Posted below is the English translation of a Punjabi poem by SWARAJBIR, Editor of Punjabi Tribune, on the culpability of the state. The poem in the original Punjabi is at the end.
Mahavir Narwal breathed his last yesterday, of Covid. He was an active member of the CPI(M) and the father of Natasha Narwal, activist of Pinjra Tod, a feminist collective, who has been in jail for a year along with Debangana Kalita, another Pinjra Tod activist. Along with many others, Natasha was accused on the basis of no evidence, of having caused the violence in Delhi in January-February 2020, the violence that was in fact carefully planned and orchestrated by the forces that run this regime.
What all the activists jailed for the 2020 Delhi violence are guilty of, is the firm commitment to equal rights to citizenship in India, and unrelenting opposition to the regime’s continuing attempt to establish Hindu Rashtra, a project rejected by the vast masses of this country, and which we will resist and defeat through militant non-violent means.
When accounts are drawn up of this criminal regime, we will remember the disrespect to the Constitution repeatedly shown by different arms of the judiciary. Natasha was refused bail on earlier occasions, and her latest plea for bail to meet her Covid-stricken father one last time, was scheduled to be heard today, Monday the 10th of May, the morning after Mahavir Narwal’s death.
Dear Kind Judge Sahib
Swarajbir
Kind Judge Sahib,
Mahavir Narwal is dead.
Yes Judge Sahib,
Natasha’s father
is no more in this world.
Kind Judge Sahib,
A day ago, this daughter
had come to your Court.
She had not said
“Don’t prosecute me”
She had not said
“Declare me innocent”
Her lawyer had prayed,
“Give her two moments
She is to see her father
She wants to talk to him a bit,
He is sick.”
She was 13 years of age
When her mother died
Her father was her mother
A shade giving tree he was.
You know Judge Sahib,
You know it too well,
That this girl
did not incite violence in Delhi,
She is innocent.
She wanted to break the cages of society,
And you put her into the cage of the State.
You are too powerful Judge Sahib
You are munsif.
You could have given her two moments
to see her father.
Judge Sahib, you can keep her in prison for more days
You can hand over her a sentence of life imprisonment
Your black robes have all the powers Judge Sahib.
You can do justice.
What is written above is wrong.
You can do everything Judge Sahib,
But you couldn’t grant her
Two moments to talk to her father,
You couldn’t give her
those two moments Judge Sahib,
because you don’t have that heart which could grant her
those two moments.
You have power
You have justice,
You had said
You will hear the prayer on Monday.
Judge Sahib, that Monday won’t come
That Monday
has disappeared from the calendar.
Judge Sahib,
For your whole life,
You will be searching for that Monday.
Punjabi original
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
very nicely and painfully written poem.
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No words to express sorrow and anger.
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Natasha, I am sorry to know about sudden departure of your father is making my heart cry. Sending my heartfelt sympathies. May Lord give you all the strength to bear this tough time and pray to the Almighty to give peace to the departed soul.
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Heart cleaving .😢😢😢😢
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India is being asphyxiated by more than the current pandemic; it was being starved of its vitality since the time the current ragtag of sociopathic political wannabes descended on Delhi. The shame and the tragedy of what has befallen the country are beyond repair.
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It is with lot of pain that one heard the news of Com Mahaveer Narwal’s passing away.
Rare are such parents in these times who support their children to fight against injustice.
Talking about Natasha’s incarceration he had said : “There is nothing to fear about being in jail.. My daugher will cope with positivity and come back stronger.”
Red Salute Com Narwal. We wil cherish your memory.
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Just shows how heartless and inhuman our members of the judiciary are. Narwal or Kalita or other human rights activists right from Stan Swamy Sudha Bhardwaj to Umar Khalid, there’s no case against them but they are languishing in jails because this Government wants to punish them
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A heart-rending poem & story. It echoes the agony of tens of thousands of families who have suffered at the hands of this regime since it usurped power in 2014. Author & activist Arundhati Roy has aptly said : PM Modi’s “pathology is infectious.”
When deaths, in thousands, are occurring all over the country, every day, how is the RSS reacting ?
RSS Manohar Khattar, who is also Haryana’s Chief Minister, is remorseless : “. . Now, a person who has died, is not going to be alive again because of the furore created by us. . .”
RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale’s paranoid symptom becomes florid : “Anti-Bharat forces in the society are creating an atmosphere of negativity & mistrust in the country.”
However, there is hope too. The likes of Natasha Narwal will keep rising in this land. . .
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The whole world should be made aware that India’s criminal justice system is being reduced to a cruel and sadistic mockery. Vigilantes of the Sangh Parivar get away with violence and incitement under the noses of the police, whilst cases are fabricated against activists fighting for human rights and democratic norms. Why could not the courts have heard this case earlier? Why was Natasha Narwal not even permitted to say goodbye to her father? Do India’s police officials just live for pleasing the government of the day? Is there such a thing as a human conscience? Do the judges and officers sleep peacefully? And all this sadistic behaviour is practiced to please whom exactly?
The Delhi Police and the court have also stipulated that Natasha not ‘make any comments or tweets about the case’. Really gentlemen! May she weep? May she say anything about her life in jail? Other than Long Live Our Supreme Leader? Suppose she says she has had 5-star treatment, will you withdraw your benevolence? Shame on the police, public prosecutors and the justice system. Read this poem if you have an ounce of courage left in your spines. What a tragedy. My deepest condolences to Natasha and her family.
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Hope India too will have its N’berg moments and the great many who nurtured and carried out and collaborated with evil will stand trial.
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