Daya Pawar, Sambhaji Bhagat এবং Anand Patwardhan -ত্রয়ের লেখা ''We Are Not Your Monkeys '' কবিতাটি আমকে আলোড়িত করেছে।কোন ব্লগার কবি অনুবাদ করে দিলে কৃতজ্ঞ থাকবো।

''We Are Not Your Monkeys ''

The rulers who controlled all knowledge
And claimed the Ramayana to be India’s history
Called us many names:
“Demons”, “Low castes”, “Untouchables”

But we were the aborigines of this land
Listen to our story

Today we call ourselves
Dalits – the oppressed

Once the Aryans on their horses
invaded this land
And we who were the natives
became the displaced

O Rama, O Rama !
You became the gods and we the demons
You portrayed our Hanuman as a monkey
O Rama, you representative of Aryans
You enslaved us
to form a monkey army

Those you could not subjugate
you deemed as Rakshasas – demons

But we were the Rakshaks –
Protectors of the forest

To keep your racial purity
you invented the hierarchy of caste
Through your “Laws of Manu” *
you trampled on the rights of women

You made your wife Sita undergo
An ordeal by fire to prove her chastity
Such was your male law O Rama !

When Shambuka the “untouchable”
Tried to gain knowledge
You beheaded him O Rama !
Thus did you crush those that tried
To rise above their caste

Days passed
Years and aeons went by
But our lives remained the same

We skin your cattle
So can wear shoes
We clean your gutters
So you can stay clean

Do you ask then O Rama
What our caste is ?
What our religion is ?

Independence dawned and with it began
the rule of the Constitution
The author of the Constitution
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar
Himself born an “untouchable”
framed the Constitution
around secular ideals

The castle of caste privilege
Began to crumble
No longer could the elite
Skim the milk of religious exploitation

But poverty grew
And to divert the attention of the poor
A new enemy was found
Muslims were targeted
And “taught a lesson”

To destroy Lanka, O Rama
You formed us into a monkey army
And today you want us
The working majority
To form a new monkey army
And attack Muslims

But be warned
Be warned you purveyors
Of self-serving religion
We will be your monkeys no more

We will sing songs of humanity
And we will make you human as well
We will make you human.