Wake Up India Poem by Sutputra Radheye

Wake up India
-Sutputra Radheye


O Indians
wake up from the slumber
you have been in since independence
and look at India-

It was the land with red soil
to which millions of men, women
and infants have donated their blood
long before you and I were born

It was the land with blue rivers
that flows with the sweat
of the people who burnt their days and nights
to craft the shape of this land

And today-

When you look at the faces of the people,
you can never say that the fathers, the grandfathers
of these people were the cultivators
of the long fight against oppression
you can never say that the rivers
with more plastics than fishes once
carried the ashes of the people
who drew the picture of India with their blood


I wasn't born when people fought against British
i have only read about them, or heard their stories
i will not be there to see how India looks a century after
it will only belong to my children and their children

But, the pillars of the future is my hand
i can be the architect of a new India
where people will not talk about the change
rather, be it

I know it won't be an easy journey
but, we need to try

the list of doings is long and the time is less
hurry up, comrade, hold each others hand
and come out of your houses with hammer and sickle,
with pen and paper, with questions of which you have no answer
to build the India of our dream...