The adivasi

The Adivasi




The adventurers from Europe, with greed
For gold flashing in their eyes, swooped with guns
And swords like human hawks on unknown lands.
Columbus, ignorant of the earth’s size
Named them Indians, the Caribbeans, so they
Became, North and South Americans.
Columbus with Bahama Arawaks
And other tribes of Caribbean islands,
Cortes in Peru with the Incus,
The English settlers in America
With many tribes including the Pequots
And with many others in Australia
Following James Cook’s visit in the year
1770, so savagely
Behaved with all the unarmed innocent
Adivasis of the foreign lands who welcomed them,
That made them ride the rough roller coasters
To embrace sudden death and devastation.
Original Americans were pushed
From eastern Atlantic to the western
Pacific for burial in the ocean.
A ‘Creek’ man of more than 100 years old
With deep sigh about colonizers told
In about 1829-
“When he first came over the wide waters
he was but a little man . . . . His legs were cramped
by sitting long in his big boat and he
begged for a little land to light his fire on . . . .
But when the white man had (so) warmed himself
before the Indian’s fire and filled himself
with their hominy, (he) became very large.”
A chief of ‘Black Hawk’ tribe delivered speech
In 1832 while surrendering-
“They poisoned us by their touch . . . . we lived in
danger. We were becoming like them, liars
and hypocrites, adulterous, lazy
drones, all takers and no workers.”

Not only all wealth of the land besides gold
They besieged, African humans they sold
Who survived after the immense torture
As slave, to be branded with on breast bare
Red-hot iron, imprinting the owner’s sign.
Before colonizers sucked Indian wealth
Barbarous invaders massacred it.
All such indigenous human beings
Who were so devastated, sold and killed
Were cultured and civilized, lived fulfilled.

It was time for aggression and settlement,
For crude and scientific development.
All such broils overlooked, turmoil forgotten,
In air-conditioned room with push-button
Comfort, secured by atomic weapons
Surrounded by all high walled constructions
A soft-spoken sophisticated man sits;
He is the epitome of high culture.
In an age of tense globalization
All are concerned about prosperity
Forgetting all past political feud
How over the corpses of tribes wealth made
In socialist, capitalist countries-
But still some misguided terrorists shine
To be handled properly and quelled in time.

Nothing has stopped, nothing goes unhindered
Old world of exploitation marches on-
Extracting wealth from the bowl of earth, sea
And sky for prosperity, industry;
The old incorrigible, superstitious
Adivasis are still reluctant to
Be evicted. They remain misguided.
They do not yield even after threatening,
Conversion and brainwashing: The Rotters.
But they had their civilization, they
Have culture and tradition, they defy
Globalization: their war rages throughout
The globe; Oil-Timber-War around Peru,
Amazonian Rainforest, Niger-Delta;
Mine-War spreads in Papua-Indonesia,
Phillipines, Niyamagiri hills, India-
In Chhatisgarh, Jungle Mahal, Anantapur
There, in Yanomami land, Brazil and
Manywhere. It seems a desperate strike
By organized forces is imminent
The sons of the soils to eliminate-
From the face of the earth, water and sky.

They are really helpless, misguided, they
Hold on to any discredited lot
Take to arms to survive in their plight.

A recent photograph in a newspaper-
Body of a young girl, died in combat
Carried in a bamboo pole by killers-
Inspired a similar scene to get flashed
In memory- it was the corpse of a
Wild boar hunted for community feast.
It is ugly to ogle at jarawas,
Oldest Andamanese , like beast in cage.
To declare ‘International Day of
World’s Indigenous people’ by the highest
World-body is nothing but puffed up farce.

It is a clash between civilisations:
Industrial-technological, man-made
Against agricultural, forest-bred.
Globalization cannot destroy all;
Environment, ecology, human.
None can evict them, throw them into sea
What has happened is a stain on human glory.
People regret now as the last speaker of
‘Bo’ language dies or rejoice when a
New-born is added to Onge tribe.

Advasis were the first born on earth
They have the first claim on it before us,
Modern civilized. They live in Nature-
Forest and hills, rivers and animals.
Everything cannot be exploited, used.
If they must be removed for any project
They must agree, must be compensated.
Be aware man, awake; Honour Nature
To be honoured by it, to live better.