My first reaction to the book that Rajiv Malhotra, from America, published on Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib, Shashi Tharoor, Ramachandra Guha, Sheldon Pollock, Wendy Doniger, Devdutt Pattanaik, Kancha Ilaiah, Audrey Truschke and Michael Witzel,with a title “Ten Heads of Ravana”’. The chapter on me is entitled as Kancha Ilaiah—Bharat Vikhander
There is team of intellectual Ksatriyas
They say I am Ravana’s head,
The Vikhander of Akhanda Bharat,
They write with a sword, not with a pen.
This head must be burnt till it becomes ash,
This must be done to protect Dharma.
Earlier another team said
I was a hand of Bin Laden.
Yet another team said,
I was a foot soldier of George W.Bush.
What am I, actually?
Who knows the truth about me?
Mahatma Phule and Savitribai know who I am.
I am a great grandson of Harappa
Grandson of the Phules,
I am a shepherd roaming
In search of the lost sheep.
Shepherds world over make nations, not break them.
Harappa, Moses and Beerappa
Are known for making nations.
I too go in their path
I am a path breaker, not a nation breaker.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is political theorist, social Activist and writer. His recent book The Shudras–Vision for a New Path Co-edited with Karthik Raja Kuruppusamy has shown a possible way out from the communal OBC morass that the RSS/BJP has deployed.
