All politics is identity politics.

If you think about it, politics involves making common decisions for a group of people. It is about achieving and exercising positions of governance—organized control over a human community. In some ways, it determines the governance means. Beyond anything, politics determine how we (as human beings) manage our own world and world around us. In some ways, politics do contribute to make meaning out of the confusion of living.

When we say personal identity, it is one's sense of self and its persistence but that does not directly apply to sense of politics because politics is all about group. If it is a group, then several people will need to have similar sense of self and that ‘sense’  will need to be socially recognized otherwise they will not be able collate with each other. Thus differences exist between multiple groups (with each group having similar idea of who they are), group identity is established. What is common is the transparency of the experience and unification of expression amongst the group members.

One way to look at the phenomenon of a group having a unique identity is to look at the differences of experiences-expressions and see how essential they are:  if they did not exist then the idea of identity will not exists in its distinctiveness and solidity. In 21^st century , what we call the modern society , as soon as a man is born, an identity is created – he/she is someone’s son or daughter and is citizen of a country. Over thousands of years of human civilization, we humans have created multiple identities (via evolving religion, cultural norms, kingdoms and so on), dissolved some, and stayed with many, all in the name of progress. Today’s man does not have a singular identity, rather manifold identities. In fact, at its core, there is whole hierarchy of them ….

Figure 1: Hierarchy of Identities

While human existence has no meaning without a sense of identity, it is natural, did exist before and will exist in future, forever. Traversing through these identities it is important to understand which of them have the understanding of ‘recognition of the others’ in built with them. It is this aspect, which determines the politics of oppressor-oppressed. If an identity recognize the rights of the existence of another with an equal footing, with respect, then it is not an oppressor, else it is. Yet in the oppressor-oppressed relationship both parties want to sustain the concept of ‘different identities’ for different reasons. It is the interest of the oppressor that the identity needs to be preserved in a certain way and therefore, the maintenance of one identity (or field of identities) involves the conversion of some differences into otherness, or one of its numerous surrogates. On other hand oppressed members of constituency assert or reclaim ways of understanding their distinctiveness that challenge dominant oppressive characterizations, with the goal of greater self-determination. So, identity requires differences to endure, and it converts difference into otherness in order to secure its own self-certainty.

The following matrix gives in some way the association between the basic identities and ‘recognition of others’.

Identity Type	Recognition of Others (Yes or No) i.e. their right to exist and thrive	Comments
Humanity	Yes	Everybody is needed even Oppressor needs the oppressed.
Man or Woman	Yes	Needed for Humanity to continue
Religion	No.	Many Abrahamic religious believers think that either they are the chosen people of the world and others are nothing OR their religion is the only way and no other way is good enough and thus should not exist.
Country	Yes or No	For patriots Yes for nationalists it is NO
Race	Yes or No	Depending on the culture and values of distinctive races.

Given this notion of identity and that of politics, I would say that all politics are in some way identity politics, activities based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with definitive and distinctly different and unique identities. Identity is the pillar on which all politics good or bad, red or blue rests. Thus, the politics become violent when the identity itself (as understood by the political actors) exclude others and assert its own as the only thing that has the right to exist in the world. Examples of this can be found throughout the history : most recently … in  Religion : Islam when it converted people of other beliefs via sword; in race: White peoples dominance  over Blacks and subjugation of them to slavery or German and Japanese aggression in World War II, in  nations: when early kings like Alexander, Chengis Kahn did not want the existence of other countries other than their own and subsequently set about conquering the world. While a person’s lived experience should never be invalidated, but we should also be aware that no identity makes the beliefs that someone derives from their lived experience automatically more correct. That is not an identity, rather a logical fallacy and projected ego , like the chicken-egg scenario , which comes first chicken or egg...for me the egg representing the lived experience that results in the mental constructs called identity.

In the age of wisdom, as we would like to call it, end of twentieth century and beginning of 21st century, hopefully, without any backlash, we have come to accept the fact the world is inherently diverse and diversity is the strength. Multiple identities will exists and it is for the good of all humanity as it brings in numerous perspectives on same events of life. So we all need to create a political identity which will enunciate itself and claim for itself by entrenching, restating, promoting the distinctiveness of each identity. If there is an acceptance of diversity then the politics with a goal of self-determination will not have to challenge the domination of the oppressive characterization of any singular identity. There will not be a structure of the oppressor-oppressed rather an understanding of universal goals i.e. of all humanity.

In that sense there will be one identity – humanity and all others are sub identities, which are religion, gender, cultural, ethnicity and so on. There can be and should be strong differences between then engaging in continuous debates but all leading, through multiple ways, to claim some common goal of humanity like an egalitarian society, equal rights, no poverty and so on.

Therefore, what should be the governance values?  the idea of maintaining the privilege and power of those superior beings (of some singular identity) who claim dominion over the earth and right to rule other humans, breaks down in the face of acceptance of manifold identities. In its place, we need harmony, autonomy and respect as the driving values for any kind of political structure. The responsibility to recover, understand , absorb and preserve these values will lead to political systems that are designed to fit with the realities of people and provide opportunities to make , interpret and enforce ‘laws’ in a manner that is consensual and inclusive.

A Case for India

Because of the huge diversity, national Identity of India (in the sense the western countries) did not exist in India. So to create a similar one, time, space, geography, caste, religion – all needed to be redefined by the supposedly superior knowledge, science and ethics of the imperialists (in the case of India it was the British) . This meant both physical and mental mapping. It did not work. It was impossible to force Indians to redefine their age-long civilization in terms of the ‘superior’ ideals of the West. The primary reason was that the ideals of West were not superior. India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with a kaleidoscopic variety and rich cultural heritage.

This was also the problem for the founders, to exist in the modern world (post world war II) as an Independent (free from oppression) Country amongst all the others in the world. Multiple identities that a typical Indian possessed (like that language, state, religion, culture, birth and so on) had to exist within the context of national Identity. All these identities needed a political expression. Thus was conceived a unique political system where a whole hierarchy of elections exists like that ladder of identities, the highest being the national identity. It is important to note that the national election and prime minister of India is elected by direct participation of the voting public, thus giving national identity the same place (not superior) as every other one. Elections are held at different levels. The two major election levels are at national level, after which the national government is established and at state level after which the state government is established. Elections are also held for city, town and village councils.

So for an Indian citizen, other than being a human (or humanity) Indian national identity supersedes every other identity that he or she might be having. India has numerous identities that are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and all have the right to coexists but when it comes to call of duty, every identity, like every Indian will need to work towards a political and psychological unity of India.

If we try to (as described before) adhere to the idea of identity hierarchy, Indian national identity for all Indian citizens is at the highest level .There is not direct physical mapping as Indians do not share a common culture but they do share a common legacy. Centuries of Indian civilization and years of amalgamation of various traditions, mould today’s Indian citizen. Transformation undergone may not be prominently visible on physical attributes, but psychologically Indians have developed finer characteristics of innovation in limitations, co-existence of traditions with modernity, surviving the odds by hypocrisy and believing in a common legacy.

India survives as a single state, India is the largest democracy in the world. India has the biggest number of people with franchise rights and the largest number of political parties, which take part in any given national election campaign and they all share one national identity of India.

With the above analytical framework the political structure of every other country can analysed. The basic premise being ..'All politics is identity politics'.