Identity / Mamata Banerjee

What's your surname?
Your father's name?
What language do you speak?
What is your religion?
What do you eat?
You don't know?
Go away then,
This world has no room for you.

Who are you?
What's your identity?
Where do you live?
Where did you study?
Tell us.
Or else you're a traitor.

Who are you?
Whom do you support?
Have your previous five generations been registered?
What do you wear?
Do you have a 'Gobar-Dhan' account?
No?
You must be an illegal immigrant.

Do you listen to 'man ki baat'?
Do you write against the ruler?
Does your phone have Aadhar?
Are you a member of the 'Pay-B-Team'?
Have you registered all documents?
Are you against the oppressor?
Then there's no place for you.
Then you are an extremist.

Do you know the power of the ruler?
Do you know the agencies of the oppressor?
Are you vocal in protest?
Are you against the ruler?
Then you are anti-national.
So you get lost.

(Writer is the serving Chief Minister of Indian state of West Bengal. This poem is self-translation of her Bengali poem পরিচয়)