Fifty Something

Now that the breathless television extravaganza of the 50th anniversary of Independence of India and Pakistan is over, we can perhaps take a more sober look at the past half-century. Satellite television proved once more that the medium is the message with its up-beat look at the anniversary – carefully glossing over the fact that what we were really commemorating was 50 years of Partition. Other than a big bash of Indo-Pak businessmen and celebrities in London to kick off the jamboree and New Delhi´s The Asian Age remembering that there was also a Pakistan, the anniversary was marked separately in the countries that gained independence by cutting themselves apart. In India, there was a celebration of India, and in Pakistan it was a celebration of Pakistan. Not for another 50 years, it seems, will these two nations separated at birth learn to think of each other as twins and celebrate a birthday together.

What of the other South Asians who had no 50th celebration this year, who were all taken along for the independence ride by satellite tv programmers in mid-August? Sri Lankans are, actually, gearing up for their own 50th bash on February 1998, while Bangladesh marked its 25th anniversary of independence from Pakistan earlier this year. Nepalis preen at never having been colonised, but they too had to gain ´independence´ from the Rana prime ministers in 1950 and from the Shah kings in 1990.