West Bengal has a substantive presence of minority population with 27% Muslims and 5.5% Scheduled Tribes. They often have a ghettoised presence and political parties take special care to secure electoral dividends from them. After the end to the left regime in 2011, the Trinamool Congress in its second term has percolated in most of the traditional left bastions, especially among the ethnic and religious minorities. This paper explores the mechanisms of TMC’s percolation among the ethnic and religious minorities through “cultural misrecognition.” Through an ethnographic work on the promotion of cultural expressions and recent ethnic conflicts, it is argued that, while the organisation-based political mechanism has been put in the backseat, West Bengal is observing a rapid rise of primordial identity-based political practices.
Identity upholds a symbol of privilege and purity on the one hand and, on the other, is also a label that represents the stigma of pollution and indignity. Both these forms of identity construct the idea of identity politics. Identity establishes an idea and idea constructs an identity, both become indistinguishable in a political discourse that works at different levels in society. This is the dichotomy of the theory of recognition that is explored in this article.
Just ahead of the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh in early 2017, this is an analysis of the identity politics that is scripting a new political paradigm in the state, undermining the focus of political parties on ideology and social justice, and transforming the Samajwadi Party, which once stood for secularism and inclusion, into a caste-based, criminalised organisation.
Whenever in government the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has been able to initiate the kind of structural changes that have engendered a qualitative improvement in the lives of the dalits. This has generated a stable support base for the party election after election.
The recent incidence of conflict involving members of the landowning caste of jats and the scheduled caste of â??ad-dharmis' in the Talhan village of Punjab is far from a typical case of caste violence or 'dalit oppression' frequently reported from other parts of India. Instead, it ought to be viewed as a case of 'dalit assertion' for equal rights and a share in the resources that belong commonly to the village and had so far been in the exclusive control of the locally dominant caste, the jats. Further, notwithstanding the rather peculiar and complex nature of the Talhan case, this could mark the beginning of a new phase in the history of caste relations in Punjab. Though the issues are varied, there seems to be an underlying pattern in several other cases of conflict being currently reported in the state.
Religious parties were implacably hostile to the Pakistan Movement. When, inaugurating Pakistan's constituent assembly, Jinnah proclaimed Pakistan's secular ideology he was voicing the established secular ideological position that the Muslim League had adhered to throughout its career. Fundamentalist Islamic ideology played no part in the origins of Pakistan, although contemporary ideologues of Islamic fundamentalism, including academics, claim that it was Islamic ideology and slogans that created Pakistan and that they therefore have the right to decide its future.
White identity politics was central to the development of the American state, and informed all dominant conceptions of the nation, as seen from its immigration history and naturalisation laws. This helped establish, in turn, elaborate systems of difference based on race, gender and class interrelations, designed to maintain political domination. The American Dream promising equality was eventually fulfilled through the struggles of minority constituencies, especially by the Asian Americans. This paper explores the shaping of the Asian American identity, an invention that was tied to the state project of racial formation.
In recent years, a new confident Hindutva has enforced its presence in several districts of coastal Karnataka, seeking to consolidate its base among diverse castes. Yet, to combat the bonds of economic cohesion and cultural cohabitation that still retain their resilience among communities - Hindu and Muslim, this new Hindutva will need to continually build new identities and deconstruct existing ones.
