Speak While You Have The Freedom
Speak While You Still Have A Tongue
“… Millions of people in our country are being ground under a strange mill. It’s to shut
their mouth that new black (repressive) laws are being enacted every day…
“If we keep quiet now than when these black laws and the dirty deeds spread all over,
they would have encircled us like a vice around our neck and there would be nobody left
to raise his voice for us, because when they came to us we ignored them. Silence is a crime,
to stay quiet is immoral. We have to be wary of those conspiracies which are being woven
around us…
“Today every thinker and creator will have to sharpen his thoughts. Today we have to
get out of our ivory tower world of books, poems, paintings, plays and come on the street
corners so that we can be one with the people. What is needed is that we should raise our
voice to the pitch which will communicate to the masses. It is not only our creative
freedom which is threatened, but also the freedom of our people.
“Speak so that history may record that even in these trying times there are still a few
honest and truthful souls left who are prepared to sacrifice their lives so that their future
generations have the freedom they sought. Speak so that we can save whoever is killed in
Punjab on a dusty path, on the edge of a farm, is burnt alive in Bihar, is killed on a road in
a staged “police encounter” or is killed with his hands tied behind his back in a jungle in
Hyderabad, so that when our turn comes we are not left alone. Speak so that it can be
known that even in dark times like today there were people of conscience who could not
be bought.”
(Excerpts from the speech by Ajit Kaur on 30 September 1989 at Punjabi University
Patiala).
