indian independance

India and Pakistan celebrated 60 years of Independence on the 14 of august, a great achievement,i believe ,...yet both countries have developed so differently.
sitting here on another continent,having grown up with the anglo boer war,as my history lesson in school,and having lived through apartheid,for most of my life i cannot begin to know or understand the nuances of the political situation in either Pakistan or India,...isn't it strange, though they are really one country,one people who's political,and cultural identity has been framed by partition and divide and rule strategy of the colonial powers,the effects of which are still felt today.
i hope, that despite governmental ineffectualness in closing the divide the people of both countries have enough savvy to rise above these divides.

Pakistan a dictatorship and India the worlds largest democracy,..since Pakistan is heading towards presidential and legislative elections,(i wander why they even bother,) pervez Musharraf is determined to remain in power with the backing of his American bosses,i am sure he will remain there for some time to come :)

it would be nice though to some day see a cessation of hostility between the two countries,...south africa's ties to India increase everyday,tata and Sahara are becoming brand names seen on billboards everywhere,sponsoring cricket :) whats new a game the colonised seem to have perfected over the coloniser,.. (shades of lagaan),a david and goliath story, that India should be proud of, as we are,..despite the crippling opression of being occupied, indian/pakistani restuarants litter the British landscape,(i think the English needed to colonise the world, so they could eat better, do you ever order bangers and mash when you eat out?),..cricket has become a sport that the colonised have excelled at over the english.computers/hotels/steel,...wherever you turn, people of the subcontinent have slowly taken control ,...viva to that.

mrs sonia ghandi, will be visiting our shores shortly, and she will do what all politicians do, visit the railway station where ghandi got kicked off a train, and got back on as the mahatma,..thanks to the satiyagraha campaign, passive resistance was born in south Africa, and the Indian congress in conjunction with the African national congress, used non violent means to destroy apartheid,...slowly an insulated Indian community,has become exposed to it's roots.which in no way diminishes our rootedness in south Africa, which is our home, that we are south African is unquestionable,..

that is why i have been so pissed off by a report in the Sunday papers about discrimination against Indian taxi owners in natal,..shades of apartheid once again, taxi's and the ownership of them are not soley a black African prerogative, that Indian taxi drivers are being threatened and discriminated against, is unacceptable as well as unconstitutional and this government has no option but to curtail these racist tendencies before they cause divides in the community.

we have always been a marginal population,.. (aren't immigrants always at the fringes of societies), south Africa was different, apartheid closed the borders and sealed us in, we have fought died and bled alongside the most important sons of this country, who by their own admission cut their political teeth, on the teachings and ideas of the Indian community, to allow racism to rear it's ugly head would be a mistake and a road no self respecting south African should ever have to travel.

let us hope, that instead of ignoring these stirrings in natal, the powers that be take cognizance of the facts, and nip the problem in the bud.