Exposing Identity Politics
Identity
politics spells out various meanings. This convenience is used by different
movements. It communicates something surreal yet ubiquitous in a society. It is
used as a wrapper for many movements from its inception. Some treat it as a
counter current for class politics; where as some others use it against
nationalist politics. There are some others who consider it as a prelude to the
class politics. Beneath this polymorphic composition and ambiguity there lay vexed questions on the terrains of
identity politics.
In the works of
Michael Keith and Steven Pile [Politics and Spaces of identity], modernist
identity politics have created a sort of essential-ism that rests on the
exclusivity of certain norms. They allege that this sort of exclusivity and
selectivity of modernist identity politics have made it very divisive. This was
not congenial for working toward a multiple, pluralized yet still radical
conceptualization of agency and identity.
We can see an
array of works on the national identity discourses. It may tempt us to think
that identity politics have superseded the national polity. Simon Bekker
defines Identity politics as the search of reconciliation between nation
building and demands by different citizens for recognition of communal
identity. He goes on to say that identity politics has emerged as a primary
challenge in many nation states. He accuses the national tendencies to achieve
homogeneity as the primary reason for the unrest and ethnic conflicts. This
conveniently ignores the external interventions that stir ethnic unrest.
Moreover,
homogeneity is an apparent ideology resting on the ethos of cultural
nationalism. In that sense, the attempt for a cultural homogeneity itself is an
identity politics. Rashtriya Swyayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which preaches a
‘Hindutva India’ is one instant example for this. They are the ones who raise
voice for uniform civil code and hegemony of Hinutva ideology.
Thus any attempt
to unify the nation based on culture or religion or language devoid of
considerations of productive forces and the social relations will become
identity politics in reality. Stanford Encyclopedia highlights that identity
politics strive to achieve a political freedom for a specific constituency of
marginalized people. But this fails to explain the causes of marginalization.
The awareness that only a particular constituency of people is marginalized is
because of identity politics. It confines the perspective to specific identity
ignoring the totality in exploitation.
In a market
economy, if someone says that only tribes are marginalized, it is a cruelty to
slum dwellers and the millions in the unorganized sector. The process of
marginalization acts as a time warp for all those who labor Only those
outside the dominant mode of production will be in a perpetual state of
marginalization. Detaching tribes from the dominant mode of production by way
of identity politics will only worsen their plight.
The case of
Narmada Bacho Andolan (NBA) is a grim example of identity politics. The
apolitical struggle of environmental politics detached the struggling people
from the political process and its dynamics. Their voices became unheard in the
political ecosystem. What the identity politics has achieved in NBA is creating
a perpetual apolitical site. This generates a question: who creates
marginalization, NBA or National government?
Capitalism has
evolved to become sustainable in ecology of unequal modes of production. It no
longer standardizes the economy. As capitalism now thrives on the expanding
market economy rather than nation states, it stimulates multiplicity of
choices. It is in this focal point where the pluralism of identity politics and
the market’s desire for multiple choices converge.
The question of
identity rests on the epidemiological currents initiated by modernism. The
essence of modernism lies in the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize itself, not in order to subvert it, but to enrich it more firmly in
its area of competence [Modernist Painting, Clement Greenberg]. Thus it
inherits a tendency to criticize itself. As self-criticism is the organic
element of Marxism, it is easy to draw parallel lines between Modernism and
Marxism. The awareness of identity is a dialectical process between objective
knowledge and subjective experience. Identity is a subjective knowledge of
objective experience as well. It is rooted in both of them. Thus identity is
the dialectical product of objectivity and subjectivity. Identity of identity
is nothing but the labor process and life process. Hence identity is both
reflexive and self critical in nature. With the progress of either objective
knowledge or subjective experience identity undergoes transformation in form
and content. This means that identity of a child born to a religious family
undergoes change if he studies in a national institution and it changes further
if goes on to work in a multi-national corporate organization.
Thus if class is
the dynamic product of self in labour, identity is the transient process by
which self changes. It is this volatility of identity that becomes the
instrument of imperialism. It captures one by its fractured identity and tempts
to organize based on it. Fractured identity and identity crisis can be rooted
in both crisis in knowledge and crisis in experience. It implies a crisis in
the criticism itself. It is this fractured identity or identity crisis that is
being targeted by the architects of identity politics. These formations of
identity groups are not self made always. Imperialism purchases the identity
formations through various funding agencies. And using the power of money,
imperialism exercises hegemony over the identity groups. And using this funded
economy, identity groups will be integrated to the imperial market economy.
Collectively, these preys can be named as social capital.
