Going through the socio-politically opinionated articles on the internet and such posts on social media has become a harrowing experience for me these days. While I cannot ignore these because I am seriously interested in these matters (particularly if they concern Indian affairs), I am also unsatisfied by much of what I read (even leaving out the ones that are visibly junk, and concentrating only on the more thoughtful ones). I feel that most people are greatly prone to taking sides about various issues, and sticking to their guns ignoring the other side's opinions. Such people are prone to "validating" their "arguments" with partial information, and conveniently leaving out other information that does not conform to their "arguments". In such cases, arguments get reduced to rhetoric, and the situation becomes like that of six blind men (from Hindostan, coincidentally), each of whom touched one random part of an elephant's body, and drew ridiculous (and contradictory) conclusions about the elephant's appearance. Holistic analyses, that tries to understand the thoughts, viewpoints, prejudices, limitations etc of all the concerned parties are pitifully scarce. Moreover, accurate news on various issues are hard to obtain. While sources of news are plentiful (perhaps excessive), not a single one is known to be fully reliable. Some of them have vested interests and others suffer from the same one-sided-ness discussed above. Amusingly, people from all ideologies across the multidimensional political spectrum are united in criticizing the Indian media, often for contradictory reasons. In such a situation, taking stands on socio-political issues is impossible for a rational person who refuses to marry him/herself to any fixed ideology/viewpoint or constrain him/herself by any identity/bias/prejudice. But even if I cannot take a stand on every micro-issue, or declare myself as a firm follower of any "ism" at a macro level, I can attempt to locate my positions on various broad matters of debate in India, and try to see what patterns emerge. I can also answer the question of "identity"- a question often asked in India. This is what I will attempt to do in this essay.
1) Social identity: This is about the question "Which persons do I relate to more strongly than others?". It is usually answered in terms of attributes like language, religion, nationality, race etc. I do not like to identify myself this way, since these are attributes which I obtained by accident of birth, and have no conscious control on them. First and foremost I am myself, an individual. I can relate to other people on the basis of the values mentioned below, or tastes, personality etc. Regarding the above-mentioned attributes, I give importance to my nationality- I am an Indian. This does NOT mean I am a strong nationalist- see below. My linguistic or religious identities have absolutely no importance to myself- I do not want myself to be classified as a "Bengali" or as a "Hindu". I cannot say why it is this way- but this is the way I have always felt.
2) Position on economic policy: I am an egalitarian, I believe in equality in terms of income, access to basic amenities and social status. I generally favor state socialism, and believe this is the most practical way of achieving the society I want. I cannot relate to the notions of capitalism, big business, wealth building etc. That does not mean I am a staunch socialist. If in any particular case a capitalistic approach is found to be a better way to my goal, I will endorse it.
3) Position on religion: I am supposed to be a Hindu by birth, but I am agnostic by faith. I am sceptic towards religion, but not overtly critical. I do not worship, but participate in some rituals (like pushpanjali in Saraswati Puja, lighting candles in Diwali) as a social practice rather than religious. I have no problem with any religion as long as it does not 1) Attack people of other beliefs (including no belief) 2) Does not involve environmentally wasteful rituals 3) Does not place restrictions on the natural behavior of its followers.
4) Position on nationalism: I regard myself as an Indian, and I love to see people rising above their regional boundaries, and identifying themselves as Indian. I love the idea of an unified India, but that does not mean that I am a staunch nationalist. I am not in favour of forcibly imposing Indian citizenship on unwilling people, like in Kashmir valley, and parts of Manipur and Nagaland. I do not support their demand of secession from India, but nor do I support militarily repressing them. I realize that "nation", "nation-state" and "country" are all different things, and want governments to understand and respect these differences. I have no hatred towards any other nation- not even Pakistan, China or USA. I am ambivalent towards the Indian armed forces. I feel happy about their heroic exploits during wars and natural disasters, but cannot ignore the atrocities committed by them (sometimes in the name of nationalism, sometimes for the sake of promotions and medals, or sometimes from sheer arrogance of power). I do not like India building weapons like ICBM, nuclear submarine etc, which are irrelevant to national defence.
5) Position on nature and environment: I feel that nature and environment should have higher priority than "development" and industrialization. I love the idea of Radical Ecological Democracy (RED) proposed by Ashish Kothari.
6) Position on marriage, sexuality etc: I am in favour of leaving these as matters of individual choice. Indeed I think our society should be more permissive about sexuality. I am in favour of revising marital norms to remove the deeply-entrenched patriarchial overtones.
1) Social identity: This is about the question "Which persons do I relate to more strongly than others?". It is usually answered in terms of attributes like language, religion, nationality, race etc. I do not like to identify myself this way, since these are attributes which I obtained by accident of birth, and have no conscious control on them. First and foremost I am myself, an individual. I can relate to other people on the basis of the values mentioned below, or tastes, personality etc. Regarding the above-mentioned attributes, I give importance to my nationality- I am an Indian. This does NOT mean I am a strong nationalist- see below. My linguistic or religious identities have absolutely no importance to myself- I do not want myself to be classified as a "Bengali" or as a "Hindu". I cannot say why it is this way- but this is the way I have always felt.
2) Position on economic policy: I am an egalitarian, I believe in equality in terms of income, access to basic amenities and social status. I generally favor state socialism, and believe this is the most practical way of achieving the society I want. I cannot relate to the notions of capitalism, big business, wealth building etc. That does not mean I am a staunch socialist. If in any particular case a capitalistic approach is found to be a better way to my goal, I will endorse it.
3) Position on religion: I am supposed to be a Hindu by birth, but I am agnostic by faith. I am sceptic towards religion, but not overtly critical. I do not worship, but participate in some rituals (like pushpanjali in Saraswati Puja, lighting candles in Diwali) as a social practice rather than religious. I have no problem with any religion as long as it does not 1) Attack people of other beliefs (including no belief) 2) Does not involve environmentally wasteful rituals 3) Does not place restrictions on the natural behavior of its followers.
4) Position on nationalism: I regard myself as an Indian, and I love to see people rising above their regional boundaries, and identifying themselves as Indian. I love the idea of an unified India, but that does not mean that I am a staunch nationalist. I am not in favour of forcibly imposing Indian citizenship on unwilling people, like in Kashmir valley, and parts of Manipur and Nagaland. I do not support their demand of secession from India, but nor do I support militarily repressing them. I realize that "nation", "nation-state" and "country" are all different things, and want governments to understand and respect these differences. I have no hatred towards any other nation- not even Pakistan, China or USA. I am ambivalent towards the Indian armed forces. I feel happy about their heroic exploits during wars and natural disasters, but cannot ignore the atrocities committed by them (sometimes in the name of nationalism, sometimes for the sake of promotions and medals, or sometimes from sheer arrogance of power). I do not like India building weapons like ICBM, nuclear submarine etc, which are irrelevant to national defence.
5) Position on nature and environment: I feel that nature and environment should have higher priority than "development" and industrialization. I love the idea of Radical Ecological Democracy (RED) proposed by Ashish Kothari.
6) Position on marriage, sexuality etc: I am in favour of leaving these as matters of individual choice. Indeed I think our society should be more permissive about sexuality. I am in favour of revising marital norms to remove the deeply-entrenched patriarchial overtones.
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