Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi
South African politician
Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi (née Thakur; born 17 November 1964) is a South African politician who has been the leader of the Minority Front since 2012. She has represented the party in the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature since 1999.After two decades of practice as a pharmacist in Phoenix, Thakur-Rajbansi entered politics when she joined the Minority Front in 1998. In January 2012, she became leader of the party, succeeding her late husband, Amichand Rajbansi. Over the next two years, her position in the party was uncertain due to internal disputes with Rajbansi's family and Minority Front politician Roy Bhoola; those disputes were largely settled in December 2013, when all parties affirmed Thakur-Rajbansi's leadership.
Quotes
edit- Whenever there was a crisis in power in South Africa, one of the communities that has always got the brunt of violence has been the Indian community. Because we have been soft targets believing in non-violence. Therefore, we have become vulnerable targets to perpetrators.
- During a protest, there are always various agendas at play and then, there are certain people who come out and become violent. On many occasions, the violent takes a racial turn and that is what happened here.
- Having come here, being enslaved, then being resilient and working their way up, always being in survival mode and eventually naturalisation, getting citizenship status and getting their rights back – all this has been a long process, but a very painful one.
- There is no way that our community can be blamed for favouritism. We supported the leader that the party put up.
- In our democracy, the Indian community has always held a sway vote that every party has been clamouring for. They know that the Indian community has that power, any which way, and they can become powerful if they get the Indian vote bank.
- In order to be a responsible leader, we have to understand all of this in context. Politically, today, in our legislature, I apologised if any action of any Indian person was looked at as racism or discriminatory.
- This is an undeniable fact and since this has a political root cause, the political leaders need to find a solution to this.
