A Protest Song
Digital History ID 37

Date:

Annotation: A protest song.

Document: Some push us around, some curse us.
Where is your splendor and prestige today?
The whole world calls us black thieves,
The whole world calls us “coolie.”
Why doesn’t our flag fly anywhere?
Why do we feel low and humiliated?
Why is there no respect for us in the whole world?

Source: Ved Prakash Vatuk, Thieves in My House: Four Studies in Indian Folklore of Protest and Change (Bhairavanath, Varanasi, India, 1969), 71-72.