Identities – Part I – Groups and Affiliations

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No man is an island they say. Man has always been part of a pack. There is a sense of comfort, of safety, of belonging and of security being part of a pack. Birds of a feather do flock together after all. Being over 6 billion of us on this planet, there are bound to be an endless number of packs and each such pack assumes an identity of its own. Across the world, we identify ourselves on the basis of our color, race, sex, religion, caste, creed, region, country, language, social standing, monetary worth, education and an assortment of such identifiers. All of us belong to multiple identities. It defines us and makes us who we are for the better and unfortunately for the worse.

When we as human beings segregate ourselves in multiple complex groups we set ourselves up for an Us Vs Them Syndrome. Depending on the nature of the identity group this could be harmless or it could be brutal. Typically the more important the identity the more lethal it could be. The very social fabric of society is threatened when opposing identities clash.

Take India as an example, a country where we were taught about India's unique diversity and its unity despite the existence of multiple complex groups. Tamils and Kannadigas spill blood over river water, tensions on communal lines between Hindus and Muslims is bad enough, now Hindu and Christian issues have started to emerge. The Meenas and the Gujjars clashed in Rajasthan last year over reservation. The Telengana guys want a state carved out of Andhra Pradesh, the Gorkhas are not far being asking for Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal. The Maharastrian Vs North Indian debate rages on in Mumbai making it an important election agenda for regional parties. Then there is the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits and the illegal migration of Bangaldeshis into India. The gulf between the rich and the poor only seems to get wider. The middle class in India is growing into a huge population with disposable income levels on the rise. At the same time, India's heart lies in its poor villages, with a majority of population staying there. You can take any number of large identity groups and you will see associated issues. The list can be exhaustingly long. With our fixation to cricketing stars, India by and large gives a step motherly treatment to its other sport stars and athletes. For a long period doctors and engineers were considered to be the only profession that parents wanted their kids to pursue. Sexual harassment, dowry cases, honor killing, infanticides are all issues that women as a group deal with.

Our ancestors were no exception to identity groups. They gained and lost through their various affiliations. They lived in a society where their social standing was determined by which house they had the fortune or misfortune of being born in. Life would be a lot easier if you were born to a Brahmin or a Kshatriya family instead of a Shudra. The migration to the subcontinent by the Aryan tribes saw the Dravidians being pushed south. India saw migrating social groups, either as invaders or conquerors and if you take the example of the colonial British, then even as traders. Somehow they all managed to co-exist for centuries, ruled successively by one dominant social group or the other. There are times when I think maybe our ancestors where better off because they knew a secret, a secret they perhaps didn't share with us. They have shown high levels of tolerance to each other, learnt to co-exist and even assimilate one another's rituals and habits. There seems to be a common ground somewhere despite all the problems.

However in today's world, tolerance is a word that is fast becoming obsolete. It has no relevance. There is no middle ground. It's our way or the highway.

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