Those to the gallows went smiling for freedom
refusing the martyr’s fame,
their history pages you tear,
When will you show your documents!?
Of Taj-Mahal-Char-Minar domes
Red-Fort-Qutub-Minar minarets,
their proofs you demand
When will you show your documents!?
Bootlickers of the British rule,
in their intoxicating hate, you –
a Goebbel’s breed – drink blood
When will you show your documents!?
Men lived selling pakoda
and chai in my city, humanity
they didn’t sell, dignity they didn’t
sell, a concoction of lies they didn’t brew.
Tell us, when will you show your documents!?
When thorns pierced, tore, ripped
tyres, tubes which he mended and pumped air
the puncture-man did not sell his identity.
You who sold this country
Tell us, when will you show your documents!?
You who swindled the nation
to whom fake documents mean a trifling
matter must attest at least to humanity.
When will you show your documents!?
— Translated from the Kannada by Dhanya Gopal
(Poem first published on Scroll) (Image Credit: Times of India)