Who is obsessed by religion
He is blind
He only kills and gets killed.
Even an atheist is blessed
Because he doesn’t have the vanity of any faith.
Humbly he lights up his reason
Defies the authority of scriptures
And seeks only the good of men.
He who kills as infidels
The followers of other faiths
Dishonours his own faith
He kills the son in the name of the father
Busy only with the rituals
He loses his reason
He hoists a blood-stained flag in his temple
In the name of God
He worships the Devil.
Those who have retained in their creed
The shame of ages, the cruelties and barbarities
With those rubbish
They are building their own prison –
I hear a bugle is blowing
The bugle of universal doom
With his scythe the god of destruction is coming.
Planting him as a stake who comes to liberate
Putting him up like a dividing wall who comes to unite
Flooding the world with poison in his name
Who brings love from a divine source –
They drown sailing in a boat they themselves have scuttled
Yet they blame someone else!
I invoke you O you the supreme judge
Please come to end this degeneration of religion
Save those who are deluded by their faith.
Your altar they have flooded with blood
Please completely smash it
Hurl your thunder at the prison walls of faiths
And bring to this cursed land
The light of reason.
Translation of the poem – Dharmamoha – from the collection Parishesh by Rabindranath Tagore. The original in Bengali script is at
