PARINITHA SHETTY: I Refuse to be

By Dilip -
I refuse to be the Hindu you want to shape me into.
I refuse to be the Hindu vote which will sustain the insane authority of your power.
I refuse to be the saffron of your Hindu flag that you bear like a sword ready to kill.
I refuse to be the Hindu for whom Rama can only be worshipped in the temple you will build after reducing a mosque to rubble.
I refuse the citizenship of your Hindu Nation in which Muslims will not be my equals as fellow citizens.
I refuse to be a Hindu who does not recognize that dead soldiers are the price we pay
For dividing ourselves as Hindus from those who are our own.
I refuse to be a Hindu who is made to recognize herself in the images of inhuman monsters you hold before me and which you claim are my reflections in a mirror

I refuse to allow you to crush the many splendoured , many hued, glorious, joyous, infinitely spiritual, creatively mutating and deeply compassionate possibilities of being a Hindu,
into the slogan of hate
into the rhetoric of fear
into the prison of bigotry
into the law of the tyrant
into a fragmented nation.
I refuse to be the Hindu you want me to be
And I will defy every effort of yours to dehumanize me
And shape me into that monstrous creature you call by the name Hindu

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