Wake Asia Wake - Part One - 7

And shake off the mantric spells ringing in your conditioned minds but remember and preserve the great sanskrit treatises those that refined aesthetics in dance music drama poetry in sculpted architecture Wake! Artful India! Wake! And see how all is not bad in the horrendous past see how Akbar the Great lavished learning in between dangling his sabre see how the Moghuls wrought lasting mausoleums in the name of love Wake! O! Suffering India! Wake! See how the British-planned railways brought you closer than ever before see the I.C.S. examination as the equaliser the Confucian meritocracy see how the Western savants discovered your own glorious past for you Wake! O! India! Awake! Recognize the truth of your enslavers’ contribution to the sub-continent heed not those who would poison your minds with chauvinistic lust accept the historical fact as a truth that cannot recede into wishful oblivion Wake! Now! India! Wake! There is no shame in being taught the truth of your present or past plight the accidents of history have reaped their toll on your memory but now you are master of your own fate of your own history to come Wake! India! Wake! Wake! and show the way to a better understanding for the less fortunate the maimed in mind the thwarted by birth those the abject shunned from sight let them also claim descent from your Himalayan height Wake! India! O! Wake! Before it’s too late! Before your own kind enslave you again victim to your former masters’ machinations slave to your own listless traditions Alas! Wake! India! Wake! Where is that all-embracing self-negating self You who have turned upon yourself once too often to shed your precious blood and repent Wake! India! Wake! (Continued in Part One - 8)