IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER (A Reflection on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March) -Fr. Cedric Prakash sj

IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER

(A Reflection on the anniversary of Gandhi’s Dandi March)

-Fr. Cedric Prakash sj*

It just doesn’t matter

If a six year old girl is raped

Inhuman and brutal in a most horrendous deed

After all she is not my daughter

So why should I bother?

It just doesn’t matter

If that man on the street is about to die

One burden less to affect a sore eye

Besides, he is just a non entity

My help is more needed for some celebrity

It just doesn’t matter

If Rupa Mody waits in pain and in desperation

To encounter Azhar in a real apparition

He is her only son who disappeared one day

“But he is not mine” I glibly say

It just doesn’t matter

That ‘Citizens’ Nagar’ is by the side of a garbage dump

Where polluted water vomits from an only pump

After all they are folk who just need not be here

As for me, I belong to a very different sphere

It just doesn’t matter

If the Land Acquisition law favours power and might

And callously tramples on the common man’s right

‘Development’ after all is the name of the game

Why would I deny my claim to fame?

It just doesn’t matter

If the poor farmer has committed suicide

There is so much more in which one can take pride

That miserable guy’s yield was really bad

Is there reason then for me to feel sad?

Yes, it just doesn’t matter

It just doesn’t matter

As long as there is ‘ME’ ‘MYSELF’ and ‘MINE’ forever

12^th March, 2015

(The Dandi March took place on 12^th March 1930)

(* Fr. Cedric Prakash SJ is the Director of PRASHANT, the Ahmedabad-based Jesuit Centre for Human Rights, Justice and Peace.)

Address: ‘PRASHANT’, Hill Nagar, Near Saffron Hotel, Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad - 380052

Phone: (079) 27455913, 66522333 Fax:  (079) 27489018                             
Email: sjprashant@gmail.com       www.humanrightsindia.in