Between saints and secularists

K. Satchidanandan
The Western models of secularism seem to have failed to answer the challenge of revivalism and
fundamentalist bigotry in India. The old forms of positivist rationality are in a deep crisis: philosophers of
our times, from Sartre to Foucault and Derrida, reflect this crisis in different ways.
From its inception, Marxism too had deep epistemological problems, inherited partly from Hegel and
partly from the positivist science that surrounded it. It pitted the sacred against the secular, and idealism
against materialism so that it simply failed to develop a language adequate enough to articulate the
historic struggles and inner contradictions, the theories and practices of oppression and resistance, within
the sacred and the idealist streams of thought and life. The statement that religion is the opium of the
people, even when accompanied by the qualifications that follow it, does not in any way help explain the
experience of the mystic or the lay believer, or the great strides towards resistance and liberation that
many religious movements have taken in human history. One could as well point to the statecraft of lies,
conspiracy, manipulation, madness and murder practised by a Stalin or a Pol Pot and say that Marxism is
the opium of the people, without adding anything to our knowledge of the plural traditions of Marxism
from Lenin, Trotsky, Gramsci and Bloch to Althusser, Adorno, Mandel and Jameson. In the West,
secularism has either given some place to religion in public life as did John Holyoke, who coined the
term or has separated matters of religion completely from matters of state, as did Charles Bradlaugh,
who tried to give it a scientific definition.
Both these notions of secularism are unsuited to our situation. We need a secularism that is not merely
tolerant of our pluralist traditions of religion but is inspired and motivated by them and fully takes into
account the creative, positive, contributions of different religions to the moulding of our subjectivity as
well as to the evolution of our civilisation. By dismissing religiosity and spiritualism as fundamentally
flawed, superstitious and illusory, our communist friends have foreclosed any possibility of a dialogue
with the majority of our people who have faith in one religion or another. They have also entirely failed to
understand the radical significance of spiritual leaders from Buddha and Mahavira to Vivekananda and
Gandhi, and of subaltern religious movements like the Bhakti and the Sufi traditions.
Communalism being the worst form of materialism, divorced from everything that is sacred and oriented
towards worldly wealth and power, can truly be combated only by a higher form of the sacred that
combines the secular ideal of human equality, democratic awareness, identification with the suffering,
alleviation of poverty and resistance to oppression with a deep inner inquiry and belief in the holiness of
all forms of life. Those who turn religion into a means to attain state power and worldly status are indeed
the most irreligious of all, for they profane the most hallowed and usurp even the last refuge of the spirit
from a world where the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity by joining
the ignorant armies that clash by night.
In India, a reductive secularism that equates religiosity itself with communalism and faith with
fundamentalism is the best ally of the very forces it condemns. It leaves the majority of our people, and
the largest portion of the continent of their unconscious, naked and vulnerable to the exploitation of
irreligious, communal hate-mongers. This is not to deny that there is communal potential in the
narratives and representations of religion, but then there is an equally dangerous communal potential in
secular discourse as well, from electoral rhetoric to popular jokes, from history texts to newspaper
features and cartoons, from innocent-looking childrens fiction to the eloquence of a tourist guide to a
monument, from discourses of love to a cricket match commentary. Secular spaces of autonomous

individual and social activity, freedom, joy and celebration also exist within the frameworks of religious
belief, as in a festival at a temple, mosque or church, where the carnivalesque dominates, or in a
performance of the Ramayana, where the semiotics of theatre and the enactment of passions enthral
spectators across religions and classes.
The secular and the sacred have seldom existed as binaries in Indian thought, literature and practice; all
essentialist constructions of the sacred and the secular are ahistorical. The Indian imagination has
constantly captured the human condition in its inseparable aspects of the sacred and the secular. The
sacred loses its meaning once devoid of every element of real life and the secular not illuminated by the
sacred mutilates imagination, ruins its vitality, impoverishes its creativity, collapses its multiplicity,
effaces the mystical awareness of reality, promotes anthropocentrism devoid of eco-spirituality and
reduces everything to the calculable and the verifiable. The interpenetration of the worldly and the
otherworldly, the mundane and the spiritual, the workaday and the worshipful, enrich our folklore as well
as our classics. This can be said also of the best works of modern literature, from U.R. Ananthamurthy to
O.V. Vijayan, from V. S. Khandekar to Nirmal Verma though I am tempted to universalise this principle
by bringing in my European favourites from Dostoevsky and Kazantzakis to Calvino and Marquez, all of
whom derive their magic from the deft interweaving of the real and the mystical.
It is possible, at the risk of some simplification, to characterise the struggle within religions as one
between Brahmanas and Sramanas. I am using these words more as oppositional metaphors than as
historical categories. Of course, the terms do have historical sanction: there are references to them in
Buddhist and Jain literature, Ashokas edicts and the travelogues of Megasthenes and Chinese pilgrims.
Patanjali records that the two were born rivals "like the cat and the mouse, like the snake and the
mongoose". The Arab documents of the second millennium AD also speak of two religious traditions they
call Brahmanam (also Brahimam) and Samanyam. The Brahmana stream represents emphasis on
ritual, belief in hierarchisation and priesthood and the resulting inequality, the unquestioning faith in the
Vedas as repositories of eternal truth, the monopolisation of certain knowledges through a language
seldom known to the majority and the linking of those knowledges to power, secrecy, deformation,
mystifying representations and divisive practices imposed on people that are later legitimised and
rationalised to seem almost natural or divinely created.
In short, it is the religion of hegemony that believes in subjection and domination that splits up
community life, forces the individual into himself/herself and ties him/her to his/her own identity in a
constraining manner. In this way, it always has had links with state power, even when it does not directly
rule, by being more than the rulers, making rules for them, by being advisers in court in the past or as
lawyers, managers and bureaucrats in the present, creating and sustaining mechanisms of subjection and
determining the forms of subjectivity. Michel Foucault calls this pastoral power in the context of the
Western State, which has integrated the old power-techniques of the Church in a new political format.
Originally, it was a form of power that guaranteed individual salvation in the next world, but it differed
from royal power in that it not only commanded but was also prepared to sacrifice itself for the flock. It
was a power that looked after not only the whole community but also each individual in particular during
his entire life-span, a power that could not be exercised without exploring their souls, without making
them reveal their innermost secrets. The concept of such a form of power applies equally well to the power
the Brahmins enjoyed and to some extent continue to enjoy in Indian society, the growing power of the
Papacy and the Church in the Western states and the power of the mullahs in monoreligious Islamic
states.
Sramanas by definition are beggars those who have chosen poverty. They do not approve of the
domination of the Brahmanas or accept the authenticity of their texts. Rituals are secondary in their

