The political art of Rollie Mukherjee is not meant to console nationalism but to confront the reality of India’s occupation of Kashmir:

“You may embrace our poems. Sing our songs. But do not asphyxiate them like bodies in the gas chambers of Auschwitz & Majdanek. Like tear gas smoke choking our uteri. Do not disfigure our elegies like the pellet-ridden faces & backs of our boys. Like barrels shoved into our wombs. Do not electrocute our beats like our bodies in Papa II, Hari Niwas. Do not torture them by strappado. Do not crush them under roller, waterboard them, sear them in secret torture chambers. Do not violate our rhythms like vanguards of your peace violate our landscapes. Do not lay siege on them like our cities. Do not desecrate our poems like you desecrate our dead.”

Long live Kashmiri Intifada. End the occupation. Self-determination for Kashmir.