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The curse of identity politics

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September 10, 2017

What is the issue?

  • A series of aggressions in India and its South Asian neighbourhoods against certain targeted communities is revealing the face of identity politics.
  • This calls for the nations to wake up and respond, to guarantee a true democracy to its citizens.

What are the recent happenings?

  • Recently, in many South Asian countries, there is an increasing incidence of assaults on the weaker sections by mobs on caste, class, language and religious lines.
  • These include -
  1. India - assault on Dalits and Muslims employed in the cattle trade.
  2. Bangladesh - a writer was attacked for speaking for the minorities.
  3. Myanmar - the long pending pathetic fate of the Rohingya Muslims.
  4. Sri Lanka - the racial oppression of Tamil minorities.
  5. Pakistan - attacks driven by religious motives, accusations of Islamic blasphemism. Pakistan remains a State where people have suffered the most from state-sponsored identity politics.
  6. Nepal - people of the hill country disempower those of its plains through constitutional manoeuvre.
  • These acts are the outcome of identity politics that enforce behaviour based on sectarian values derived from religion, language, race, caste, etc.
  • Notably in many of these cases, the State either remains a mere observer or in the other case an active agent of identity politics.

What impact does this create?

  • The curse of identity politics is ripping apart the social fabric in these supposedly democratic nations.
  • Identity politics is unfortunately the cause of these countries not moving forward in eliminating socio-economic deprivation.
  • This is because it destroys social cohesion and stands in the way of economic progress.
  • The result is that South Asia remains one of the most backward regions of the world and witnesses low levels of human development.
  • States embracing identity politics, apparently compromise many of its secular and equality principals.

What is the way forward?

  • In India, agitations for the formation of linguistic States had mostly taken the form of uniting people rather than dividing them.
  • But in recent decades the human development status of certain states like Uttar Pradesh are severely strained by identity politics.
  • Also, the earlier impact on states is now taking form at national levels, further threatening the democratic rights of the minorities.
  • Peace in South Asia and India can be assured only by secular democracy; but thrust on identity politics is only hampering it.

 

Source: The Hindu

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