When MPs turn poets

An edited version of the article appeared in The Indian Express on April 5, 2011.

Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, April 4, 2011

"Pankh bhi hai, khula aasman bhi hai … phir yeh na udne ki majboori kyun.” (We have wings, and there is the open sky, too. But why can't we fly ...)

From her chair in the Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar recited the couplet from her poems on Women's Day. The members sat, brooding.
She was talking about the collective experience of women in India, the struggle for empowerment, lamenting the fact that the Women's Reservation Bill is still stalled in the Parliament.
She is the first Lok Sabha Speaker to have recited a poem from her chair as the members discussed the bill that aims to empower the women by facilitating political participation.
“If you give me permission, I would like to recite from a poem I wrote long ago,” she had said. Now, there is another outlet for her poems.
The Lok Sabha is all set to launch its first literary journal in Hindi soon. The Speaker will be launching it.
Her poems have been included in the first edition of the Sansadiya Manjusha, the half-yearly magazine that was conceptualized by the Lok sabha Secretariat, is a compilation of the writings of the members of the Parliament and its staff.
Kumar's two poems - “Salib ko dhota Masiha” (The Messiah carrying the Cross) and Shabri, which is the name of a woman ascetic in the Hindu epic Ramayana who belonged to the Bhil tribal community. According to mythology, Lord Rama had visited her hut and ate the berries picked by her and tasted by her to check if they were sweet. In her devotion, she had overlooked the fact that she should not have tasted the food before. She also belonged to the Scheduled Tribe.
Kumar is the first Dalit woman speaker of the Lok Sabha. Hailed as the Dalit face of the government, her poems speak of the Dalit struggle and their lot.
BJP's Ahmedabad MP Dr. Kirit Solanki has also contributed an essay on the process of democracy in India along with Dr. Mahesh Joshi, an Indian National Congress MP from Jaipur who has written on the sculpture in the Parliament. He writes that if perceived from a poet's eye, one can see the beauty of the complex.
There is an article on mandatory voting by INC MP from Delhi JP Agarwal as well where he talks about how political participating through voting rights is a must for effective governance.
Harnam Singh Takkar, the editor of the magazine, said the proposal for such a journal was mooted in October and it was appreciated by the members. Since the Rajya Sabha and several other assemblies have their own literary cum parliamentry affairs journals like Madhya Pradesh which has Vidhayani, it was time that Lok Sabha had soemthing of its own, he said.
“We have included relevant issues about Parliamentary processes. We have included the history of the Parliament and informative snippets about proceedings. We want to distribute it freely. It will be given to all the staff. In fact the Speaker has been involved with the magazine and she chose the cover page. She rejected the Parliament photo on the cover. She didn't want it as rutine. We got other designs and We solicited the pieces via the news bulletin we have for the members,” Takkar said. “This is above party politics. It doesn't support any political party or ideology. The editorial policy is that it will remain impartial.”
Takkar said he received a lot of entries for the first issue.
“I like Shabri. It is a very evocative poem,” he said.
Shabri is a poem where the protagonist is named after the mythological character. It is a personal narrative, an imagined conversation with a Dalit woman, who works as a domestic help cleanign peoples' homes and eating leftovers. In the narrative, Kumar speaks to the modern day Shabri. It is about the relevance of the community, a tale of their life, an existence marred by prevalent prejudice and stigma.
It is from her experience of her community that the poem flows. It is an insider's view. The community is the backbone of the urban life. Had they not been here to clean up, and support the new urban wealthy lifestyle, the city wouldn't stand. Shabri is the voice of the community. She comes from the slums, from the periphery of the urban landscape, marginalized and exploited.
“Mere shehar mein … shehar mein mere Shabri rehti hai. Wah jo gandi naali behti hai. Jhuggi tale wahi mere shehar mein shabri rehti hai. Mili hoon … ek din aayi thi mere ghar ki, bartan mal doongi, jhadu-pocha kar doongi, kuch paison aur jhuthan par reh loongi.”
“In my city, Shabri lives. Where the dirty drain flows, under the shadows of the slums, Shabri lives in the city. I have met her. She came to my house one day. She said I will wash the dishes, clean the house, and I will survive on meagre wages and leftovers.”
The magazine aims to promote Hindi language and Kumar said it would be voice of the Parliament, carrying its members' expressions in Hindi, which has the potential to unite the country.
For the longest time, the members and the staff had felt the need for such a magazine, she wrote in her message in the magazine. She has also lent her touch to the cover. Besides writing poetry, she also paints.
Her poems are woven around the Dalit experience and her gender. They are the stories of the struggle women and of the marginalized people.
“She isn't very vocal. So she finds her expression through her poems, which she recites in the House and elsewhere,” her spokesperson Rakhee Bakshee said.
In her speech at the Rashtriya Kavi Sammelan in the memory of her late father Babu Jagjivan Ram, the former Deputy Prime Minister and one of the most influential Dalit leaders of the country, she said there is a poet in all of us.
“Poems are nothing but an expression of pain and pleasure,” she said in Hindi. “It is a medium to express our hurt, and personal experiences. It gives relief to us.”
To her, it has become the expression of her Dalit angst, of her frustration with the state of things.
In Allahabad on a recent visit, she stood in front of the Ganges and recited “Kyun udas behti hai Ganga.” (Why the Ganges flows sadly.”
It stemmed from a lament on the pollution of the river, from her environmental concerns.
“People have called her soft power,” Bakshee said. “This is her way of expressing her emotions, her politics, her ideas and her angst. It is the voice of the marginalized.”
While she doesn't get much time to write her poetry after she became the Speaker, Kumar still tries to pen a few when she can spare a few moments.
“She is thinking of compiling her poems,” Bakshee said.
For now, she digs a couplet from the annals of her memory, a repository of her writings, and uses it to reflect on the state of affairs.
'A poet looks at the world in the same way as a man looks at a women – with surprise, bewilderment, and curiosity. The difference between a poet and a common man is all about the way they feel, seek, experience, and the ability and patience to express those,” she wrote in her speech.
Maybe as she writes that through the literary magazine, first-ever attempt in the Parliament, the members will be able to offer solutions to the pressing issues of our times, the Speaker too will be able to move the country through her poems and liberate herself in the process.