White Paper: Sharankumar Limbale

Sharankumar Limbale

White Paper

I do not ask

For the sun and moon from your sky

Your farm,your land,

Your high houses or mansions

I do not ask for gods or rituals,

Castes or sects

Or even  for your mother, sisters, daughters.

I ask for

My rights as a man.

Each breath from my lungs

Sets off a violent trembling

In your texts and traditions

Your hells and heavens

Fearing pollution.

Your arms leapt together

To bring to ruin our dwelling places.

You’ll beat me, break me,

Loot and burn my habitation

But my friends!

How will you tear down my words

Planted like a sun in the east?

My rights: contagious caste riots

Festering city by city, village by village,

Man by man

For that’s what my rights are-

Sealed off, outcast, road-blocked, exiled.

I want my rights, give me my rights.

Will you deny this incendiary state of things?

I’ll uproot the scriptures like railway tracks.

Burn like a city bus your lawless laws

My friends!

My rights are rising like the sun.

Will you deny this sunrise?

Translated by Priya Adarkar