practice: self-realisation and service are primary. They would prefer to speak in popular tongues rather
than in Sanskrit or Latin, abhor the idea of hierarchisation through divisive practices like caste, look down
upon earthly power and riches and demystify religion by taking it to the people. They interrogate
traditional customs, rituals and taboos including, at times, the very idea of temples and idol-worship, not
to speak of untouchability and other spatial strategies of distance and differentiation, and believe in basic
human equality, or even go beyond it to believe in the equality of all created beings.
While for the Brahmana tradition religion is an instrument of hegemony, for the Sramana tradition, it is
an instrument of spiritual enquiry, social justice and revolt against forms of oppressive subjectivisation.
Rustam Bharucha has pointed out how hegemonic religion often works through symbols, by their fusion,
integration and repulsion. Symbolic fusion occurs when symbols belonging to different traditions coalesce
into one, as happened when the pre-Aryan Shiva was identified with Rudra of the Rig Veda, Krishna and
Narayana with Vishnu and several local deities with Shiva or Vishnu.
Students of myth from Heinrich Zimmer to D.D. Kosambi have also given several examples of symbolic
integration where independent deities are taken over by the Brahmins only to be invested with a
subordinate position in the orthodox pantheon. The cobra, once worshipped in his own right, becomes a
mere garland for Siva, a bangle for Ganesa or a bed for Vishnu. Similarly, the bull became Sivas vehicle
and Hanuman, a peasant god, became Ramas servant. There is also a third process of symbolic repulsion
when a myth or ritual represents the exclusion of alien elements. The mythical vanquishing of the Ushas
by Indra referred to in the Rig Veda is a case in point. These processes of absorption, suppression and
legitimation are also related to the domination of the male in the gendered world and that of the twice
born in the caste world, as when Sree, the object of an autonomous cult in the Buddhas time, becomes
Vishnus wife, or Parvati, the Hindu goddess who held Siva as her slave, becomes Sivas reviled wife, or
when the various village mother-goddesses get married to various gods in the later pantheon.
The disappearance of women priests and the conversion of fertility cults dominated by women into
celebrations dominated by men, like Ganesh Chaturthi, are all signs of similar patriarchalisation of
society. Ancient Indian texts abound with legitimising narratives where the caste system is shown to have
divine sanction. The Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, probably a later interpolation into the Vedic canon,
says that the mouth of the divine became the Brahmin, his arms the Kshatriya, his legs the Vaisya and his
feet the Sudra. The Bhagavad Gita, again considered by historians like D.D. Kosambi to be a later
Brahminical interpolation in the Mahabharata, brackets Vaisyas, Sudras and women together and calls
them the base-born. The Vishnu Purana, the Padma Purana and Satapatha Brahmana are full of
similar narratives and situations that glorify the Brahmin at the cost of other segments of society.
These myths became the fountainheads of actual social laws and practices codified in the Grihya Sutras
and the Dharmashastras, which clearly lay down the principles of differentiation and institutionalise
inequality, as does the Manusmriti. This inequality extends from the payment of interest on loans to the
punishment suggested for crimes like abuse, robbery and murder and from the ways of swearing to the
naming of children. While the Brahmin should swear by Truth, the Sudra should swear by his wicked
deeds; the Brahmins name should denote something auspicious, the Sudras something contemptible; the
Brahmins interest on loan is two per cent, the Sudras is five; the penance for killing a Sudra is one
sixteenth of the penance for killing a Brahmin and a Sudra can be given capital punishment for reviling a
Brahmin while the other varnas get off with a fine of varying degrees.
The Sramana tradition, on the other hand, is counter-hegemonic, often to the degree of being subversive.
The Buddha and Mahavira, who interrogated the Varna system, questioned the priesthood, spurned

rituals, upheld the equality of beings and hence condemned violence, whose victims in those days were
mostly the Sudras and the animals useful for the peasants, may be said to belong to this tradition. The
Bhakti-Sufi movement was another major pan-Indian articulation of this stream of subaltern dissent.
The spokesmen/women of the movement mostly came from the subaltern or marginalised sections of
society and were workers, women or Mulsims. Namdeo the tailor, Kabir the weaver, Tukaram the peddler,
Chokamela the bricklayer and Gora the potter were some of them. Bulhe Shah, Baba Farid, Mir Dard,
Shah Abdul Latif, Sultan Bahu, Madho Lal Husain, Sheikh Ibrahim Farid Sani, Ali Haidar, Fard Faqir,
Hashim Shah, Karam Ali and other Sufi poets were Muslims by birth. And there were women saints from
Lal Ded and Meerabai to Andal, Ouvaiar and Akkamahadevi, who transcended their gender and whose
stories are also often tales of emancipation from the oppression and subordination they experienced as
women. The Sahaja cult of Chandidas and the cult of Chaitanya also did not recognise caste and creed and
hence provided moments of liberation for the Sudras.
Tukaram, Kabir, Namdeo, Meera and the South Indian saints like Allamaprabhu and Basaveswara did not
accept the authority of the Bhagavad Gita. Even the Sikh credo, that received its elements from various
religious sources including bhaktas like Jayadev and Namdeo, has been little influenced by the Gita.
Jnaneswar quarrelled with Brahmin beliefs in Alandi and hence had to seek refuge on the southern banks
of the Godavari to write his popular version of the Gita. The Manbhavs (or Mahanubhavas), who belonged
to the sect established by Chakradhara in Maharashtra in the twelfth century AD, also would have nothing
to do with Brahminism; they practised a kind of primitive communism, sharing everything equally and
denounced the idea of caste. Even Eknath, who was born a Brahmin, fell victim to the displeasure of his
priestly class for opposing the caste system. The Varkari pilgrims of Maharashtra also renounced caste
and refused to follow rituals.
Opposition to the priesthood, discrimination on the basis of colour, nation, race and wealth, various forms
of rituals and even to temples and mosques is a recurring theme in Bhakti-Sufi poetry. All of them were
committed to the languages their people spoke, and often used many tongues (Mira or Guru Nanak, for
instance) to drive home their egalitarian message among their people, but never Sanskrit. Listening to a
baul singer in a train in Bengal or to a grandmother in a Tamil home singing verses from Andals
Tiruppavai, one is still struck by the intensity not only of their spirituality but of their firm faith in the
equality of beings and their stubborn rejection of divisive practices, from the wearing of the holy thread to
the observation of untouchability.
I often wonder whether even our most radical secular politicians, with their eye on the vote banks, have
ever expressed their rejection of superstitious rituals and caste differences so sincerely and vehemently as
the Bhakti and Sufi poets, who upheld only the supreme independence of the spirit which allowed no
man-made barriers to pollute its self-awareness. Sree Narayana Guru, one of the last great saints in this
oppositional tradition, fertilised his understanding of Advaitic philosophy with his knowledge of the
Siddha tradition and Tamil Saivism. Along with Sankara, he also mentions Appar, Nandanar,
Sambandhar and Manikyavachakar in his Atmopadesasatakam as the voices of truth; his images and
verses often take off from the texts of Manikyavachakar and Pattanathu Pillaiyar. This has much to do
with his discourses on the body that subverted the entire semiology of caste differentiation, its dress code
and distance code and its suppressive modes of individuation, and converted the temporality of the body
into a moment in the narrative of the search for the self through illumination or arivu. In his
Jatilakshanam, Sree Narayana develops a critique of jati or caste and says that all beings who embrace
and procreate together are the same jati. He argues for a differentiation based not on false principles but
on true ones, so that it has a value in the elaboration of arivu. The only true principle of differentiation he
finds is the natural principle, the principle of the species. The body is a sign that reveals the ground of true

