In our times of atrocities, wars and bloodshed, we have often raised questions about world peace. But how can civilisations based on competition, greed, rivalry, hatred, and violence visualise it? This kind of culture is not what I have seen in places where we come from. We Adivasis also have our own understanding of civilisation. We do not believe in educated people littering the place quietly at night and an uneducated person cleaning it up in the morning. We do not call that civilisation and refuse to assimilate into one such civilisation. We do not defecate on the banks of a river. We do not pluck fruits prematurely from the trees. When Holi is near, we stop ploughing the land. We do not exploit our jameen, do not expect non-stop production from the earth all through the year. We let it breathe, give it time to rejuvenate. We live by respecting nature as much as we respect human lives.
Narmada, Gujarat
|WED, AUG 03, 2022
The civilisation of the jungle
In his fourth poem in a cluster of five written in Dehwali Bhili, an Adivasi poet condemns the self-destructive nature of our so-called civilization and its hollow understanding of peace
Poem and Text
Painting
Editor
तियाह्ल जोंगलुम्ने फाचे नाहां आलें आमुहूं
आमां डायाह्न तुमुहूं
लाक्षागृहुम बाली देदें
आरदां ता आकडा वाड़ी लेदा
काहिंता पावुहू पावुहूनें चुलावी माअया
काहिं सोवता आथुकी सोवता पोगें फुकाव्यें
तुमां खूनी सभ्यताआ खोतोरनाक रूप साहेब,
तियाह्ल जोंगलुम्ने फाचे नाहाँ आलें आमुहूं।
चाडूपनें पान पाकी, एहेंड़ो टूटी पोड़े कादुमें
इंज मातु दोरसोन हाय आमां
आमुहुँ देवूहुने वादलाम नेंय
अनुभोव केअतेहें कुदरोतु बाठा आंगुम
विगोरजीवु कोल्पना नाहाँ आमां जीवणाम
कुदरोतु ज जीवोनु होरोग हाय
कुदरोतु विरोद, नोरोक हाय
आजादी आमां जीवोनु धोरोम हाय
तुमुहुँ गुलामी जालूल धोरोम आखि बोठा
तुमां खूनी सभ्यताआ खोतोरनाक रूप साहेब,
तियाह्ल जोंगलुम्ने फाचे नाहाँ आलें आमुहूं।
भूमिसेना हाय आमुहुँ साहेब
आमां अस्तित्वा खातर
सोवताल नाहाँ वाचावतें आमुहुँ
जल, जंगल, जमीन, जन, जनावर
अस्तित्वा मूलाधार हाय आमां
तुमुहुँ आमां डायाह्ने
तोपु मूयूँरी बांदी देदें
चाडूहूं पे टांगिन एठा आग बाली
पल्टन बोनावी आमां, आम्नेहें ज माराव्या
कुदरती ताकातुल खोतोम करां
तुमुहुँ चोर, लुटारु, हुवरें, बोदमास
काय काय नाहाँ आख्या आम्नेहें
कागला की बी तुमुहुँ आम्नेहें माई सकता हा
तुमां खूनी सभ्यताआ खोतोरनाक रूप साहेब,
तियाह्ल जोंगलुम्ने फाचे नाहाँ आलें आमुहूं।
तुमुहुँ तुमां जीवोनुल बाजार बोणावी देदो
लेखार्याहा पे सोवता डोआँ नाहा रिया
साहेब तुमां शिक्षण
आमां अस्तित्वालु ज वेची मारी
बाजारुम उबें केरी आम्नेहें बाठाह्न
सांस्कृतिक सभ्यता नांवुपे तुमुहुँ
असभ्यताआ मोड़ा मोड़ा डोगु बोणावी लेदा
परत्येक आदमी एक बिजारी नोफरोत केए
इंज तुमां नवयुगू निर्माण हाय?
बन्दूक, बोंबू की तुमुहुँ
विश्वशांति लावां मागताहा
तुमां खूनी सभ्यताआ खोतोरनाक रूप साहेब,
तियाह्ल जोंगलुम्ने फाचे नाहाँ आलें आमुहूं।
That is why we didn't return from the jungle
In Lakhsagriha you burnt our ancestors alive.
You cut their thumbs off.
You set them against their own brothers
to fight and kill.
You got many of them to blow up their own homes.
It is because of this bloody civilisation of yours
and its barbarous face
that we didn’t return from the jungle.
The ease with which a leaf falls
and becomes one with the soil
– that is our idea of death.
We don’t look for gods in heaven,
we feel them in nature.
We have no imagination for non-living
in our lives. Nature is our heaven.
Going against it is hell.
Freedom is our religion.
You call this web, this imprisonment your religion.
Your bloody civilisation and
its barbarous face, Sahib,
that is why we didn’t return from the jungle.
We are the army of the earth, Sahib.
Our life is not about our survival alone.
Water, forests, land, people, animals,
we exist because of them.
You tied our ancestors to the mouth of canon bores
You hung them on trees and lit fire underneath
You created their own armies to massacre them
You killed our natural strength
and called us thieves,
robbers, hogs, rebels, and whatnot.
You can kill all of us with a piece of paper
Your bloody civilisation
and its barbarous face, Sahib,
that is why we didn’t return from the jungle.
You turned your living world into a marketplace.
You, educated ones, have lost your eyes, Sahib.
Your education is out to sell your soul.
It is making us all stand in the market square
in the name of culture and civilisation.
You have stacked up heaps of crudeness.
Is this what you call your ushering a new age
where one human being hates another?
You think you will bring world peace
with your guns and missiles?
Your bloody civilisation
and its barbarous face, Sahib,
that is why we didn’t return from the jungle.
Translated from Dehwali Bhili and Hindi by Pratishtha Pandya.
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