Beginning in the 1990s, globalization was pushed by many of the world’s premier institutions and opinion makers as the cure for all of humanity’s ills. Integrating economies and political alliances was held out as the promise of a better, more prosperous and peaceful future. Like many other political ideas before it, globalization had a lot of merit in principle, but in practical terms it was soon hijacked by power centers to serve their own interest. Whether it was the unequal treatment of economies and the misuse of power in global trade arrangements, or the badly conceived idea of promoting universalism by demonizing traditional perspectives, what seemed like a wonderful idea was soon being used to serve vested interests.
A global rise in identity politics
Working class people suffered in developed economies as they lost jobs to outsourcing, and in emerging nations because of huge disparity in wealth between the rich and the poor. Unfortunately, under such stresses, human beings often form groups that clutch at oversimplified hateful rhetoric, rather than processing complex ideas as individuals. A backlash soon emerged to overcompensate for these consequences, which now seems to have spread across most geographical regions of the world.
Whether it is the much publicized ‘Brexit election’ that has just been won by the Liberal Party in Britain, or several other polls in nations as widespread as Japan, India, Australia, The US and numerous countries across Europe, a rightwing and conservative resurgence has gripped the political stage. As an individual, I must confess that I have opinions that straddle both the conservative and liberal camps. For instance, I am a fiscal conservative but a liberal in terms of many social concerns and causes. So, the reason that I am concerned by this return to hyper-nationalism is not because I am a card carrying member of one or the other end of the political spectrum. The issue I take with the re-emergence of identity politics is twofold. Firstly, it has always led to tragic results in the past and we have an obligation to learn from history. Secondly, it is misused by politicians to cover up their shortcomings in areas that actually matter.
The situation in India
Whether one is a supporter or a critic of the current Indian government, the fact remains that both the elections it has won have hardened identity as a political brand. A good proportion of the blame for this lies with the opponents of the government as well, who did not attempt to go to the elections with anything like a policy driven approach, choosing instead to rely on fear mongering. Nevertheless the government cannot entirely escape blame in this regard. On several occasions, their local representatives too provided fodder to rumour mills and newspaper headlines with irresponsible and inflammatory statements, for which they seemed to only receive a tap on the knuckles.
The current situation around student protests and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) is a perfect case in point. At numerous points in history luminaries from Mahatma Gandhi and India’s ex-prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh have supported such a law. Surely it would have been easy for the government to hold townhall style meetings and an extensive public discussion around the law, before it was presented it the Indian parliament. Would this not have been the more responsible thing to do, to ensure that the general population was aware of the contents of the amendment?
Unfortunately, given that the government recently made an announcement that a grand temple to Lord Rama would be built ‘within four months’, at a time when student protests against the CAA had already turned violent, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that such opportunities were deliberately overlooked. Let us not forget that this temple is to be built on land that was disputed by two of the country’s largest religious groups for decades, and that the legal wrangle had escalated all the way to the honourable Supreme Court of India. Would it not have been wiser to give the country time to digest the verdict and for inflamed passions to subside?
Political misuse of emotions
The growth story of the Indian economy is currently beginning to stall and the issues around this are quite complex. On the social front, there is a rape every 15 minutes in India, pointing to a growing lawlessness and encroaching social perversion. The agriculture sector, which employs the largest proportion of the Indian population, is tainted by farmer suicides and is experiencing massive economic stress. Shouldn’t the government have its hands full with such concerns, rather than pursuing projects that only seem to have a one point agenda of sharpening identity based divides?
While I am a strong supporter of the right to express political dissent, I can never stand with the destruction of public property. Having said that, in a civilized society, the police should not be entering campuses, without due process or rationale, and beating up students, who are the nation’s future. Parading students on the road like criminals, as recently happened in New Delhi, is a pathetic thing to do, when the culprits of arson are yet to be identified. One can understand the need to enforce law and order, but did the response really need to be so heavy handed?
Let sanity prevail and a new hope rise
In recent years, such violence and rioting has become commonplace in the world – whether in Charlottesville, London, Paris, and now in India. Shrill and hateful rhetoric on social media seems to be driving a deeper wedge between communities and political positions, rather than acting as a platform for consensus. How do we overcome this? Because, make no mistake, the cost of letting these confrontations continue will eventually be tragic, if we don’t.
I have no easy solution, but I do believe that being an individual is one of the most revolutionary things one can do, at a time when the world is being divided into groups, for the sake of narrow political gain. When we identify ourselves only as part of a group, it is easy to turn disagreement into hate and become a mob, under the wrong influence. When give ourselves, as well as others, the respectful recognition of being a single human being, we act with compassion and understanding towards each other, and see others as reflections of ourselves. I see every incident when misunderstandings and misgivings escalate into violence, as an opportunity to come to our senses and learn from our mistakes. With the world’s human population rising exponentially, the time to commit to an evolution in politics is now. Let us resolve as citizens to only support universal political perspectives, which make no distinctions between communities, identities and narrow definitions of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