differentiation. Not only does Narayana go beyond caste in his philosophy and practice, but he also
transcends religion.
Anukampadasakam, for example, presents Christ and Mohammed and Buddha as realisations of
anukampa, the principle of compassion. His famous statements, like, Do not inquire after caste, do not
say it or, It is enough if man is good, whatever his caste and his insistence on purity as suggested by the
ideas of Suddhipanchakam, including dehasuddhi, the cleanliness of the body with its emancipation from
caste marks, point to the main elements of his reform project. First, the belief that a process of
individuation and redefinition of caste as community rather than conversion to another religion should
constitute the cornerstone of reform, since conversion fails to redefine difference in terms of natural law,
and secondly, the conviction that the redefinition of communities ought to take place within the locus of a
tradition a belief he seems to have shared with Gandhi, to whom we come at the end of this article.
The Hindu revivalist ideology practised in contemporary India deliberately ignores this second Sramana
tradition of revolt and reform within Indian religion, or blurs the distinctions between the two traditions
in order to absorb some of the populist aspects of Bhakti into its strategies of propagation. It is Bhakti
vulgarised and emptied of its profound, egalitarian, radical content. The hidden agenda of this neo
Hinduism, what Romila Thapar calls Syndicated Hinduism, is a reassertion of the hegemony of the
Dharmasastras and, through it, the retrieval of Brahmin ideology, now under threat from the awakening
Dalit sections of society. The latter have very different traditions and practices of spirituality, a different
iconography, and an alternative religion now half-submerged in the ruling rhetoric of the dominant
religious discourse and marginalised by the conscious and unconscious processes of history. We know
very well that a denomination called Hindu did not exist until recently and the word merely denoted the
people on the banks of the Indus. The Persians called the Sindhu river Hindu, the Greeks called it Indos
and the Arabs, Al Hind. Muslim rulers and Christian missionaries used it as a blanket term to cover all
those who did not belong to the Judaic religions, even while recognising the multi-religious nature of that
population. The orientalist historians gave it a kind of theoretical legitimation by speaking about a Hindu
civilisation and culture.
This was complemented by an opposite process where different Indian cults began to unite in opposition
to those they perceived as the other: the Arya Samaj, the Brahmo Samaj, the Prarthana Samaj, the
Ramakrishna Mission, the Divine Life Society, the Theosophical Society, the Swami Narayan Movement.
They tried to unite these different non-Judaic, non-Buddhist, non-Jain cults and sects and construct out
of them a religion largely modelled on the Judaic religions with a God, a prophet, a Book, certain basic
principles and collective forms of worship. Brahma was interpreted to mean God in the Western sense,
Krishna took on the role of Christ, the Gita became the Sermon if not on the Mount, then of the
battlefield. Concepts like atma, paramatma, karma, sansara and moksha received a new theological
status; sacred-secular epics like the Ramayana and the Mahabharata were turned into purely religious
texts. The old Vedic gods like Indra, Mitra and Varuna lost out to Siva, Vishnu and Durga. While one
cannot deny the significance of some of the social reforms initiated by a few of these organisations, one
cannot but observe that the present monologic, mono-religious discourse of neo-Hinduism is founded on
the tomb of plurality.
At the heart of this homogenising Hindutva lies the myth of a continuous and primordial struggle of
Hindus against Muslims as the structuring principle of Indian history. In this running construction of
otherness, both the communities are to have been homogeneous blocs, though this myth has been
entirely demolished by historians. Not the logic of religion but the logic of power had decided the nature
of those struggles where Hindus have fought against Hindus (e.g., Saiva-Vaishnava) and Muslims against
Muslims (e.g. Shia-Sunni). Both have also very often joined hands to crush someone perceived as a threat

