SENSE YOUR IDENTITY

There is a fuss being made about a Communist minister in West Bengal having worshipped at a Kali temple. He has even said that he is a Hindu first and a Marxist later. In Gujarat, Buddhists and Jains are peeved they have been clubbed as Hindus in a state government legislation on conversion.

There is no need to get worked up about this. All of us have multiple and elective identities, which we slip in and out of whenever we need. As Amartya Sen has written in his book, Identity and Violence, a person can have several different identities — a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician etc. None of these identities define a person — they are taken on at different times and discarded as easily.

If one works with this idea of an identity, then many of today’s conflicts would lose their sting. It is in the state’s interest to confine people to a singular identity. But in today’s interconnected, globalised world such notions don’t have relevance.

What is your sense of your own identity?

If you were to be born again, would you choose to be born an Indian, in India? Or as a foreigner in India? Or as an Indian but staying abroad?