Poetry
Surat
December 1992
SARBPREET SINGH
This is the fifth in a
series of poems and essays by Sarbpreet Singh, marking the 30 year since India's anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984. The poem refers to the anti-Muslim violence of
December 1992. In Surat, Gujarat, India, scores of Muslim women were pulled off a Bhusaval bound train; their menfolk and
their children were butchered and they were made to strip,
and were chased naked through the streets by gleeful mobs: one more horrific incident of violence against minorities in the Indian State of Gujarat.
There is no moon
Your naked whiteness
Softly lights
The silent streets
Unmetalled with
Compassion
Strewn with jagged
Broken pieces of
Hatred
The scream that
Escapes from your
Lips, clenched bleeding,
Bursts from the mouth
Of another
Hundreds of miles away
The bitter tears that flow
Down your tender cheeks
Splash into the river
That has flown from her eyes
For eight long years
Try not to cover the shame
Of your nakedness
With tattered rags
Its useless;
Her body has burnt to ashes
Every sheet she tried
To cover hers with
Your violated body
Is but another lick
In the timeless
Inferno of injustice,
Which cannot be smothered
By clothes or vengeance
October 30, 2013