Ahimsa’s Prayer | Sagari Chhabra

Shalom Netanyahu!
You want to tell the world,
‘We are winning!’
but perhaps you could consider
that you are sinning.
Before you bomb Yemen
tell the Israeli Defence Force
and all ye men,
there is a Holocaust unfolding;
but this time it’s in West Asia.

The bones of the brown
are bones which are also white,
it’s a grisly sight,
red is the colour of blood on the streets
and red is the colour of the eyes that cry,
asking why,
O why are we caught on the rack of history?
How can you be deaf to the cries of children
trapped under your war’s rubble;
there is no bubble
under which you can hide,
for this is a genocide
along with humanity’s suicide.

We in India gave the Jews refuge,
come do your Shema at the Jewish synagogue here;
remember anti-semitism originated in Europe,
not in Asia;
on Gandhi’s birthday
we ask you to pray
and not slay
for the message is of ahimsa – non-violence,
we must speak and break this silence,
for every life is divine,
not to be rendered supine;
the world must be whole and healed
and not yield
to the might of your military machine,
the West has now lost its civilizational sheen.
We saw much later the pictures of the Holocaust
but we now watch this live, aghast -
the relentless bombing of Gaza, Lebanon
and Yemen by drones,
the savage killing of innocents
just cannot be condoned,
nor the acceptance of two
peace-abiding nation states be postponed.

Stop this circle of violence,
O Netanyahu, come to the table
even with your blood-stained mouth
and hands hardened;
humbly ask for god’s pardon.
Ahimsa must survive,
even amidst the blood of innocents
on this our earthly, human hive.

Sagari Chhabra
2nd October 2024