to sovereignty or royal power, whether Hindu or Muslim. And if Muslim kings had been invaders, let us
remember, so were the Aryans. Only the communicational and economic integration of the last quarter of
the nineteenth century provided sharply-defined identities and animosities with a larger expanse of space
to spread across, and the forces of neo-Hinduism have managed to develop a wide-based institutional
framework and strategic network to make full political use of this facility. Pride in the national past
invoked during the anti-colonial struggle, the empowerment of the other backward castes in search of
new pastures of power and prestige, the growth of an aggressive middle class that seeks to manage society,
the desire of the disempowered orthodoxy to retrieve their lost centrality in the power-grid: all these have
in different ways strengthened the forces of revivalism and helped them expand their base. They are
equipped now with a neo-Brahminical ideology well adapted to modern statecraft and in collusion with
the forces of exploitation. This calls for new ways of perceiving ground realities, forging new alliances and
reinforcing alternative forms of spirituality.
The Brahmana-Sramana paradigm is not confined to Indian religions alone. Christianity has its own
brand of the Brahmana concept: the Vatican has been a major power centre whose growth has been overdetermined by the power-systems of civil society from time to time. Hierarchy, priesthood, censorship
against free enquiries and radical thought from those of Bruno and Galileo to Leonard Boff and
Kazantzakis, alliances with the forces of oppression, with the Whites against the Coloured, with the
Spaniards and Portuguese against the Indians in South America to hunt them down like beasts,
inquisitions and crusades, the imposition of Western values and thought-systems on vast populations in
the so-called Third World who were forced to discard their own belief systems and traditions, support to
colonialism of every kind and tacit support even to the Nazis, dictators like Somoza and to the CIA, as in
destabilising the Arbens government in Guatemala: all these reveal the Brahmana streak of
institutionalised Christianity.
But here again, it is not the materialists who have been able at least to pose a strong challenge to the
theology of power, but the theologists of liberation, the Sramanas, the critical insiders within the church.
This Sramana stream of Christianity is based on an emancipating reading of the Holy Bible that liberates
faith from the level of the ahistorical abstract to project it onto the historical concrete of oppression and
struggle. The gospel is perceived here as Word created for and handed over to the persecuted. Heaven is
perceived as a just order to be created on earth, deliverance is a transcendence and a freedom to be
attained in this world; sin is not individual but structural oppression and systematic discrimination, and
loving ones neighbour has a connotation large enough to embrace all of suffering humanity. It goes
beyond the existing definitions of charity and believes in fighting with the oppressed against systems of
exploitative power, in identification rather than in sympathy. Camillo Tores, Oscar Romero, Helder
Camera and Fernando Cardenal of South America and Cantao Balveg of the Philippines have inspired
Christians all over the world, including India, to carry forward this subaltern tradition within the church.
Gustavo Gutierrez, James Conn and others have unburied a whole little tradition of dissent within the
church where the Christ with the whip becomes as important as the Christ with the lamb and they
complement each other. Down the centuries, Christianity has produced a line of radical reformers and
saints who delved deep into the very sources of sainthood, from Francis of Assissi and Father Damien to
the Coloured priests who united their populations against the White aggressor. This is also true of Islam
where, despite the absence of a well-defined theology of liberation, mystics and reformers from Sufis to
liberals have questioned the assumptions of priesthood (e.g. Bulhe Shah), fought fundamentalist bigotry
and upheld the spirit of equality and fraternity that is central to the concept of Islam.
I shall conclude this brief monologue with some comments on Gandhis attitude to the whole question,
which I consider to be in the best of our Sramana traditions and to be valid even today as an alternative to
Western touchmenot secularism, which is completely divorced from the moral and spiritual insights of

religion in fighting communalism. Here again, I am drawing heavily on Bikhu Parikh and Rustam
Bharucha, besides Gandhis own writings. Gandhis faith was dynamic in character, tuned to the living
wide-awake consciousness of God within. He had little faith in rituals; he would not accept the sacred
thread since it was a sign of caste superiority. He found that places of pilgrimage have lost their purity
and, instead, become nurseries of hypocrisy. He found the Kumbh Mela oppressive and was critical of the
sensuality of pleasure-seeking pilgrims. He did not have high regard for religious symbols either, and
when he had to choose symbols, he chose mostly from the kitchen and workplace, like the handful of salt
and the charkha, in the tradition of the saint-poets. His Krishna was the very opposite of Jayadevas
sensuous lover: he was the inspirer of the lives of millions of human beings.

Gandhi belongs to that great tradition of critical insiders within

religion, and to invoke his image and to liberate it from the disuse
into which it has fallen in the hands of the state and his selfproclaimed followers is, I believe, a moral-political act of great
significance today, when the country is once again being asked to
defend its sovereignty and its traditions of amity in plurality

He aspired towards God as an Absolute Truth while admitting that he was able to know only the relative
truth. His shift from God is Truth to Truth is God in 1928-29 was strategic in that he wanted to appeal
to the atheists as well. He claimed that sat (that which exists) the Sanskrit word for Truth, came closest to
expressing the belief affirmed both in Hindu philosophy and the Kalma of Islam that God alone is and
nothing else exists. He can be called Rama or Allah, Khuda or Ahura Mazda. Naming is a historical act,
while God Himself is above Time. There are many religions, he said, but Religion is only one. I do not
differentiate between the sweeper and the Brahmin. My mind finds no difference between a Hindu, a
Muslim and a Christian. He denounced yajnas like most of the Sramana saints and said that the only
true yajna is self-sacrifice for a higher cause. He refused to consider any prophet superior to any other.
To say Jesus was 99 per cent divine, and Muhammad 50 per cent and Krishna 10 per cent is to arrogate to
oneself a function which does not really belong to man a simple argument, yet strong enough to refute
all claims to superiority put forward by the fundamentalists. He considered the Koran, the Bible, the Zend
Avesta, the Vedas and other religious texts as equally divinely inspired. He loathed monolithic categories
and believed there were always many interpretations of Truth, many names for God, and many
manifestations as scripture.
Truth, non-violence, abstinence, poverty and non-possession were the five vows he advocated; each was
well thought-out and reasoned about. He never claimed, as fundamentalists do, that he spoke for truth or
as truth, but only that he was in search of truth. He did not trust the shastras since they often offended
his moral sense. If Hinduism sanctioned untouchability, he once said, I should denounce it. Still, he was
not prepared to give up his faith altogether; he held on to it even in the worst days of partition. He
qualified Truth subjectively. I represent no new truths, I endeavour to follow Truth as I know it. This is
where he differs from the fundamentalists who always objectify Truth as something external to them and
ask everyone to follow it. Gandhi also separated his notions of faith and religion from caste: "Caste has
nothing to do with religion. It is a custom whose origin I do not know and do not need to know for the
satisfaction of my spiritual hunger. But I do know that it is harmful both to the spiritual and national
good." He did use religious terminology Ramarajya, moksha, karma, Ishwar, shastra but always
cleansed them of their communal possibilities and redefined them. Thus Ramarajya becomes another
name for a just and egalitarian society, moksha becomes emancipation from everything that chains the
body and the mind; karma becomes fearless action for the general good; Ishwar becomes a pure
consciousness that never tyrannises man, shastra becomes a mixture of sattva, rajas and tamas.
Gandhi belongs to that great tradition of critical insiders within religion, and to invoke his image and to
liberate it from the disuse into which it has fallen in the hands of the state and his self-proclaimed
followers is, I believe, a moral-political act of great significance today, when the country is once again
being asked to defend its sovereignty and its traditions of amity in plurality. I will consider my argument

wasted if anyone feels that he/she is being persuaded to follow the footsteps of Kabir or Vivekananda,
Sree Narayana or Gandhi. My essential plea is for a paradigm shift in our understanding of politics as well
as philosophy. I have been looking at some of the positive aspects, the dimension of resistance within the
idealist/spiritual traditions in India. In historical and practical terms, the materialist-idealist opposition
does not work, at least in India. It has to be urgently replaced by the opposition between the hegemonic
and the subaltern or the governing and the subversive. For this, one has to look at the internal critique
that religions have developed, if we ever want to relate to the believing majority in the country. Arguments
external to religion might appeal to an intellectual minority; but reformers like Sree Narayana,
Vivekananda or Gandhi were forced to develop a spiritual idiom to persuade the people to fight the
orthodoxy. It is wishful to think that religious revivalism and fundamentalism can be fought with
philosophical materialism. One has to look at the history of struggle within and draw ones energies for
the contemporary combat against communalism from the strategies of the critical insiders within
religions, especially the majority religion in India.

