Read the poem given below and answer the questions that follow :
Turning their backs to the sun, they journeyed through centuries.
Now, now we must refuse to be pilgrims of darkness.
That one, our father, carrying, carrying the darkness is now bent;
Now, now we must lift the burden from his back.
Our blood was spilled for this glorious city
And what we got was the right to eat stones
Now, now we must explode the building that kisses the sky!
After a thousand years we were blessed with sunflower giving fakir;
Now, now, we must like sunflowers turn our faces to the sun.
(i) Who wrote this poem originally in Marathi ?
(ii) What do you understand by ‘pilgrims of darkness’ ?
(iii) Who was the ‘Sunflower giving fakir’ that blessed the ‘pilgrims of darkness’ ?
(iv) What is expressed by the poems?
(ii) ‘The pilgrims of darkness’ were the Dalit communities who had experienced brutal caste injustices for a long time in our society.
(iii) The ‘sunflower giving fakir’ was Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who has been referred to as their liberator.
(iv) Such poems were expressions of anguish that the Dalit masses continued to face even after twenty years of independence.