BALI KE BAKRE

Our soldiers and para-military forces are nothing but “bali ke bakre” for members of the establishment: be it politicians, bureaucrats or any other agency like the election commission. Because of their callousness and lack of understanding about the ground realities our men continue to die unnecessarily. They are made to go like sitting ducks, because there isn’t any planning or strategy to address the obvious dangers.

The recent deaths of our men in the first phase of elections show just that. What was the election commission thinking? Clubbing all the high risk regions together in the first phase was absurd. It only resulted in spreading the forces thinly over a vast area. Even a common citizen would know that having elections on the same day in places like the naxal affected areas of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh etc, and north-eastern states as well as Jammu and Kashmir was suicidal for any law enforcement agency.

Never before have so many security personnel died in election duty. Many election officers have also died this time. But, who cares? What does it matter if two dozen people die in a country of one billion, especially security people? After all that is what they are meant to do, some of our rulers would say.

No, they are not supposed to die like this. Especially, the way they died in Nalco’s bauxite mines at Panchpatmali hill in Koraput district(corporates are no better). The siege has shown in what pathetic conditions these men were housed in. One fan for 14 people and one toilet for 26 men! No proper drinking water and no basic amenities. Because of the heat inside the rooms, they have to sit out all day in the open. This how we treat our soldiers whom we expect to go out there face and the enemy from within and without and give up their lives happily. What an ungrateful nation!

Just, so that we may go about our lives peacefully and normally, these men live in harsh terrains, constantly under the threat of bullets and ambushes, and we cannot even provide them basic necessities like drinking water. They are expected to walk miles for fear of being ambushed but we cannot even house them properly and provide them with proper equipment. While, they carry antiquated guns, the ultras are armed with AK-47s. No political party will have anything to say about these things; because, the men who die are too insignificant.

MOTHER EARTH

since millennia
you have been doing this to me
carving portions of my body
drawing lines on my person
each bloodier than the last
you kept multiplying
and kept drawing lines
taking a piece of your own
nothing else would suffice
you never stopped to think
of my wounds or my pain
you continued
till the borders grew so tight
and my pieces so small
you could have had me
for mincemeat
now I am unrecognizable
as far as the eye can see
there are walls, fences and barricades
you call them countries, states, nations
but the lines that you so meticulously drew
also broke homes, families, hearts
they cut rivers, meadows and mountains
even the skies are in tatters
as you cannot fly into another’s
nothing is complete today
nothing is free
only one thing is true
there are enemies on every side
you spend millions to survive hate
what could have been yours with love