Amit Saurabh
M.Phil Student in IIT Bombay
Do you know of any person around you, who moves around in a torn shirt and a torn pant. Lugging about
two polythene bags, containing the bare minimum of items required for survival, reciting his own ‘revolutionary’ poetry, actively participating in students’ movements, spreading knowledge and staying on campus?
This is a glimpse of Ramashankar Yadav for you, who would later became known as “vidrohi”. When I was asked to write about him, the first thought that struck my mind was, how am I to write about someone, a person who never conformed to a pattern and who remained a rebel, his entire life. Someone who was a poet but never wrote anything on paper, someone who hardly had a title to his poems, someone who
was a revolutionary in his own existence. How am I to write? Ramashankar vidrohi joined JNU in 1980 as a student,from the very beginning of his life he actively participated in left student politics, and was rusticated in 1983 during a student’s movement. Since then he stayed and struggled in and on JNU campus for more than two decades. He died on 8th December 2015, and even during his last days, he was actively participating in occupy UGC movement. Vidrohi was the poet of the masses, who, in his poems, always raised the issues of the day to day struggles of the common man. He questioned, almost all the social, political patterns around us, and that was the beauty of his words, although he is famously cited as a ‘left poet’ but in his writing’s, he even criticized the Left. Ramashankar vidrohi was not only a poet but also was a ‘philosopher of life.’ He was highly influenced by Gandhi, but this side of his life, is not much highlighted. In his own words, “My life began with Gandhi … I want to tell you that Gandhi never lied to anyone,people lied to him and used him.” That is ‘vidrohi’ for you. I vidrohi would have followed ‘a pattern,’ I am sure he would have become one of the celebrated poets of this country, but his purpose was never that. His only purpose was to keep the fire in you awake!!
A translated poem
“मैं किसान हूँ
आसमान में धान बो रहा हूँ
कु छ लोग कह रहे हैं
पगले! आसमान में धान नही जमा
करता
मैं कहता हूँ पगले!
अगर ज़मीन पर भगवान जम
सकता है
तो आसमान में धान भी जम
सकता है
और अब तो दोनो में से कोई एक
होकर रहेगा
या तो ज़मीन से भगवान उखड़ेगा
या आसमान में धान
जमेगा।“………………….
I am a farmer…..and……
I am seeding paddy in the
heavens……
Few people are saying….
Idiot!!
Can you seed paddy in the
heavens?
I reply…..Idiots!!
If you can seed God on
earth….
I can seed paddy in heavens……
Now, only one will happen…..
Either God will be removed
from the earth….Or….
Paddy will be seeded in the
heavens!!!!
English