Years back we used to collect for our fruits, hunt for our meats, we were together. Then we select you to lead us, to protect us. We have learned to till lands for our crop and you were there to protect our land. Then you had the sword and we had the land.
Ages gone. You and your learned companions made us to forget that you were our servant and so you used to get one sixth of our produce as your service charges. We have started believing that you are sent to rule over us by heaven. You become our lord and your descendents also. Your service charges became our taxes, which sometimes you have taken by force. You started keeping chains with your sword. Then you had sword and we have started to have hunger.
You have defined our place in the society. We the toiler, we the producer have heard that we are at the lowest level of the society. We have started believing that our caste have taken birth from the feet of the god while you have taken birth from his mouth and arms. So our place was defined at the feet of yours. We the Shudras were there to serve you. We had rights to produce for you, rights to serve you, we must not dare to learn, must not dare to access knowledge. Then you had education and we had ignorance.
In between we have rebelled against you and that also in your leadership. Your strict boundaries for us never get loosen. We have tried other religion, those were new, progressive but there also we found you to rule over us, there also we found our place at the bottom. Then we have learned that it is our fate, we really are the cursed race who has taken birth from the feet of the god. When we consider our fate our life become easier, when we consider you as our eternal ruler we were in peace.
We have started to remain happy with our land, our defined cast-life, our produce, our culture, our song, our dance, our worship and our self-governance which function in absolute democracy within our small boundary, within our village. But we the cursed people again loose our last refuge when you have come with money and trade. You made us tenant in our own land. You have snatched our food, our crafts, our forest, our everything. You have even forced us to produce whatever you wish in our land. We starved, suffered, whipped, raped. You gave us court instead of our village government, you gave us access to education, and schools then were not forbidden for us. You were then foreigner; you have tried to give us your religion. We took but we have seen that we are still starving and suffering. Then you had guns, you had money, you had knowledge and we only had our hunger.
We rose for freedom, we hope for a new dawn, we got killed but we have dreamt for independence, which would solve our all problems. We would have food, work, education, our land and justice. At the eve of independence you told us that we are not equal. There are differences amongst us. The temple-goers and the mosque-goers cannot live in the same country. Then you were one of us and we the cursed people believed you, forgot that for thousand years we have stayed side by side, start fighting, get killed and than you divided our land in two separate countries. We again lost everything and become refugees to you. Then you had religion and we had hunger.
We have heard we are now independent. You have come with a new constitution. You told us that now you and we are equal, we could vote and choose our government, we choose you. You and your constitution promised that we would get work, get back our land, get access to justice and our children would get education. But years gone we still remain starved, threatened, poor and uneducated toilers and we finds you still as a parasite there, relishing on our toils. Now you have your constitution and we still have hunger.
Yes, you have thrown to us sometimes some pieces of land, sometimes some health centers, sometimes some cheap schools, sometimes some development schemes. What ever we got we grabbed. You also given back us our village governance but we understood that that governance become a mere appendage of your rule in our village.
But now you have started again looting our land, our home, our temples, our mosques, our bamboo-bush, our river, our village and that also in the name of our interest. We have interest to get work, to get medicines, to get educations, to get justice from you because you are there to serve us and we know that by looting our villages you would not serve any of our interests. We don’t believe you. We reject you and your policy. We know you have your guns but we still have our hunger.
We know that you, your power, your money, your gun will perish but we the mass will exists and so our hunger……
