Maoist Prisoner Hüseyin Uzundağ has written a poem dedicated to the General Secretary of the CPI (Maoist), Basavaraj, and the People’s Fighters, who were martyred in India.
In his poem, Uzundağ honors CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Basavaraj, who fell martyred alongside 27 of his comrades on May 21, 2025; People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army Commander Hidma, who fell martyred on November 18, 2025; and CPI (Maoist) member Renuka, who fell martyred on March 31, 2025. Thus, the struggle of the People’s War in India against the revisionist line, symbolized by these three figures, takes on a poetic expression.
The poem consists of 14 sections under the titles “Farewell to the Tigers of Gundekot/To Dada” and “To the Rebellious Children of the Adivasis.”
Hüseyin Uzundağ, who has been a prisoner since 2002, is being held in the Tekirdağ No. 1 F-Type High-Security Closed Prison.
Click here for the PDF of Farewell to the Tiger of Gundekot
We present the poem to the attention of our readers.
Farewell to the Tigers of Gundekot
To Dada
I.
The rich mineral
of impoverished India,
a noble mountain,
an Adivasi.
A plane tree
taking root
in the Gundekot forests
stood against
all kinds of chains;
which could not withstand
his grand dream,
his absolute fight.
The Ganges surged
the people awoke
the plains were purged
the dam shattered
the city besieged
Cannon and rifle,
cannonball and hammer
envied death.
The Ganges envied,
dripped into the ocean.
The mountains envied
their eagle.
Defeat envied victory,
betrayal
envied wrath.
II.
Betrayal
is an empty shell,
an insult
to his corpse.
Honor resides
in Nambala Keshava Rao;
the people don him
like armor,
are purified,
sanctified through him.
Like a wildfire,
like a secret,
they carry him in their bosoms.
Had he bowed
to bigotry,
it would not be
solely his own captivity.
if he did not illuminate
himself alone,
when he became a torch;
or,
if only the vile
turned to ash,
when he lit a fire
Basavaraj knows:
surrender is worse
than death.
He knows:
what he defends
is not his own life,
not his own trench.
He knows:
alone, one is neither free
nor is a life complete.
He knows:
traitors die alone (unaccompanied).
III.
A hero,
so fierce,
asks no quarter,
gives no quarter.
Broken plow,
poor pitchfork,
parched earth,
lost vein.
A hero was born, they say.
The one who nursed him
knows.
The sower, the reaper
knows.
Mountains, seas,
fields, cities,
the wolf and the bird
know.
A hero has died, they say.
Neither the teller
nor the listener
believes it,
nor does a nation
believe.
A hope,
liberation,
Basavaraj.
IV.
This is the people’s war,
and he is its general.
Seventy years old,
living as if
born yesterday,
fighting as if
he will win tomorrow
today.
True revolutionaries
know no fear;
unyielding,
unceasing,
untiring.
Water,
earth,
fire:
Basavaraj.
V.
The new revisionism,
defeat upon defeat,
breeds new betrayal,
beckoning the masses
to bow down
to imperialism
and its hangmen.
To save his life—
lighter than a feather,
utterly worthless—
he is more skillful
than the executioners themselves
at yielding to empire,
at dragging the people
into his own disgrace.
Like a venomous root,
Sonu swore
to infect the people
with the poison of surrender—
while Basavaraj swore
to fight
at the forefront.
VI.
Some,
like Basavaraj,
kneel only
before the people.
Some,
like Sonu,
always before the hangmen.
Some
throw their hearts into the fire;
some
have no heart to cast.
Some
call the swamp their homeland;
some,
the people.
Some
live by crawling,
some
drag life forward.
Some are dead,
now and forever;
some are the light
of our eyes.
The darkness of some
is bottomless;
some
illuminate the deepest dark.
Some are like
a rotting tree;
some,
a plane tree sprout—
a single ash is enough,
like the Phoenix.
VII.
If a revolutionary falls,
thousands are born,
born again,
born anew.
Neither the first
nor the last
is such a profound loss,
nor is it the end
of revolutionary minds.
Be it long or short,
it is inevitable:
from the countryside to the city,
from the city to the homeland,
from the homeland to the world—
the spring fire,
the power of the people.
To the Rebel Children of the Adivasis
VIII.
A dark-skinned child
spewing its destiny
as if going mad,
the stalks of grain are howling.
The earth is helpless;
its fine, coarse veins
bursting one by one.
The soil,
a path, a vein,
a silent fire…
Whatever falls,
a climate of doom in the end.
Seven continents,
one world,
a new world.
IX.
Hidma,
rebellious as the soil of Bastar;
the people forged him,
he lit the path
of the people.
Born there,
raised there,
he wrote history there.
Jal, jangal, jameen,
heart and honor,
liberty plundered
in the cradle,
a century-old banner
of rebellion,
an eagle’s nest.
In the first vanguard,
in the final shift,
a powder keg.
In those small eyes,
like a glint,
it is envisioned
for the future:
his supreme legacy.
Hidma gifts
not only his name
but his very life
to his homeland, Bastar.
X.
An exile of the earth,
a Midko,
carried the heart’s blaze
into the underground forest;
and
in a forest, her hands were severed
by those who thought
they could snatch the world
from her hands.
Yet Renuka
shines like a river
in the arms of the people.
XI.
She pondered
the war before her
and the one after;
her war shall be pondered,
and the one after.
“Do not worry
for me.
Martyrdoms do not weaken
the struggle;
martyrdoms have fortified
the revolutionary movement.
I believe that
inspired by these martyrdoms,
the revolutionary movement
will be born again,
even stronger.
The ultimate victory
will belong
to the people.”
XII.
The bombardment is intense,
the weapons modern.
Twenty thousand modern slaves,
thirty-five Spartacuses.
May twenty-first:
sixty hours,
starving and parched.
Enamored with freedom
for a thousand years,
arid
for a thousand years.
In the Gundekot forests,
like a flood,
the blood of twenty-eight martyrs
flows into the heart
of the people.
The resistance grew,
despite the multiplying traitors.
The blood of traitors dried up
as it spilled in torrents
over the Gundekot forests:
revolutionary blood.
Surging,
how it grows,
the Gundekot rebellion!
Against imperialism,
the banner of the people’s war,
the torch of the peoples’ resistance.
XIII.
Like lightning,
an ocean of wrath.
Within the fire of liberty,
red hearts live forever.
To the blind and the deaf,
stark, patient, and ceaseless,
spectacular, mighty, and inevitable,
our guiding stars
strike
like a slap.
Let the world salute
the hearts of the Himalayas!
And again,
let the cycle turn,
impatient caravan,
the soul naked once more,
roads awash in blood.
To be fire,
to burn and set ablaze
is inherent to us.
Alive in the gun barrel,
rebellion blazing in dreams,
liberation, trench by trench in battle—
is our legacy.
XIV.
Will fall,
a spark,
onto the purple paths,
onto smoldering hopes.
A harvest,
parched and impatient;
the Maoists will deal their blow
to the three great wretches
on the back of the people.
For the Maoists
live, and live on,
only for the people;
die, and die again,
only for the people.
Maoist Prisoner Hüseyin Uzundağ
30 June 2026
