Abhay Xaxa

I am not your data, nor am I your vote bank,

I am not your project or any exotic museum object,

I am not the soul waiting to be harvested,

Nor am I the lab where your theories are tested,

I am not your cannon fodder or the invisible worker,

or your entertainment at India Habitat Centre,

I am not your field, your crowd, your history,

your help, your guilt, medallions of your victory,

I refuse, reject, resist your labels,

your judgments, documents, definitions,

your models, leaders and patrons,

because they deny me my existence, my vision, my space,

your words, maps, figures, indicators,

they all create illusions and put you on pedestal,

from where you look down upon me,

So I draw my own picture, and invent my own grammar,

I make my own tools to fight my own battle,

For me, my people, my world, and my Adivasi self!”

[Adivasi rights activist and poet Dr Abhay Xaxa, who was a research scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), passed away due to a heart attack on March 14, 2020. He was 37. Abhay was part of several movements, including Adivasi rights and campaigns for higher education for Adivasi youth. After doing a degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex in the UK, he came back to India to pursue research. Abhay has written extensively to raise awareness about the issues he cared about, such as how much money the Centre was spending on Adivasi upliftment. This is one of his best known poems.]