My first meeting with Dr Amartya Sen was many years ago when at a dinner in Delhi, I was seated next to him. At that time, I was writing my book, Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity, published later by Penguin. Sen’s then recently released book, Identity and Violence, was much in discussion. In that book, he argued that there was no centrality to identity at all, and all human beings were only an aggregation of affiliations and associations.
Within our one defining Indianness, there can be infinite diversities. (HT Archive)
As he wrote, “A person’s citizenship, residence, geographic origin, gender, class, politics, profession, employment, food habits, sports interests, taste in music, social commitments, etc make us members of a variety of groups. Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category.”
I disagreed with Sen’s thesis. To my mind, the problem with such an argument is that it equates interests or pursuits or preoccupations, which are a contingent aspect of everyday life, with the primaeval – enduring and unalterable attributes of identity that we are born with and cannot forsake. For instance, the role of religion in a person’s life cannot be equated with his interests in sports; nor can an individual’s colour have the same importance as her current taste in music; nor can everyday social commitments erode linguistic loyalties. It is true that affiliations or interests can help to build bridges between different countries and communities. But it is quite another thing to argue that because such bridges are possible or desirable, there is no singularity of identity, and we can all become mirror images of each other.
I have always believed that in spite of an increasingly globalised world, there are four things that you cannot leave behind at the immigration counter: Colour, culture, religion and language. The internationally renowned psychoanalyst and writer, Sudhir Kakar, and his Harvard-educated wife, Katherina Kakar, concur:
“Identity is not a role, or a succession of roles, with which it is often confused. It is not a garment that can be put on or taken off according to the weather outside...A person’s identity—of which the culture that he has grown up in is a vital part—is what makes him recognise himself and be recognised by the people who constitute his world…. The cultural part of our personal identity, modern neuroscience tells us, is wired into our brains.”
Indianness, therefore, remains our central identity, however cosmopolitan our interests are. Within that one defining Indianness, there can be infinite diversities. An example the Kakars give is that a person from Amritsar is called an Amrit sari in Chandigarh; the same person in Delhi is labelled a Punjabi, but becomes an Indian abroad, and, frankly, remains one. When I was posted in New York, I remember a lavish dinner thrown by one of the richest Indians there. America was his home for decades, and happily so. But after a couple of drinks, he said emotionally to me: “Pavan ji, this country has given me a lot. I am truly grateful for it. Par marenge tau apne watan mein (But I want to die in my own country).”
That central identity refuses to leave you. Perhaps, in the case of Sen, his memories of the Hindu-Muslim riots in Dhaka, whereas a child of 11, he saw a Muslim stagger into his garden bleeding from a fatal knife wound, convinced him of the dangers of singular religious identities. His concern about religions being the cause of violence is right. But his conclusion that identity as a whole is just a collation of infinite multiplicities, is wrong.
As he sipped his glass of wine, I asked Sen why, when he lived mostly abroad and had married a foreigner, he had not – in conformity with his own thesis – given up his Indian passport? His answer was most revealing. Bending towards me, he said, “Pavan, I cannot bring myself to do that. You see, as a child, I learnt Bengali and Sanskrit. My cultural roots are here.”
Pavan K Varma is author, diplomat, and former Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha).
Just Like That is a weekly column where Varma shares nuggets from the world of history, culture, literature, and personal reminiscences with HT Premium readers.
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