What we call identity seems to be the simplest thing in the world. In fact, as simple as it appears from a distance, it becomes more complex up close. You have many identities. You are someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s brother, someone’s son, someone’s friend. If you do business then you are a businessman. You are fond of poetry, literature. This is a different form of you. When you do business, you are a different person and when you meet poets, sit with poets, you are a different person. So no man has one identity. Every person has many identities and at different times a particular identity becomes important. So this identity is like a diamond, which has many different sides. If you look from here you see something else, if you look from there you see something else. The multitude of all identities come together to form one person. In this crowd of identities, one identity is that you are a resident of a particular district. They are residents of a particular state. Are residents of India. Are residents of Asia. If there is a flood in your district, you will fulfill the responsibility of the citizen of your district, but if any kind of threat comes to the country, then your identity at that time is – Indian, Hindustani, Bhartiya. At different times, different cards of identity keep coming forward, but the thing to be seen is which of your identities is important at which time and whether you are playing it properly or not. We often say that India is an agricultural country, so farming is also an identity of ours. Today a person may be a doctor, an engineer, a judge or an army officer, but if you go back several generations, you will find that he is a farmer in his roots. Go back eight generations or ten generations – somewhere you will find a farmer. The truth is that farming is our common heritage and it is also an important part of our Indian identity. One of our identities is our tricolor which reminds us that India is not the name of any one religion, language, caste or community. This is a common country of many people who have different identities. So we may have many identities, but our being an Indian is the identity of taking them all together. Some identities we inherit and some we create through our hard work and choices. Birth identities create connections to family, community, language and tradition, but they often come with unspoken pressures. Just because a person is born in a particular family or community, he is expected to accept the same religion, social identity and tradition. In this, there is very little scope for choosing one’s identity. But this identity also brings with it a danger. While a healthy identity gives you confidence but does not give you pride, a sick identity has a completely different mood. She does not say – ‘I am this’, rather she says – ‘Only I am right’. The difference between the two things sounds very small, but its meaning for human society is very big. The first thing gives a person his identity, the second gives him the illusion of being better than others. And this confusion later becomes the foundation of intolerance, hatred and conflict. (Editing and coordination- Arvind Mandloi)
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लहर-लहर: हमारी पहचान की कई परतें हैं, लेकिन हिंदुस्तानी होना सबसे ऊपर है
