Africa I can say is my second home where I have spent nearly hundred percent of my career life. Yet, South Africa among other nations has a particular place in my life, where I have been living for the past 23 years. I came here in 1990, when the democratic republic of South Africa was not yet formed. In the same year Nelson Mandela was released with fanfare from his 27 years of jail sentence. So I can say, I got a taste of apartheid, its tail end; I also got to see its transformation to democracy. And there was no field the impact of the democratic changes were felt than in the field of education and me working in the filed got a chance to experience how education can bring in changes.
It gave me a chance to have a comparison between the practice of democracy in my home country, India and South Africa. At the present moment, South Africa has far excelled India in the way it has effected changes for its people. Even after 66 years of Independence India hasn't managed to resolve a lot of its fundamental issues like caste, racial discrimination etc. and added a lot of new problems like unfair minority rights and vote banks, which are again based on religion and caste. The constitution of India has guaranteed its people only political rights. At the same time, Indians have a lot of potential to overhaul the stench that runs from its parliament to the street. Indian apartheid has a long history. No people who say or believe that a part of their countrymen and women would be kept under oppression can be considered lovers of democracy. Such people are foreigners to a democratic set up. The racial divide in South Africa was so prominent during the apartheid regime. Yet within the span of twenty years if South Africans can forge a racial unity, I wonder why can't it happen after 66 years in India.
I wanted to write about these kinds of issues, but time was my hindrance, even now it is. But the recent death of Nelson Mandela alerted me to find some time for that. And it is unfortunate that my first post in the series starts with the death of that great statesman who was the be all and the end all of all the changes that happened here.
It gave me a chance to have a comparison between the practice of democracy in my home country, India and South Africa. At the present moment, South Africa has far excelled India in the way it has effected changes for its people. Even after 66 years of Independence India hasn't managed to resolve a lot of its fundamental issues like caste, racial discrimination etc. and added a lot of new problems like unfair minority rights and vote banks, which are again based on religion and caste. The constitution of India has guaranteed its people only political rights. At the same time, Indians have a lot of potential to overhaul the stench that runs from its parliament to the street. Indian apartheid has a long history. No people who say or believe that a part of their countrymen and women would be kept under oppression can be considered lovers of democracy. Such people are foreigners to a democratic set up. The racial divide in South Africa was so prominent during the apartheid regime. Yet within the span of twenty years if South Africans can forge a racial unity, I wonder why can't it happen after 66 years in India.
I wanted to write about these kinds of issues, but time was my hindrance, even now it is. But the recent death of Nelson Mandela alerted me to find some time for that. And it is unfortunate that my first post in the series starts with the death of that great statesman who was the be all and the end all of all the changes that happened here.
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