings. We are not sailing in different boats.

As I await in an empty Summer at a blank apartment…...

without you
feelings are nothingness
differences are in the sublime change of weather
days and nights are synonymous
life is a plain glass of water
and i quench the tastelessness
without you