the creation of India and Pakistan just lead to oppression within our own people. Without the British, we just learned how to oppress one another. Broken states, ignored, forgotten by the government which represents an inaccurate majority. Hundreds of rich languages and cultures dying out, as the nation scrambles to become “developed and advanced”. That subcontinent was once a marvel to the rest of the world, the land of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Parsis, Buddhists and God knows who else. Now there’s a Islamic state and a Hindu ‘majority’ state. They’re both so caught up in representing that image and saying “No, we’re India” or “No, we’re Pakistani”, that everyone else in between is struggling to show their mere existence. It’s not fair. It’s not freedom, man.
Another perspective.
Hahaha, what does this even mean? people have been oppressing each other long before whiteness or colonialism, independence from the british didn’t give anyone an excuse to start killing and subjugating. it just transformed the stage these processes were being done on.
moreover, i get the whole ‘no we’re india/pakistan’ thing, i grew up with that animosity and never understood it. but how much of national jingoism and reactionary patriotism is due to the intervention of imperial interests? many of the failures of the pakistani government today can be traced to meddling of foreign interests; when you are a country and a people that has CONSTANTLY been denied agency, you develop agency where you can—- in this case, the stupid resentment between indians and pakistanis.
its the same thing when the SK PM says that ‘Asians have different values,’ because he is reacting to a legacy of foreign oppression, because people will indulge in cultural essentialism when they’ve been denied a voice for generations.
there are plenty of things that india and pakistan have accomplished through their nationalism— plenty of meaning *for the people* in having a hindu state and a muslim state, plenty of work to be done to meet the vision that mohammad jinnah set up for pakistan decades ago. none of what you say is unique to these two nations becoming free— every country in the world has ‘scrambled to become developed and advanced,’ and there isn’t a place in the world where cultures haven’t died out due to globalization and associated strife.
idek, i hate basically everything but i understand the pride people have in these moments and the importance of their national associations. india and pakistan have a *lot* to be proud of *on their own*, these comments are pretty nonunique.
(via le-kif-kif)