Sahiban in exile
Amrita Pritam
Her name was Sahiban*. And she came visiting the enemy country. She came to see the relics of ancient
monuments. And carried with her a letter requesting that she be allowed to stay for a few days. The letter
was from an old friend who knew that they would be happy to host Sahiban in their home for a few days.
The parents of the family opened for her the airy guestroom, a little removed from the bustle of the living
room. On the top floor of the house was a small apartment set amidst a terrace garden in bloom. The son
of the family lived in the two rooms of the apartment.
There was tea ready for Sahiban when she arrived. After tea and pleasantries, she went to her room to
freshen up. Soon, it was time for dinner. The son of the family had come down to the dining room and was
arranging the flowers that he had brought from the terrace. The mother called Sahiban from the
guestroom. She introduced Sahiban to her son and started laying out the meal. The family of three sat
down to dinner with their guest, making small talk as they ate.
The next morning Sahiban had a cup of tea and ventured out to see the monuments and relics of this
ancient city.
She would travel by bus all day, visiting one monument after another. She had brought a list with her. But
she would always return home before dark and the dinner ceremony of the first evening would be
replicated. There was only one change: Sahiban would always bring some flowers and sweets for the
dining table. The mother asked her not to take the trouble, but Sahiban seemed to like coming back home
with something for the family.
On the fourth day, there was a minor accident. The son hurt his leg while riding his motorcycle. There was
no bruise, but he seemed to have pulled a ligament. He returned from the doctors clinic with a bandage
on his leg, went straight to his den and lay down. In a few hours, the leg was so stiff that he could not raise
it. His mother went up to foment the injury and give him tea.
That evening, when Sahiban returned and learned of the accident, she took the balm from the mothers
hands, went softly up the stairs and started massaging his leg. Then she gently massaged the soles of his

feet to work out the stiffness. The young man was embarrassed. But her gentle touch was so soothing that
he overcame his shyness.
That night, she took his dinner from his mother and went up to his room and spent the night on a settee
there, in case he required any attention during the night. Next morning, she washed up in the bathroom
upstairs and then came down to fetch his breakfast. After three days of tender care, the young man was up
and about. He could not ride the motorbike, but he could drive the car.
He had taken a weeks leave from work when he got hurt, so he still had a few days off. There were some
very interesting old monuments outside the city and some ruins too, he told his mother, and would she
lend him the car to take Sahiban there?
The mother laughed in permission. She was relieved to see her son look somewhat happy. He had lost
interest in women when the love of his college days did not work out. He would not consider marriage. He
wouldnt even go to parties.
Two days later, Sahiban asked him if he would take her to Hardwar. She wanted to bathe in the Ganga. He
mentioned her request to his mother, who had no objection. So the two of them left for Hardwar.
Sahiban was of delicate build and she was always in simple, casual clothes. They reached Hardwar late in
the evening. They rented two small cottages for the night at an ashram by the Ganga. Just before dawn,
Sahiban went over and woke the young man so that together, they could watch the sun rise over the river.
He was still quite sleepy, but he washed his face and went out with her to the riverbank. Sahiban gazed at
the shades of red splashed across the sky and reflected in the water. She climbed down the steps to bathe
in the river, fully clad.
The young man stood on the bank. He was carrying neither a towel nor a change of clothing, so he did not
climb down with her. He sat on the edge and played with the water. Then he saw Sahiban standing in the
water with her hands folded, looking up at the sky, as though she were greeting the sun. He stared at her
in amazement.
When she came out, thoroughly drenched, he said, "You should have brought a towel and a change."
Sahiban smiled. The hut was close enough, she said, she would go and change there.
Back in the ashram, after a change of clothes and a cup of tea, Sahiban said, "Take me to the city bazaar. I
want to look in the shops." They might not be open yet, he replied, but they could stroll down and they
might open by the time they got there.
The narrow-laned bazaars were selling river shells, rudraksha beads, scarves printed with the name of
Ram, small boxes of saffron and musk. The girl looked at all this in awe. All of a sudden, she stopped by a
shop selling red dupattas edged with golden tassel-work, glass bangles and bridal choorhas of ivory.
Holding up her wrist to the shopkeeper, she asked for a choorha her size and put it on right there. Then
she bought a red dupatta and some sindoor. Surprised, the young man said, "Sahiban, what will you do
with all this? You might like them, but how can you return to your country wearing all this? Even the
customs officers will wonder!"

The girl laughed, "How do my arms concern them?"

He was insistent, "But what are you up to?"
Sahiban said, "These are debts that Khuda will have to pay back."
When the two returned from Hardwar, Sahiban had a dot of sindoor on her forehead and some more in
the parting of her hair. The wedding bangles were on her wrists and her head was covered with the red
dupatta. Sahiban glowed like a bride.
The young mans mother stared at her, astounded. She did not say a word to Sahiban but she cornered her
son alone and said, "Tell me the truth! Have you and Sahiban got married?"
"Not at all, Ma," he laughed. "Neither of us have even talked of marriage. She took a fancy to those
trinkets and put them on!"
"The silly girl shouldnt return to her country like this," said the mother, "she will get merry hell."
Sahiban was to return the next day. Her visa had run out. After breakfast, the young man took the car out
of the garage to drop her at the airport. Just then a friend of his arrived. He introduced Sahiban to his
friend, adding: "Theres not much time, but lets sit for a few minutes." They sat in the living room
downstairs.
"Had you come for a pilgrimage of the dargahs?" the friend asked Sahiban.
"I didnt go to a dargah, but it was a pilgrimage nevertheless," Sahiban replied.
Then, playing on her name, he asked, "And where is the Mirza of this Sahiban?"
The girl laughed and said, "Mirza must always belong to the enemy clan, and thats true for this Sahibans
Mirza as well." She looked up at the young man for a moment, then lowered her eyes.
On their way out, the friend asked once again, "But this time Sahiban lacks the courage to walk away with
her Mirza?"
She shot back, "This Sahiban does not want her Mirza to be killed by the people of her fathers clan." She
got into the car and left for the airport.
Sahiban came and vanished like a whiff of fragrance.
The next few days passed unremarkably, full of everyday chores. Then a letter came from Sahiban,
addressed to the son of the family. "Thanks ever so much!" she wrote. "Seeing you, I saw many past lives,
even though it is a sin for us to talk of reincarnation. But what can I do I actually saw it all! I seemed to
recall so much on seeing you"
And she signed off with: "Exiled from you in this life Sahiban."
There was no address on the letter. Perhaps she knew that an address would make no difference.

