The term identity has become a buzzword in social sciences and academic circles in the last few decades. The modern Indian society was envisaged to be a progressive, non-hierarchical one where parochial identity based on caste, community, religion or regions were non-existent. But contrary to such expectations, the rise of consciousness based on group or community identities is omnipresent today. It has by now become clear that modernity did not destabilize identities; it rather contributed to its proliferation.

What accounts for such a rise? Let me flag this issue here in brief.

The process of identity formation in India or any other part of the world has been influenced by several socio-cultural, economic and above all political factors in contemporary times. In the network society that we live in, personal identity has become a much more open matter (Castells, 2000). Identities are therefore constructed through the forces that ‘swirl around it’ (Harvey, 2000: 16). Far from being fixed/given entities, these forces which manoeuvre identities make them subject to ‘constant transformation’ and ‘the continuous “play” of history, culture, and power’ (Hall, 1990: 222). Identity formation is a result of the twin process of i) destabilization of reality, self and other, on one hand, and ii) reaffirmation of reality and structure, on the other. In other words, identities are not only socially ordered, culturally learnt, and linguistically mediated; they are also continuously re-learnt, reordered and renegotiated.

As a corollary, the conceptual debates surrounding the issue are intriguing.

Conceptual clarifications

One of the earliest models of identity formation proposed by Edward Shils (1957) considered it to be essential aspect of human nature. Shils argues that people living in a territory, belonging to a religion or kin group often had a primordial attachment to it. A strong feeling of loyalty prevailing among members of a primordial category allows them to develop durable solidarity which is expressed in any encounter with outsiders. This conservative ‘primordial approach’ could not explain the dynamic aspects of identity formation by considering it a fixed entity. But as Somers (1994: 606) argues, identities are dependent on the destabilizing dimensions of ‘time, space and relationality’ because individuals perform according to social, cultural, economic and linguistic conditions and often see their present through the lenses of the past or future.

From a structural-functional paradigm, normative dimensions of an individual’s role and role performance within the structure play an important role in identity formation (Parsons, 1951). Again, the dramaturgical paradigm gives importance to situational contingencies (front and backstages) to frame one’s identities (Goffman, 1959, 1974). It is equally true that our identities are significantly impacted by the cultural embeddedness of our sensory experiences, as the phenomenological tradition would contend (Classen, 1997: 401). This is because we make sense of the ‘objective’ world’ around us only through our senses (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).

While the objective world plays a significant role in exemplifying how normatively assigned identity categories emerge, the fluid, dynamic, and negotiable aspects of it call for critical analysis (Berger and Luckman, 1966).  Herein, one should consider the role of human agency to reflexively shape identities (Giddens, 1991). Again, the importance of communicative and interactional factors cannot be undermined. As Mead (1934) would argue, human identities develop out of a three-way conversation between I, Me, and Generalized Other. Following this perspective, our identities are contingent on the ‘looking-glass self’. By taking the attitude of others we learn reflexively to monitor our identities and present them to others. Thus, identities are formed out of the constant ebb and flow of conversation between ourselves and others.

Identity constructions are paramount in ethnic, religious, linguistic, regional or even national facets of our life. However, in this whole discourse surrounding identity until now the role of culture and power had not been significantly highlighted. In the contemporary neo-liberal context, identity construction has become much more dynamic (Hall, 1996: 596). This has led to destabilising of old identities and the rise of new ones which ‘fragments the individual as a unified subject’ (Hall, 1996: 596). This is because we now do not take our identities from the past; rather we actively make them in interaction with others.

Power is an important determinant in identity discourse (Tajfel, 1978: 44). If identity is contingent on social positioning, then this positioning of self vis a vis the other involves significant power play (Hall and Bucholtz, 2005: 586). Herein, the issue of proper recognition or misrecognition of a group identity by the dominant sections or those in power becomes salient. Taylor (1992) showed how misrecognition by means of presenting a negative or demeaning image of a group’s identity (say that of gender non-normative communities in India) may cause devastation. When such labelling takes place, the creation of a negative identity becomes oppressive for the members of the group (Hacking, 1986). Providing the examples of homosexuality and split personality disorder, Hacking argues how certain identities came into existence only after the label was created for that identity.

Further it is important to remember that identities can be a product of socially and culturally organized imagination (Anderson, 2006). By this understanding, identity is mostly imagined and yet thought to be real. It rests on political economy and shapes our social relations. Therefore, despite being imagined, identities have tangible real-life material and physical implications on the lived realities of individuals and communities.

Identity Politics in Post-Colonial India

Carol Upadhyay (2001) argues that the idea of the social construction of identity has been put forward for colonial discourses as sources of modern identities. Yet, it has not been extended to examine how identities continue to be politically constructed. Jodhka (2014) argues that social identities in India are constructed in complex ways in an ongoing process of cultural production, which includes politically motivated objectification of culture. Issues like the legitimacy of the state, distribution of state resources, power in society and justice become matters of concern for all. Further, a rise of identities based on religious sects can be witnessed in India today, resulting in the increasing popularity of god-men/god-women like Asaram Bapu, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, Radhe Maa, etc. Scholars like Jodhka (2014) have highlighted how such changes are the result of a new sense of insecurity and anxiety in the social and personal lives of the Indian population in neo-liberal India. The rise of politics based on a religious ideology exemplifies how such identity assertions at times embody upper-caste idioms and at other times social movement features. Today such identity politics based on religion has become the voice of an alienated middle class, which had grown significantly since Independence.

One of the reasons for increasing acts of brutalities on Dalits and other lower classes, minorities, and tribals in contemporary India is the expression of a homogeneous and majoritarian identity by the dominant group (Kothari, 1990). In such a context, identity assertion by the marginalized communities is often a corrective response to ‘celebrate diversity’. The Dalits, for instance, who once sought ‘annihilation of the caste’, are now found to make most assertions. The more such assertions take place, the more backlashes from the upper caste sections who are finding them ‘intolerable’. Cases of extreme sexual violence as in the same of Hathras are stark exemplifications of such backlashes. This has led to mobilization based on caste, sub-caste, ethnoreligious and regional levels.

Another interesting feature of regional politics is increasing assertions of linguistic identity. The Dravidian movement, in Tamil Nadu, was based on such linguistic divide. Competition for scarce resources has also led to insider vs. outsider conflict in many parts of the country. In the North-Eastern states of India, for instance, the native peasants and tribes protested against large tracts of land going to ‘outsiders’ (Ghosh, 2003). Changes in the demographic profile of many states have particularly popularized the ideology of ‘sons of the soil’. The growth of a sharp sense of perceived discrimination among the locals is often used as a resource by the elites and political leaders. Interestingly, however, such assertions of identity far from being fixed go through different phases with different levels of integration.

To conclude, assertions of identity are symptoms of a much larger and more challenging process. Identities are not ‘essential’ entities; they are rather created and marked by the production of economic, political, symbolic and positional categories. The rise of identity politics on several realms are also intricately woven with structural changes that India has witnessed.

References:

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Banhishikha Ghosh is a Swiss Government Excellence PhD Scholar (ESKAS) at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies (ISEK), University of Zurich.