Translated by Aniruddha Nagaraj & Ali Ahsan

[Four years ago, academic and activist M.M. Kalburgi was gunned down at his residence in Dharwad by two people linked to Sanatan Sanstha, a Hindutva outfit. Kalburgi was a vocal critic of idol worship and superstition, which often got him locking horns with Hindutva groups like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which made Kalburgi the target of their campaign during the years following up to his assassination on 30th August, 2015.

Here is a impassioned poem written (originally in Kannada) as a tribute to Kalburgi and to the countless other pens that will not be put down, by poet-activist Huchangi Prasad.]

You cowards—
firing at us who wield pens.
You murderers—
celebrating the cold-hearted killing of innocents.

Let the sparrows
build nests
at your gunpoints.

Your guns may have wounded us.
But we are not just bodies,
Mute bodies.

We are children of the earth,
our mother gives us life with every letter,
strength with every word.

Look, this is not blood we shed
but ink, fresh and indelible,
writing the history of truth.

Every drop of blood now reborn
into a thousand truths.

Listen—I know, you Great Devotees!
I know the sword that chopped Shambuka’s head.
I know who demanded Eklavya’s thumb.
I know the truth: I know that sword.
I know you who became a gun
to kill me.

Listen—lies are not termites
eating away at truth.
Guns cannot destroy it either.
But these pens, these countless pens,
How they grow, tall, strong,
like a gigantic tree of many truths.
(Huchangi Prasad is a writer and activist. He currently teaches at the Government First Grade College, Davanagere, Karnataka.)