A Prayer by Indians – S P Udayakumar

S P Udayakumar has been leading nonviolent, peaceful protests by thousands of villagers around Koodankulam in South India, asking for transparency and re-thinking of the commissioning of a nuclear power plant that poses risk to thousands of poor, unprivileged villagers who live around the site.

Kumar’s message is intense because he wishes to prevent the poor from a Fukushima like disaster. Our Indian Constitution guarantees the right to free speech and peaceful protest – a right that has been abused in hands of dirty politics for Kumar and thousands of villagers, who have been blocked food supplies and to be heard by Indian or foreign media.

Below is Kumar’s poem in protest of this abuse of their collective fundamental rights and for being treated violently by police forces. Several unjust arrests have been made and the international peace community is watching our dirty “democracy”.

– Sumeet Grover

*****

A Prayer by Indians
by S P Udayakumar

With Due Apologies to St. Francis, Reinhold Niebuhr and St. Patrick

Oh, Prime Ministerial Lord, make me a sports authority of your games;
where there is common, let me steal wealth;
where there is contract, commission;
where there is agreement, kickbacks;
where there is deal, cut;
where there is pact, brokerage;
where there is bill, fee.
Oh, Apolitical Master!
grant that I may not so much seek to be taxed as to tax;
to be assessed, as to assess;
to be looted, as to loot;
for it is in plundering that we receive,
it is in funding that we are funded,
and it is in boot-licking that we are born to Powerful Life.

Oh, Neta, grant me the temerity
to accept the radioactivity that I cannot avoid;
Patriotism to welcome even more activity
and stupidity not to know the difference
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting nuclear plants and bombs as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He –the O-Bomb-Ma– did, this scientific world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that His Capitalistic Masters will make all things right
if I surrender to Their Corporate Will;
That I may be reasonably radioactive in this life
and supremely radiant with PM
Forever in the next.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity –Money, Machine, Market
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity –Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity –Communalism, Corruptionism, Capitalism
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this day to me forever.
By power of profit, Capitalists’ incarnation;
Its baptism in the exploitation river;
Its death on Gross for my manipulation;
Its bursting from the share market;
Its riding up the hedonistic way;
Its coming at the day of trading;
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great oppression of the powerful;
The sweet ‘Go to Hell’ in judgment hour,
The service of the Political Leaders,
Bureaucrats’ faith, Scientists’ word,
The businessmen’s prayers, the Military Chiefs’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Foreign Lord,
And impurity of stinking souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the First Families,
The glorious sons’ and daughters’ life-sucking way,
The blackness of the night at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of the PM to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of the PM’s boss to teach,
Her hand to guide, Her shield to ward,
The word of both to silence my speech,
Their foreign host to be my guard.

Bribe be with me, Bribe within me,
Bribe behind me, Bribe before me,
Bribe beside me, Bribe to win me,
Bribe to comfort and restore me.
Bribe beneath me, Bribe above me,
Bribe in quiet, Bribe in danger,
Bribe in hearts of all that love me,
Bribe in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Corrupt;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all politics hath creation,
Eternal Sycophancy, Nepotism, Favoritism:
Praise to the Lords of my exploitation,

Exploitation is of PM the Lord.

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Global Poetry Editorial Team.

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