The Sparrow’s Tiny Drops: A Lesson for a Burning Subcontinent

Rooted in the moral imagination of folklore yet sharpened by the urgency of contemporary journalism, Nalin Verma writes with the rare ability to make ancient stories speak directly to our present crises. His profound understanding of fables, myths, and oral traditions is not nostalgic ornamentation; it is a forceful journalistic practice. By coupling the sparrow’s timeless parable with the brutal realities of communal violence in South Asia, Verma transforms folklore into a tool of political witnessing—showing how small moral acts, patiently retold, can still challenge the raging fires of our time. This is the 27th article in Nalin Verma’s fortnightly column “Everything Under the Sun”.

Once upon a time, a huge fire broke out in a jungle. All the big animals—lions, elephants, tigers, panthers, and bears—began to flee to save their lives as the flames leaped up, burning the trees and plants. But a sparrow flew to a nearby lake, picked up a few drops of water in her beak, and flew back to drop the tiny quantity of water she had gathered onto the fire. 

The small bird repeated her efforts again and again. A crow mocked the sparrow: “Why are you acting so crazily? The inferno is too enormous to douse with those tiny drops of water. Don’t be foolish. Flee with us, out of sight of the fire, to save your life.” “I’m doing what I can; I’m doing my part,” the sparrow chirped in her sing-song voice and continued her efforts with all the energy and enthusiasm she had, relentlessly.

The Lord of the Universe eventually noticed the bird’s work. Soon, heavy rains lashed the forest, dousing the fire. It’s not known who first told this story or where and when it emerged. But it’s a well-known fable with roots in various cultures, including the Buddhist Jataka tales, Native American, and African cultures. 

Some versions involve a hummingbird and a big bird like an eagle, while others feature a parrot and a jaguar, but the essence remains the same.

Will this story inspire people to play their part in dousing the fire that has engulfed the Indian subcontinent, comprising India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—which geographically stayed together for centuries but got divided into three independent nations in the last 78 years?

In the context of our subcontinent, the fire is a metaphor for the hate and animosity that has grown monstrous and catastrophic in proportion, manifesting in ethnic and communal strife all around. What’s heart-wrenching is that sections of society that describe themselves as Hindu derive pleasure when Muslims are killed and tortured or their homes, mosques, and memorials are demolished in India. 

And the same sections belonging to the Muslim community revel in the killing and torture of minority Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Be it India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh—the minorities are at the receiving end. 

Rejoicing in the Persecution of Minorities

A recent example of the persecution of Muslim minorities in India comes from the comprehensive data compiled in the India Persecution Tracker 2025 and South Asia Justice Campaign (released in January 2026). 

The report documents a pattern of routinized and escalating abuses throughout 2025, including at least 50 extrajudicial killings of Muslims, with 27 attributed to Hindu extremist groups (often in mob violence, cow vigilantism, or accusations of being “illegal immigrants”), and 23 involving state actors like police or security forces. Uttar Pradesh tops the list in extrajudicial killings of Muslims, with over 26 episodes of targeted mass violence against Muslims across 13 states, alongside hundreds of individual assaults, property destructions, and hate crimes.

Bangladesh witnessed a wave of attacks on Hindus following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, during which Hindu homes, businesses, and places of worship were targeted amid political unrest. 

According to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, over 2,010 incidents of communal violence occurred between August 4 and 20, 2024, including attacks on 69 temples, with reports of vandalism, looting, forced resignations from jobs, and several deaths across various districts.

Pakistan is notorious for the persistent persecution of Hindu minorities, particularly through the pattern of forced conversions and marriages of young Hindu girls. Estimates from human rights organizations, such as the Movement for Solidarity and Peace and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, indicate around 1,000 cases annually involving abductions, coerced religious conversions to Islam, and forced unions, often validated by courts despite family protests.

The most appalling aspect of society in the subcontinent is how vast sections of the respective majority communities derive sadistic pleasure from the persecution of minorities. Hindutva forces in India selectively highlight and target Islamic communalists in Bangladesh and Pakistan, while Islamic fundamentalists target Hindus for the ills afflicting their lands.

Governments—whether the military-influenced regime in Pakistan, the anti-Sheikh Hasina forces in Bangladesh, or the Government of India with radical Hindutva as its core ideology—often patronize, protect, and even encourage radical elements to carry out hate campaigns against minorities.

Religious scriptures across faiths are largely unanimous that deriving pleasure from others’ grief is a grave sin. Yet, there are myriad examples of people revelling in others’ grief and torture, an emotion particularly pronounced in the context of adherents of these two faiths.

Ashok Kumar Pandey, a noted historian, author, and YouTuber, has lamented how sections of Hindus—who often have their own homes in poor condition, broken roads, and unemployed children—celebrated the demolition of a mazaar (Sufi saint’s memorial) in his district of Deoria in eastern Uttar Pradesh. 

He expressed shock that those celebrating were personally known to, and even friendly with, members of the community to which the mazaar belonged. 

In today’s India, many celebrate parole for figures like Ram Rahim and Asaram Bapu—the so-called godmen accused of raping and murdering women—while deriving pleasure when young scholars like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam are denied bail, despite languishing in jail for over five years without trial or formal charges in the 2020 Delhi riots conspiracy case.

Back to the Sparrow and the Fire Story

What can a storyteller—with no control over the powers that be and the insensitive elements shaming human values by taking pleasure in the persecution of fellow human beings from other faiths—do?

Very little!

However, the storyteller can remind and retell the story of that sparrow who did what she could to douse the raging fire in the jungle. 

This column is an effort in that spirit: playing its small role to douse the flames of insanity, just as the sparrow did by dropping tiny drops of water onto the inferno. 

If the story of the sparrow inspires even a small section of its readers, it will have served its purpose. After all, the rains that followed the sparrow’s efforts ultimately doused the blaze.