The Jokers Of Indian Democracy Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The jokers of Indian democracy talk I, dream I, think I about,
The jokers as the leaders and ministers of the People’s Government,
Of the People’s Party,
Going to the assembly house,
Some planning to go on a black buffalo,
Some on the bullock cart,
Some on the ass or the mare.

Wearing odd-odd, out of fashion clothes,
The villagers after managing older pants and shirts,
Getting ready to leave for the assembly house for the first time,
As there is none to take the reins from,
As the educated are absent from,
So keeping it view they want to cash the moments of their luck.

The rustic characters, all from the rural belt, the far-off countryside,
The odd and obscure rural folks and representatives
Start bargaining for ministerial berths and allocation of portfolios,
As all have to be ministers
And to show in the villages,
How they have changed into ministers,
English they will learn in time by being on chair.

And the files will automatically move on,
As the chair too teaches a man,
It is not important if one knows it or not,
What the educated have failed to achieve, we have
By becoming ministers,
Lo, the townsmen saluting us, calling us sirs!

Just now I have turned into a minister, I think,
I have to get a cemented house built
Instead of a mud-house with the straw-thatched roof
As because people come to my house searching,
But my mud-house speaks of my life-philosophy,
Sarvodaya and socialism.

Had the clowns and jokers been ministers,
They would have at least thought about,
But the half-read and half-schooled villagers most dangerous,
The uneducated and the foolish
As the leaders, the boatmen into the mainstream,
May sink too.

The villagerly rascals and idiots know no courtesy and delicacy at all,
I mean the half-read, the half-schooled,
Uncultured, uneducated fellows,
As they know it not how to speak, how to behave,
How to respect others, how to see with equality,
Without being revengeful and malicious.

If they sit on chair, they will not like to vacate it,
Giving it to his wife and daughter one after another,
They will try to behave peculiarly
As for keeping themselves in the limelight,
Chewing betel nut, rubbing tobacco before the audience
And putting into the mouth and delivering before.

And if someone challenges his authority, he will be thrashed,
His goons will beat that fellow
And he too will withdraw his complaint as for fear of life
And if he survives,
The police too will not do anything in this regard,
The camera of the media men will be snatched
If they come to snap the photos.

The villagerly fools know nothing but the lathi
And barring it, they have nothing to take hold of
And it is the lathi which fears it everyone,
The lathi of a fool, and that too an Indian villagerly fool,
Placing the lathi from the behind,
The blunt and the backward fools!

If the fools, villagerly rustics come into power,
Everything will look strange,
As for their expressions and idioms,
The way of speaking and talking,
As if some boss were speaking,
The blunt man on chair, the mafia man,
Had not been, but has become!

None but these rustics will start suppressing talents
And promoting themselves,
Asking the fools and illiterates to extend a helping hand to them
So that they too can be given the charge of districts,
Sub-divisions, blocks and villages politically,
Not to the educated as they will try to rise
With their knowledge and wisdom
And they will not salute so often.