An Adivasi (Indian aboriginal) speaks

I was here before you.

This was our land.

Is.

We had our own ancient civilisation going, which you destroyed because it didn’t suit your idea of civilisation.

And then you chased us down, forcing us to flee deeper into the forests, in our attempts to escape your kind. Even there you would not leave us in peace. You chased us relentlessly, bent on destroying all we hold sacred and dear. Leaving us in abject poverty.

We worship nature. Worship too the cycles and circles it revels in. We live off the earth, and in time, we turn to ashes and dust. But that’s hardly enough for you.

I have watched my children go to sleep hungry. Their thin, emaciated bodies shivering with the emptiness that gnaws them from deep within their bellies. I have foraged for discarded mango pits and have crushed them open so that I can watch my children suck the marrow within. I have watched the young ones fight over things you unthinkingly throw into the garbage.

You’d be surprised at how little a body can survive on. I’ve known hunger, sharper than you’ve ever known.

I’ve seen you eye my land and grab it, all in the name of development and the greatest good of all. Whose good? Not mine.

My land was once rich, pregnant with life, teeming with wealth, ore and gold. Until your greed settled upon it. Now I have been rehabilitated to this piece of lifeless soil that should be ashamed to call itself earth. Cracked and parched with thirst, it hears not our cries for help. We try to tickle her with our axes and hoes, but her heart is made of stone. Like yours.

It won’t yield.

Today I am only fit to be discussed in your anthropology and sociology classes, where my quaint ways excite conversation and debate. Where youngsters discuss my way of life. A way of life they profess to appreciate for the benefit of a few good marks. A way of life they learn to deride when they join the rat race.

My plight will move you for a while, but it scarcely has the power to hold your attention for very long. Nobody recognises our rights. We live subhuman lives. We are the displaced, dispossessed,

My children are fierce. Despite the hunger within their bellies.

They believe the truth we’ve been passing down the generations. They think that we have worth just because we were here before you.

But I’ve lived long enough to know better. The meek do not inherit the earth. The meek only watch their inheritance stolen and squandered.

This is our land.



Was.