What Is India?

A past of subjugation,
A demise by Partition.
Mid-August imperatives:
Novel or derogative?

Orchestras of the crown,
Symphonies of a clown.
The classics of gore,
Native masters assured.

Fanatics defend treason,
Fault disciples of reason.
The seeds of nationalism:
Honour or extremism?

Sedition and heresy:
The English’s progeny?
The rampant intolerance:
The tyrant’s inheritance?

Flavours of royal make,
Unmatched to foreign tastes.
The flesh or root?
Feudal pursuits.

Politics in syllabus,
The classroom constituents.
The illiterate constant,
The sycophant to nonsense!

Such acclaimed academics,
Bachelors in magic tricks.
Faculty of electorates:
Doctorates or degenerates?

The indigenous on display,
Paint maladies of the day.
The colours of poverty,
Triumph or tragedy?

The squalor and stress,
Wages of the depressed?
Make patients of patience,
Hungry for rest.

Positive discrimination:
Deceit or representation?
Prejudice in bureaucracy:
Invention or reality?

An eternal class divide,
Indigence barely survives.
The soaring heights of wealth,
And deepening graves of debt.

Free speech meets the gun:
Bullet to the tongue.
Truth meets propaganda:
Silenced to surrender.

The street-mongering bigotry,
Temptresses acquit the guilty?
Passion precedes integrity?
The weeping female deities.

Archaic laws kept to ferment,
A mockery of the parliament?
A house averse to debate,
Makes much haste to legislate!

Courts burdened in deadlock,
Chasing a backwards clock?
Procedures of the pedantic,
System of the geriatric.

The economy’s secret:
The forerunner’s weakness?
Fiery fairy tales of growth:
The hypocritical oath?

Akshay Gudinho is a legal content writer from Mumbai. He is passionate about writing legal academic pieces and composes music and poetry in his free time.

Featured image credit: DARSHAK PANDYA/Pixabay