Manu Smriti 8.281 and Vishnu Smriti 5.20: Chandala's buttocks shall be gushed if he sits on the same seat with a non-Dalit.

O Hindu,
We wake up into it
Not a nightmare,
A routine Dalit life.

The sun rises
But does not touch us first.
Roosters in the non-Dalit yards
Crow before we are allowed
To open our doors.
We step out
Into the day
Already guilty
Of being born
As Untouchable,

Guilty of the name on our tongue,
Of the skin that carries
Every insult is like a second spine.

Hindu morning:

Mantras, temple, and
Mosque violence
A Brahmin Chief Justice of India
Draws a line of ash
On his forehead,
Draws another around the
Village,
Town,
City,
Metropolitan city,
Capital city,
Country,
Continent
That we cannot cross.
He sprinkles "holy water"
To cleanse the
Street,
Local court,
Regional court,
High court,
Supreme court
After we pass,
Murmurs,
"May Ganga forgive this pollution."

Muslim morning:

The azaan rises
Ugly and violence
In the line behind the mosque,
We sweep the gutters,
Pull the rotting cloth
From the open drain.
Muslims step around us
Fold their blades tight
Later, they will say
"In Islam all are equal"
But the Muslim space
Is more brutal
Than the Hindu space,
And worse than the holocaust and
October 7 massacres
against our Dalit skins.

The marriage proposals
Never cross caste
Even the word
Is denied.

Between the Hindu temple
And the Muslim mosque,
We are the unspoken prey:
They are non-violent
Until we touch them.
But for a Muslim
Every non-Muslim
Is a prey.

We carry your filth
Your shit in wooden baskets,
Your spit on our faces,
Your slurs in our ears.
We clean your latrines,
Your slaughterhouses,
Your cremation grounds,
Your beheaded bodies.
We inhale the stench
You never have to name.

Every breath
Is a negotiation
With your brutal violence.

The Vaishya's breath says:
"Don't touch the jar.
Stand back.
I will drop the
Coin from a distance."

The schoolteacher's breath says:
"Sit in the back.
Don't drink from that glass.
Your father is a scavenger,
Know your status."

The non-Brahmin breath says:
"Do as we say,
Work as we command,
Or the entire Dalit basti
Will learn what fire tastes like..."

The Kanchikacherla Kotesu massacre,
The Kilvenmani massacre,
The Ramnad riots or the Mudukulathur riots,
The 1978 Villupuram atrocity,
The Dehuli massacre,
The Karamchedu massacre,
The Neerukonda Massacre,
The Tsundur massacre,
The Bathani Tola massacre,
The Melavalavu massacre,
The Laxmanpur Bathe massacre,
The Ramabai killings,
The Kambalapalli massacre,
The Khairlanji massacre,
The Gangrape of Suman Balai,
The Mirchpur massacre,
The Dharmapuri massacre,
The 2013 Ahmednagar murders,
The Dangawas massacre,
The Ariyalur gang rape massacre,
The Saharanpur massacre,
The Bhima Korean massacre,
The April caste protest massacre,
The Jitendra murder,
The Hathras gangrape and massacre,
The Indra Meghval massacre,
It goes on...

The Muslim breath says:
"Islam has no caste,"
But his daughter
Is warned not to play
With the Dalit girl
Down the street.

The Brahmin breath says:
"God lives in every heart,"
But his Hindu temple
Is washed with cow urine
If our shadow falls
On the step.

At every turn
We see it:
Religion dressed
In the language of mercy,
Caste holding the whip
Behind its back.