Democracy – the forever shape-shifter

The diverse voices of young student protesters from across the country unite in their demand for justice and accountability. A poet reflects on the nature of democracy

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Where did I see her first? Was it in a book I read, in a documentary I watched on television, or on some street charging at injustice with a clenched fist? Maybe she was a poem. Maybe a freedom slogan giving me goosebumps.

I honestly can’t remember when I last saw her.

She has changed faces and names too many times for my memory to keep track. Sometimes she is a seamstress in Dindigul breaking her workplace’s silence and stitching a union out of the wreckage. At other times she is a farm worker driving a rented tractor from Hubballi to Bengaluru to assert her rights in a rally. And sometimes an old comrade from southern Kerala going door to door gathering what little there was, so that no one around went hungry. She is a shapeshifter, returning in different forms with the same stubborn courage, the same refusal to yield.

There! I see her again. Now a young one vaulting over barricades. Then the one supporting those who have fallen. She looks like hope that refuses to surrender.

This has always been her land. Azad.

Listen to Gokul G.K. reciting his poem

Remains of her

Remains of her are scattered across the road:
a book, her black round glasses,
the phone she refused to give up.
Remains of her —
disintegrated.
In the dust of poorly tarred roads,
inside potholes,
in empty oxygen cylinders,
beneath bulldozed homes.
Remains of her –
everywhere.
In the farmers' palms,
beneath the cracked earth,
inside the unemployed,
underneath the shells of cockroaches
that outlived another night.
Remains of her remain.
Disintegrated yet undestroyed.

Now her remains arrive at the capital
on tractors,
in worn jackets and sarees.
Her remains seize microphones,
raise fingers,
sing songs of resistance.
Remains of her remain
until they are no longer hers.
Everyone is now a woman:
with black round glasses,
a book, a phone we refuse to give up.
Her remains have become our own.
And what remains,
refuses to disappear.

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Democracy – the forever shape-shifter

The diverse voices of young student protesters from across the country unite in their demand for justice and accountability. A poet reflects on the nature of democracy

Donate to PARI

Gokul G.K.

Subhankar Sarkar

Pratishtha Pandya

Democracy – the forever shape-shifter

The diverse voices of young student protesters from across the country unite in their demand for justice and accountability. A poet reflects on the nature of democracy

Donate to PARI

Gokul G.K.

Subhankar Sarkar

Pratishtha Pandya