GANDHI IN AFRICA
Hazara Singh
With a self-imposed obligation
Called White man’s burned.
They flocked abroad
With rosaries long loose robes
To lands either called dark
Or those inhabited by heathens
For showing them light
To bring them, thus, in Lord’s fold
For they loved the natives as their own.
The love soon changed into the one for gold
White ivory and pastures, lush and green
Through the man; black, dark or brown
Did not see much of the promised light
Yet thereafter sun did not set on the Empire
The rosaries and pastures changed hands
Messengers of the Lord become landlords
The White man’s burned bonded the coloured
The obligation turned into segregation
The beloved natives become mera chattels.
It was M.K.Gandhi who showed them light
Truth was his slogan, fearlessness his weapon
Pride and hate were alien to his war cry
He kissed instead the hand that slapped
An apostle of peace, a votary of goodwill
Though frail in frame yet strong in mind
Not with a rosary but with a spinning wheel
Not by raising armies but through peaceful means
He revealed the image envisaged by God for man
On His earth all have right to live free of fear.