Translated from the Punjabi by Nirupama Dutt

* Translators footnote: Even today, the legend of Mirza-Sahiban haunts Punjabs folklore and songs.
Mirza, like most romantic heroes, was a stranger to Sahibans land and belonged to a feuding clan.
Sahiban eloped with him and was eager to reach his home in Danabad. But on the way, Mirza the
accomplished archer insisted on stopping for the night under a tree. Sahibans brothers were in pursuit.
Fearing that Mirza would kill her brothers, Sahiban flung his quiver up into the tree. Unarmed, Mirza
was killed when the brothers caught up with them. Sahibans betrayal was never forgiven, and so there
were no more legendary lovers in the land of the five rivers.

Oshiwara
Merle Almeida
You know the ad. The one where the perfectly normal whatever morphs into sinister shapes when you
look through the bottle. Smirnoff. It was something like that, Su felt. Actually not so much sinister as sad.
And funny. Something-walked-over-my-grave sad. Strange funny. In the flash of a crystal-fired moment.
Su and Anish were rummaging through Oshiwaras Chor Bazaar. The old furniture place in suburban
Bombay. The rocking chair caught Sus eye. It was exactly like the pair of rocking chairs she remembered
from her childhood home in Goa. Which rocked her through every summer holiday, feet up on the stone
seat, through books of every ilk and scores of magazines ancient Catholic Digests and Irish Digests that
came from the tattered leather suitcase in the loft. They had stories called Merrylegs, her role in winning
the war and stuff like that. Stories that no p.c. editor would publish today. Anyway, the rocking chair. Sus
sister had sat on hers across from Su, feet up on the left stone seat that evolved into banisters for the front
stairs, Su on the right. Su sat and rocked and read and rocked and read all through the day and until it was
too dark to read. Her sister played and rocked and read in between when the sun was too hot and the
other mothers called her friends indoors. Then she sat and rocked and read as well. There was another
pair of rocking chairs in the sitting room, but those didnt fit them as well. Su and Sheila grew, Leon Uris
gave way to Maugham and then Fielding and Rushdie, but the chairs still fitted, perfectly.
And here they were again. Or chairs just like them. In fact, for the last so many years, the seats of the old
chairs that Su now saw on her annual darshan home had been rewoven in plastic twine instead of cane.
But this chair, this beautiful, wonderful chair in Chor Bazaar was done in cane. It was marred only slightly
by a too-dark, too-glossy polish but Su felt she just had to check it out. She sat herself in it, and it fitted.
Perfectly. She could have sat there all night. Reliving Maugham in summer and hot ragi porridge in the
monsoon as the rain lashed two feet away, splashing her as well. But it was not to be. Inevitably, the heavy
cloak she thought she had put away came down again. Settling heavily on her shoulders.
It always happened, always returned. She could never, ever, buy old furniture from Goa without the
original owners putting in an appearance. And now, sitting in this old rocking chair that felt so hers, she
could feel herself growing, widening, her own tires broadening and spilling softly into folds, the creases
working into the pale green and pink floral print. Her hands clutched a rosary, black-beaded with a silver
crucifix. Only one decade of the rosary was left but today was Friday, the day of the sorrowful mysteries,
and she also had to pray for her dead. She could hear something why did they interrupt her while she

was praying, must be that infernal servant girl. "Donna Lucinda, Donna Lucinda," she turned slowly,
heavily. A portly man was silhouetted in the fading light.
Ahmedbhai stroked a chest of drawers lovingly, his palm flat against the rounded edges. This is a beautiful
piece, all teak, have you seen the handles?
It had happened again. Furniture that Su liked and picked went and conjured up people more beloved,
dogs she always thought whining for their owners. The conjured avatar had now gone, but she was
hung over with things that were not hers. The fear of dying alone, the sadness of letters that did not arrive,
of money that took so long to arrive and was never enough when it did. Of servants who died, of old-age
griefs and lonelinesses. Of want and need. These were not Sus sadnesses, they belonged to the floral
printed silver-haired woman in the chair, they belonged to the chair. Could she belong to that chair as
well? Su doubted it. She sighed. The other woman was gone but the cloak of sadness stayed. Heaviest was
the latterly sadness of selling the furniture and the little ivory figure of St Anthony from the chapel in
the old part of the house. It brought a lot of money, lasted the old lady some time, until the chandelier had
to go.
Su tossed her head back to clear it, walking away from the rocking chair. Silly, nostalgic, sentimental
stupidity, she rubbished her fancies. But Anish was looking at her wearily. Not again?! his look said. So it
was still on her face. She shrugged, just to check if the cloak was still there. It had faded, already a faint,
half-forgotten weight. Su decided she wouldnt talk about it this time. Maybe the next time, it would not
happen. Maybe the next time she would simply walk in, pick a nice piece, buy it and take it home. Jettison
the crappy clinging to people and pictures from a quarter-century ago or more? Everybody else did. But
as Su stepped out of the shop, Ahmedbhai arrested her. The outside light had faded and the crammed
interior was a dim jumble of dark shapes under the solitary bulb. "Look at this crystal, pure Belgian
crystal," he said lovingly. Her eyes fell on the two door-handles of an old cupboard. Su did not see the
cupboard, only the two crystal handles, exquisitely cut. But something played tricks, clarified the light so
it seared her, bringing a sharp, painful awareness of a neighbour back home in Goa. The spinster who
lived on nothing, surrounded by a few pieces of furniture and a lot of goodwill, often hungry, always
proud. Su had to stretch her back to ease the constriction, to breathe. The exquisite crystal light spliced
the darkness, more oppressive than the cloak that she still bore.
The divan would have to do, she shrugged. It had sufficed anyway for so many years.
Merle Almeida is Editor, Equities Research, with Kotak in Bombay
.

Stranger in a strange land

Daud Haider
Have you seen how people hang like bats from buses and trams here?
Well, this is Calcutta!
Khokon thought, what a strange place Ive come to.

