Distributed Identities

A few things have happened close to each other that fueled my desire to write on the subject of identity. I happened to read (what I thought to be) an excellent collection of essays and writings on the subject of India by Shashi Tharoor (of Twitter fame) named 'The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone', within which while speaking of Amartya Sen, quoted him as saying the following:

The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English)'.

It's a powerful way to get his point across, and marvellous food for thought. Tharoor uses it to draw his usual conclusions (nigh banal by the end of the book) about unity in diversity. But it gave me a reason to pause and consider many things.

First, that any breakdown of an individual into how so many ever identities still represents a loss as to who that complete person is. There is always going to be more to an individual than we can express in a set of labels that we seek to have applied to him/her. Second, that a label is often perceived as an ideal type, in that calling someone a Christian represents an image of a Bible reading Church attending kind of guy/gal, which seriously ignores a wide and well populated part of the Christian spectrum. It's essentially a kind of type-casting, as well - tell someone that he/she is *insert label here* often enough, they'll turn into that or turn into the direct opposite. Identities are such nebulous things that we'd be better off without them at all. But it's hard to imagine that ever happening. It's a by-product of our incessant urge to classify.

The most fascinating identities, however, are the ones that we construct around ourselves. Say, one of being an alpha male or a metrosexual. How much of what we like to call ourselves is a product of what we do and feel and recognising that, and how much of it is us moulding our actions so as to suit the label that we want to portray to the outside world? Strong, confident men and women often fall to pieces when the going gets tough. We're all wearing all sorts of absurd masks in an attempt to look better, more moral, sexier, more intelligent, more challenging, more ... whatever we WANT to be, as opposed to what we really are.

What actually caused me to think about this with more vigour than my usual set of random thoughts was what's recently happened in Andhra Pradesh with regard to Telangana. For those not completely in the know, a portion of a state within India is pushing for statehood. They cite no particular reason to consider them to be separate from the rest of the State, as far as I can fathom. I do accept that I probably know very little about this, but I'm not making an argument that's specific to it, but a broader one as a whole.

National identities are both constructed and encouraged by nation states looking to cement the cohesiveness that would strengthen the said nation. As far as I see it, there are some elements that are often used to bind a nation state - language, religion, culture, ethnicity, and a common enemy. In India, we have more languages than can be reasonably counted; the same holds true for religion, as well. Anyone who has travelled through India would know that the culture in the North East is completely different from the Punjabi culture in the north and west (and some would argue that Punjabi culture is no culture at all), and the South is just a whole different ball game. There are more races and identities in India than can be reasonably expected to be brought under any one head, and India earns the 'melting pot' epithet far too well. This leaves the 'common enemy'. And I don't think any rational or reasonable person would want India to need to unite under the banner of hating Pakistan, especially given that they are nuclear neighbours with what has often been only a tenuous control over their emotions and passions which tend to run wild over many things, not in the least cricket matches.

The divisive nature of the many identities existing within the Indian populace (stuff like North-South, this language versus that language, the ever-present and always ugly communalism, etc.) is just absurd. Especially given that a single person can, like Amartya Sen said, be an Indian citizen, or North Indian/Aryan origin, with Persian ancestry, an athiest liberal, a non-vegetarian environmentalist, a heterosexual who believes in the LGBT movement and welcomes the Naz Foundation judgement, a lover of rock music, a fan of science fiction, fantasy and dramatic cinema, an avid watcher of several comic TV shows, a law student with an interest in technology, a debater with an interest in quizzing, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that people should let other people do whatever the fuck they want as long as it doesn't directly affect them. And that is, as you should have guessed, me.

In such a world, and in such a nation - does it make more sense to pick on one of these identities to clash over and demand rights? Or better to find the damn common ground? Well, as long as we can converse in English - my Hindi is, frankly, bollocks.

I'm not particularly patriotic, or patriotic at all - but I do believe that we shouldn't shoot ourselves in the foot.