J.P., What Revolution Had It Been? Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Jayaprakash Narayan, J.P. in short, what revolution had it been
That in its trail, came it
The awkward fellows, the rustic ministers,
Those who knew not how to talk,
How to speak and how to behave
Too turned into our M.Ps. and M.L.As.
Ministers and leaders?

J.P., whatever call they or think you yourself,
You did not do the right thing
For the nation in pains
As they improvised their poor performance
To the division of the mother India,
Between the backwards and the forwards,
People checking into the trains
And asking about caste and creed.

Instead of taking the unemployed and the jobless educated youths,
Took you the hanumans,
Bapu’s banars not,
Red-mouthed small monkeys not,
But black-mouthed hanumans
To be your followers,
I mean the bluff-masters and the blunt
To do the politics of yours,
Who heard you not
And on seeing them, you too separated yourself.

J.P., see you yourself and say it,
Can the fools and the illiterates, the uncultured and the uneducated,
The bogus and the blunt,
Simpletons and blockheads,
Loafers and roamers
Be substitutes for
For the transfer of power?