'Bangladesh', drawing by DHIRAJ DHOUDHURY (detail)

These lines constitute the first chapter of a novel. They tell you straightaway how the rustic boy comes to
this concrete jungle and looks upon it in awe. And how, after entering this madding crowd, he realises his
own loneliness. But then, loneliness is his only possession one that brings him closer to the city.
Because Calcutta has no one either, nor do many of the thousands who crowd its streets.
Khokon is the novels central character. Standing on the ground, he measures the gap between earth and
sky and concludes that even emptiness has a quantifiable existence.
The novel never reveals where Khokon actually comes from, nor which village he belongs to. Where does
he stand after abandoning his ancestral home, and is he not an outsider there? This is the question the
novel begins with.
But then the novel was never written. I had planned it in Calcutta some 25 years ago, in 1976. And of
course I have good reasons for not writing the novel.
The days of exile in Calcutta are so helpless and chaos-laden that Khokon feels that he has no shelter at
all. His own helplessness makes him angry. "I will crush it under my feet Ill twist the city beyond
recognition and throw it, hard" Of course, he cant do anything of the sort. He gets angrier. Climbs on
top of the Monument one day. He wants to see the village that hes left behind. But where is it? North?
South? The east, or the west?
His vision has its limits. Gradually, dusk falls. It gets dark. Pointing himself at the Governors House and
the state Secretariat, Khokon pisses noisily from the top of the Monument. He imagines the Governors
residence and the Secretariat drowning in his piss, and the whole city too. The people floating, drifting,
like himself.

I have no clue where to go. But I have to leave. Or else Muslim

fundamentalists will kill me while the government looks the other
way. Clearly, the government wants me dead too, and would use the
fundamentalists as the instrument of execution. "We told you it could
happen," theyd say once it was all over. No government owns up to
state-facilitated assassinations

But why does Khokon think of himself as drifting? He reasons that to be human is to be in exile, to float
without direction. The chain of humanity that originated and spread from Babel had Khokon at one end as
a descendant. Because to be uprooted from onehomeland was to be in exile. Those who abandoned East
Bengal before Independence and came to Calcutta seeking comfort arent they in exile too? The socalled refugees in their thousands in cities and villages are they just homeless refugees? The
immigrants havent they been in exile from the very beginning?
V.S. Naipaul wasnt born in India. His forefathers had left as long as a century-and-a-half ago. His
relatives are spread across the Caribbean islands. But even so, he and his contemporaries in his family
consider themselves to be immigrants, the exiled. And perhaps thats why Naipaul seeks the origins of his
narratives from the Indian soil and environment.
Salman Rushdie seeks the same thing, but he has his ancestral roots firmly planted in the subcontinent.
Even though hes left London for New York now and has donned the mantle of the Global Citizen, India is
still the source of his stories. And keep in mind that Rushdies present partner is an Indian.
What Im trying to say here is that even though these people might be in exile, the country and its culture
have become their companions. This happens in public, and sometimes even unknown to ourselves. I
have many examples only theyre not quite contemporary.
One anthology of my poems, published in 1976, was titled Ei Shaoney Parobashey (In Exile this
Evening). I had gone to give a copy to Bishnu Dey, an icon of modern Bengali poetry. He browsed the
pages, asking, "In exile? Coming from Bangladesh to Calcutta?" I reminded him that Calcutta and
Bangladesh are in different nations now. "Even you are in exile," I told him.
"And hows that?" Well, leaving North Calcutta for its southern quarter, the difference in environment and
culture, didnt all this make him an exile just as well? Dey found it amusing: "True, there are differences in
the environment and influences of these two quarters. The south is influenced by the culture of East
Bengal, while the north is relatively old and traditional, yet thanks to the Marwari population, it wears
cosmopolitan colours" Wasnt his poem Everyones a Stranger in Calcutta wearing those colours as
well?
While in South Calcutta, Dey had written these lines:
I am a stranger in this jungle of people,
I talk face to face, yet a sturdy wall meets my eyes
I am a stranger, sent by some mistake of God
To the great hall of earth but I dont follow their language
When the Bangladesh government asks me to leave my country, it is
dusk. May 20, 1974. Just out of prison, I am told to leave Dhaka that
very evening. But my mother is sick. So I get permission to spend one
night in the city.
I have no clue where to go. But I have to leave. Or else Muslim fundamentalists will kill me while the
government looks the other way. Clearly, the government wants me dead too, and would use the
fundamentalists as the instrument of execution. "We told you it could happen," theyd say once it was all
over. No government owns up to state-facilitated assassinations.
So, to save my life, I leave my country for Calcutta on May 21, 1974. I take a Bangladesh Biman flight. It is
morning. All I have with me is this bag slung over my shoulder. It contains my books of poetry, two shirts,
two pairs of trousers, a pair of slippers, toothpaste and a brush. I have exactly 60 (Indian) paise in my
pocket. I dont know where Ill stay, what Ill eat. Sixty paise doesnt get you even a handful of puffed rice.

Therefore, from the moment I land in Calcuttas Dumdum Airport, I am decided Im in exile, what do I
care? I shall live on the streets. I shall drink water supplied by the city municipality, work in a restaurant
as a waiter, or maybe as a porter, or in some factory as hired labour. Or as someones domestic servant.
But I would have to get work. And before that, I would have to go hunting and pleading for it. Even for
that, one needs to eat. How could these sixty paise buy me a meal?
I notice the warm teardrops only then. I wipe my eyes, but the tears dont stop. I have left behind my
homeland, my family. Will this alien nation give me refuge?
Bangladesh Biman counter, Dumdum Airport. Manned by two employees. I introduce myself. One of
them is astonished. He says hes a fan, and rushes to get me tea. I ask him if I could make a few calls.
"Sure! Make as many as you want"
I know no one in the city. So who do I call? Suddenly I think of two names the Bengali poets Shakti
Chottopadhyay and Sunil Gangopadhyay. I had corresponded with them before my imprisonment. I know
they worked for the Bengali newspaper Ananda Bazaar Patrika. I call, to be told that neither of them
have reported for work no, whether theyd turn up at all wasnt known. What now? I must clutch at
every straw before I go down. Back in Dhaka, I had written poems for Desh, a weekly magazine also
published by the Ananda Bazaar Group. I call up the editor of Desh he isnt in either. There! Even the
final glimmer of hope is gone now. Then I spot the names of Santosh Kumar Ghosh and Rupadorshi on
the list of Ananda Bazaar staff. I had read Ghoshs novel Dear Mother. And Rupadorshis Calcutta is a
pleasure cruise, ha ha!
No, the operator says even Ghosh isnt in.
And Rupadorshi?
No, hes not here either. Maybe hes at home
Could you give me his residence number?
Who are you?
Im a poet, from Bangladesh. Poet I needed that word.
The operator gives me the number. I didnt know back then that Rupadorshi was actually the nom-deplume of Gour Kishore Ghosh. I call him up at home and tell him my saga. "Ananda Bazaar carried a
story about you just yesterday," he says. "Come over to my place, well think of something"
So I find shelter at Gour Kishore Ghoshs place. Thus begins my life in Calcutta, my days of exile.
I spent over a month at his place. Changed several addresses thereafter. Besides writing for newspapers, I
worked as a domestic servant too. I did have to adopt a Hindu name, though. I lived on the streets as well,
after quitting jobs. I have written extensively about those days in The Statesman in the past and I dont
want to repeat myself here.
I could have easily exchanged my name permanently for a Hindu one and begun life anew in Calcutta. But
I wondered if the political partition of 1947 meant that I really was severed from the Indian cultural
biosphere. Was I an alien, just because the countries were divided? But Tagore was mine too! Then? And
my father had lived in Calcutta before partition. How can this country disown my forefathers?

