Adivasi children playing Athkheliya in a village of MP. Picture credit - Bhanu Prakash Meda

SCHOOL FOR ADIVASI CHILDREN
 

My children will forget our ancestors,
celebrating our oppressors’ history of oppression.
Under the bright lights of oppression,
our bloodshed will become just
another red colour in their festivities.
My children will not be taught about Adivasi rebellion
For we rebelled against all Dikus,
Savarnas who killed then and who kill now.
We rebelled for an independence we are yet to achieve.
My children will be taught shame,
shame on the colour of their skin,
shame on the shape of their nose or mouth,
shame on their name, shame and their heritage,
shame on how they eat, speak, dress,
shame, shame, shame.
In “neutral” textbooks,
taught by “apolitical” teachers
in classrooms meant to homogenise them
under one nation, one language, one people.
My children know or will learn Kurukh, Sadri, Hindi, English,
language after language, many without context
Yet none enough for the Dikus,
those who wish to exploit
and humiliate us with their cultural capital
in the schools built for them.
My children learn to live with our ecology,
and our survival is resistance itself,
life which is retold and sold as “sustainable”
Yet we will be measured by cities
built of concrete, with the coal of our land,
the water of our bodies, and the blood of our ancestors.
My children will be taught fear,
merit weighed by a self-proclaimed casteless society,
our knowledge imprisoned
like our falsely accused brothers; our sisters sold as bonded labourers
cursed or glorified by Dikus.
My children will be taught the oppressors’ “Education”,
that speaks of fancy teacups
with tea leaves from Assam and Bengal,
the place where our brethren were once traded
and are still exploited.
My children will be taught silence.
My children will speak.
My children will be silenced.

(The poem was written in English. The poet’s mother tongue is Kurukh.)