India is only 70 years old. These identities are 1000s of years old. So, it’s not an easy task. Besides, these identities are deepened in several ways.
1. As Pratap Bhanu Mehta says: Group is the unit of social discrimination. So, the demand for equality and justice has been on the basis of “group”, which deepens group consciousness. Thus, paradoxically, the struggle against identity entrenches these identities.
2. In India, in the absence of proper social nets, groups became the source of social insurance in times of emergencies. So, better not be in bad terms with the group. For instance, Kaivan Munshi says that presence of caste security nets is one of the main reasons for relatively low rural-urban migration in India.
The dependence on the group again entrenches the group identity.
3. Politicians have deliberately deepened the fissures along these lines, for electoral purposes, creating more consciousness and rigidity of the group.
4. Sociologist Dipankar Gupta says that humans want to belong somewhere but Hinduism provides some sort of rootlessness. There is nothing that two Hindus can do that one cannot. This is unlike Islam and Christianity, where you have to come together. For instance, one needs congregation for actual prayers. Even in Sikhs, it’s a Sangat only when you are together.
In Hinduism, you can build own temple, own guru, do your own prayer without the necessity of a group and so on. That is why Hindus need to belong somewhere. This longing to belong somewhere is filled up political leaders rallying people along this unit.
5. Then there is what Taylor calls “politics of recognition”. In multicultural societies, when certain minority groups face discrimination, they seek recognition, often in terms of politics and other avenues. This entrenches group identities.
On the other hand, there may be an upside to group identity. As the Rudolphs have argued, vacuum of rootlessness is often filled by authoritarianism which didn’t happen in India because the caste identities worked as “bulwarks against authoritarianism”.
The idea of citizenship is new and artificial. Its purpose is to combat these group identities. It will take longer than 70 years for citizens to shed their primordial loyalties and owe their primary allegiance to what Habermas calls “constitutional patriotism”.
One immediate thing that can be done is to make politicians stop deepening fissures along identity lines. They can be rallied around important issues, not around identities.
