PERILS OF IDENTITY

Month’s back, My brother working in Canada approached a man to help him reach his place. The man, a Pakistani identified my brother as an Indian. He said he was very happy to meet him and he even offered a drop to his place. My brother having met a Pakistani for the first time in his life recounted this incident to me. He added that he saw him as an South East Asian and not as a person from a rival country. I was perplexed. Is he not from the nation which media describe as our “bitter enemies”. Even leaders praising Pakistani nationals have met with harsh criticism and have even been forced to cut short their political careers. How can he offer to help my brother even though a small one?Is it just because he identified my brother with a broad view as an Asian. Few questions popped up in my mind.

What is an identity? Why exactly did it come into being? What could be the perils of identity? To get the answer for the 1^st question, I dusted my old Cambridge advanced learners dictionary which defines identity as” who a person is,or the qualities of a person or group which makes them different from others". To put it in simple terms,it means the address we give to ourselves in the name of caste,creed,community,religion, language ,ethinicity,nationality.

Not sure of why it came into being, I flipped the pages of some religious literature and was fortunate enough to find the answer. Identities were created as a means to introduce ourselves to others. To quote from Hindu literature Thirumarai,”Men, I created castes, creeds communities and religions so you may get introduced among yourselves”. Thus identities came into being to distinguish one person from other just as we distinguish one house from the other by the address.

But is identity being used for the same purpose today? At one end of the world we find racist attacks against Indians .Israel –Palestine hostility continues for decades. Back home, we find a “BHAYYA” being lynched by Marathi manoos.And to top it all we have politicians playing identity politics exploiting the uncongeniality between India and Pakistan.

It is a well known fact for those involved in social networking that there are many Pakistani hate groups in India just as in the other side of border..Just a fact that he is across the border is enough to ignite hatred in many hearts. The media too on their part add fuel by sensationalizing cricket matches and portray them as bitter enemies. A loss to them is not seen as just a result of supporting activity and we Indians show the outrage by ransacking cricketers houses..

Why such a hatred? Who is a Pakistani? How did he get his present identity? Just because a Muslim crossed the border during partition, he has taken the identity of a Pakistani national. Had he not crossed, he would have been an Indian and we would have considered him our fellow national, our brother.

So it is not the person we hate, but his identity we hate. Let me widen the perspective. We hate or like a person based on his identity but not of his qualities. Most Indians continue to have an emotional attachment to people belonging to their caste,religion,language etc.We love an unknown person and are willing to lend a helping hand just because he shares the same identity with us .We strike a special bonding with him.But we continue to fight in streets with our neighbors over trivial issues.

Take for instance the case of Eelam Tamils.We get emotional knowing their plight and even raise our voices against the cruelty meted to them.But why do we fail to realize the agony of dalits and be indifferent to the  farmer suicides.Its because when we assume a larger identity we get unified.Even people living in distant lands become one among us .But in the latter case,we narrowed our identity and tend to identify us with a particular community.Our legislative members mudsling each other on petty issues but showed their consent in unison only when the bill to increase salaries of M.P's and M.L.A's was passed.They forgot their party differences and they felt as a single group.Similarly,the “BHAYYA” would not have been lynched had he not revealed his identity. and there wouldn't have been any racist attack against Indians if the Australians saw Indians as fellow human beings.

So,its quite obvious that identity is inversely proportional to differences.Larger our identity,smaller our differences. From a tool of introduction, identity has evolved into a means of hatred. Many problems plaguing the world today has their roots in identity.And the only solution is to don a larger mantle of human being.Natural calamities in foreign lands are successful in plucking out our tear glands because only then the humanity within us peep out.The single identity of being human only can amalgamate us and can sound the death knell of identity politics.