Notarized Silence

Randhir Thiyam
This is called war, they say—yet feels erased,
A people edited out, line by line.
Ethnic cleansing, whispered, then rephrased
As “policy,” stamped with a proxy’s sign.

A joint venture inked in shadows and smoke,
Where silence partners power hand in glove;
The hills speak first when the rifles spoke,
And poppies bloom where laws forgot to love.

Why does the State go mute when villages burn,
When forests fall to make forbidden homes?
Why watch from plains while bullets take their turn,
And hills rehearse the language of drones?
If governance means looking the other way,
Who guards the innocent—and where stays peace to stay?