EDITORIALS & ARTICLES
How big a role does identity play in determining political participation in the developing countries? Discuss your answer with suitable illustrations. (UPSC CSE Mains 2018 - Political Science and International Relations, Paper 2)
- Cascardi has defined identity politics by its assertion into a series of separate value-spheres, each one of which tends to exclude or attempt to assert its priority over the rest. Identity politics becomes a political project that attempts recovery from exclusion and denigration of the group.
- Recently, in many South Asian countries, there is an increasing incidence of assaults on the weaker sections by mobs on caste, class, language and religious lines. These include -
- Bangladesh - a writer was attacked for speaking for the minorities.
- Myanmar - the long pending pathetic fate of the Rohingya Muslims.
- Sri Lanka - the racial oppression of Tamil minorities.
- Pakistan - attacks driven by religious motives, accusations of Islamic blasphemism. Pakistan remains a State where people have suffered the most from state-sponsored identity politics.
- Nepal - people of the hill country disempower those of its plains through constitutional manoeuvre.
- These acts are the outcome of identity politics that enforce behaviour based on sectarian values derived from religion, language, race, caste, etc. Notably in many of these cases, the State either remains a mere observer or in the other case an active agent of identity politics.
- Identity plays an exclusionary role most of the time when a dominant community tries to sideline weaker communities. This, in turn, results in the rise of sub-nationalism amongst weaker communities, who then participate with greater rigour to assert their place in the political discourse.
- The curse of identity politics is ripping apart the social fabric in these supposedly democratic nations. Identity politics is unfortunately the cause of these countries not moving forward in eliminating socio-economic deprivation. This is because it destroys social cohesion and stands in the way of economic progress. The result is that South Asia remains one of the most backward regions of the world and witnesses low levels of human development. States embracing identity politics, apparently compromise many of its secular and equality principals.
- There is a need for these democracies to adopt a model which will accommodate the various identities of people without compromising democracy. India definitely has much to offer to the world in this regard.
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