Of course, there is no fax or Internet at the time. If your phone call

gets through to Dhaka, you feel like a king. There are no public
telephones either. So I wait every day for letters from home. Waiting
can be worse than death Calcutta drills this realisation in

The police, however, arent swayed by such arguments. They dont need to listen. The cops cant be
avoided forever, several people reminded me. I wrote a poem:
Should I then drift away from this rooted mountain
Into the desert fire?
Am I not
A part of this Bengali landscape?
O country,
I wish to gift you my exile,
But can you keep away
From the eternal sentient life
on the shores of this earth?
Can you paint in watercolours this emptiness?
Or shatter the silence of a howling sky?
Of course, there is no fax or Internet at the time. If your phone call gets through to Dhaka, you feel like a
king. There are no public telephones either. So I wait every day for letters from home. Waiting can be
worse than death Calcutta drills this realisation in.
No money for a meal. I hang around the numerous restaurants in the Park Street-New Market area. Every
whiff from the kitchens excites my stomach. Not enough clothes with me either. I window-shop looking
at spotless shirts and trousers. I say, "No thank you, I wont be buying anything. I just want to look at
them"
I see the shopping malls of Dhaka memories of the city Ive grown up in and left behind come rushing
back. Then one day I discover that Calcutta is as lonely as I am. Tormented by the loneliness, it waits
silently for death. Only a loner can befriend another. Thus begins our love the love of the friendless.
My love for Calcutta becomes so intense that I think I shall never be able to love another city. So intense
for someone in exile that I soon begin to admit that I have lost my innocence to Calcutta. I declare this
love in a poem, which ends with:
Youth, at the far end of a long lifetime,
Wants you in loves soul-hugging embrace
You my liberation in spring, autumn or the monsoons

The poem is published in an obscure little magazine. Obscure, because a second issue never came out. But
amazingly, two young ladies students of Calcutta University and Jadavpur University write to me.
The editor duly delivers their letters to me. Which bear their addresses, so I write back. Disaster strikes.
Both the ladies declare their love.
I fix a date with one of them. We decide to be together in Haldia, near Calcutta, from morning till eight in
the evening. We book a hotel room, she pays. When were in bed, she says, "What? Youre circumcised?"
Then she says, "Muslims eat a lot of garlic. You must be eating a lot too. So dont kiss me"
"Okay, no kisses," I say, adding, "Lets go for a walk on the river bank."
"Why?"
"I dont have a condom"
"Dont need one please?"
"So youre in exile, right?" she asks two hours after that "please".
"So how do you mingle in this country?"

"Of course Im of this socio-cultural biosphere. But my identity is that

of an alien, or an exile. I dont belong because of the difference in my
appearance, my manner of speaking, my attitude, my social
behaviour. And because Im an alien, Ive been desperate lately to
portray my own culture"

"Every exile mixes with the local cultural and social milieu. Theres no religion at work here no concept
of the nation and the self either. But the questions arise after you mingle. Like they have for me now. Like
they arise for anyone in exile. And these questions compel exiles to hunt for their country, their sociocultural moorings, their identity. Actually, these very questions never let them forget that they are in exile,
in asylum. Despite the shelter allowed, you are still an alien, you do not belong."
"But do you really not belong to this country?"
"Of course Im of this socio-cultural biosphere. But my identity is that of an alien, or an exile. I dont
belong because of the difference in my appearance, my manner of speaking, my attitude, my social
behaviour. And because Im an alien, Ive been desperate lately to portray my own culture."
"Can you do that here, in this foreign land?"
"Certainly. First, through the difference in my physical appearance; then through the differences in my
accent and dialect"
"Then how do you define your existence in this country?"
"Im a foreigner."
"Arent they more global?"

"Not really; not if they hang tags like alien, exile on me"
"Do you sing? What songs do you sing?"
"Who will live in this foreign land"
"Whos written it?"
"Me!"
"Dhut! You fib so much. Since when have you been writing songs?"
"From the day Tagore did it. All his songs are mine. As they are yours. As they are every Bengalis. He has
written on behalf of every Bengali. On behalf of everyone in this world. Tagore is yours, mine
everybodys. Doesnt that justify my claim?"
"So what? You didnt sing it"
"Every Bengali sings it. Every exile sings it. The Bengalis are always in exile, forever seeking their identity.
And whenever a clear picture emerges, they sing out:
Who will live in this foreign land!
Live with this hesitation, misery and grief,
Who will offer shelter in sorrow, fear or crisis
With no one to call ones own in this desolate field"
Dusk, foggy grey like the wings of the eagle, flies in over the landscape. Strange sky. Strange evening.
Strange horizon. Strange environment with stranger people. Their faces stick out. They look tired,
exhausted, troubled by deep inner storms. Carrying on with depressed eyes on a journey without
destination. Alone in this universe. Humming under the burden of loneliness:
"O motherland, I lay my head down on thee"
The collage of emptiness and silences forms itself amidst all the din and chaos. I see my own shadow all
over the room. It looks exactly like me. It even moves its lips in a silent song: Who will live in this foreign
land

Translated from the Bengali by Arnab Ray Ghatak with TLM

Daud Haider, a revolutionary poet of Bangladesh, was jailed and forced to leave his country
in the seventies. After several years in India, where his poetry flourished, he now works as
a broadcast journalist in Berlin