ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Riddhi Dastidar is an Indian writer, journalist and Gender Studies scholar at Ambedkar University Delhi. They won the TOTO Award for Creative Writing in 2020 for a collection of poetry. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Himal Southasian, Harper Collins Anthology of Queer Poetry South Asia, Skin Stories, Scroll, The Wire, and elsewhere.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
On reading that Trevor Noah said an India-Pakistan war would be entertaining
Poets Resist
Edited by Riley Leight
March 2, 2020
Edited by Riley Leight
March 2, 2020
They Didn’t Show You the War in our Name Because Mrs. Trump was Attending a Happiness Class
— after Ilya Kaminsky
In our name
they said
Jai Shri Ram!
In our name
they pulled their pants down
and named what was inside
azaadi.
In my name, in your name, in god’s name
they said pant utaar!
(proof of address for god’s telephone bill)
In our name
they said if there is only one god
his name cannot be Allah.
(& if it is, why isn’t he listening?)
In our name
they scaled a mosque building &
planted a flag which birthed more flags &
they set a school on fire &
they set the shops on fire
(& it was all off record & when we looked for the police
we saw they were already there & they carried stones)
In the streets scorched by saffron, in the city of blood,
in the homeland of Hindutva, in our great country of development,
My god, they told us,
we (who are in danger)
are only protecting you*
*what is your name? & your god’s name? & can you recite it? Correctly.
Since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the right-wing Hindutva BJP in 2014, India has seen a sharp rise in anti-Muslim and anti-minority lynching and terrorism. Since the passing in December of the Citizenship Amendment Act — a legislation which is overtly anti Muslim and undermines the secular Constitution of India — there have been sustained countrywide peaceful protests across religions, led especially by Muslim women.
On February 24th US President Donald Trump arrived in India for a diplomatic visit coinciding with Hindu nationalist riots targeting Muslim majority neighbourhoods. The pogrom was consistently misreported as a 'clash' by mainstream TV media which showed details of the Trump visit instead — the menu, the sightseeing itinerary etc. Meanwhile in Delhi on the 25th, mosques were set on fire and desecrated (in an echo of what happened with the Babri masjid), Muslim men, women and children were beaten, shot and murdered, and prevented from reaching the hospital with police collusion caught on tape.
As an upper-caste Hindu (and atheist) with many Muslim friends and ex-students, my instinct is to dissociate myself from this violence and my Hindu identity. Since the lynchings began in 2014 there have in fact been a series of protests called 'Not in my name' premised on this very fact that large swathes of us are against this Hindu terrorism. However the fact it that all this violence is happening in the name of Hinduism and the onus is on us, the privileged majority, to step in and stop it.
Poets Resist is published by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
