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Exodus as resistance
Updated On: 18 May, 2020 06:53 AM IST | Mumbai | Ajaz Ashraf
Bob Marley's imagining of leaving a corrupted Babylon for the fatherland in his song Exodus, is today the reality of lakhs of migrant workers rejecting the Indian state and returning home
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Migrants walking home to Madhya Pradesh seen on the highway. Pic/sameer markande
It is possible you recalled the lyrics of Exodus, the song that reggae singer Bob Marley belted with such élan, as you watched lakhs of migrant workers trudge from cities to villages, clutching their belongings tied in a bundle, their children beside them. This is not quite the exodus that Marley alludes to in his song, yet its lyrics are pertinent to India: "Uh! Open your eyes and look within/Are you satisfied (with the life you're living)? Uh!/We know where we're going, uh! We know where we're from/ We're leaving Babylon, we're going to our fatherland."
Babylon in the Rastafarian belief, to which Marley subscribed, symbolises the land from where the righteousness has disappeared. Babylon also connotes the capitalistic-imperialistic order of the West, which still exploits the descendants of Black slaves for cheap labour. The only succour for Blacks, in Marley's imagining, is to leave the sinful Babylon and return to their fatherland, or Africa, from where they were shipped out to the West centuries ago.
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