National identity - incomplete post

June 2, 2020

I haven’t thought about my national identity in a long time. I guess maybe I never really thought about it till my first long stay abroad, as a student in 1980’s, when where I came from, and how I was brought up, my beliefs, the languages I spoke or didn’t, were suddenly in the forefront. I wasn’t just a teenager trying to figure out university life like most of the others there. I realized then that I knew much more about the culture there than my American co-students knew about me. Some of their questions and stereotypes were hilarious. I can thank Hollywood films and books I read by American writers for that. At that time though, I was more interested in finding the ways I was similar to the others than different. 

I finished my studies, returned and didn’t think much about it again till several things began to happen around me. Mostly beginning in 1992, with the Rath Yatra that Advani started and the tearing down of Babri Masjid at the end of the year. My city exploded in riots, I got involved in human rights work, many friends fought with me over my perspectives, and I began to see the ways I didn’t identify with other Indians – even friends whom I had been close to before. 

The journey after that is interesting but I will fast forward to the last few years.

When the BJP won the 2014 election I was devastated. I found it hard to believe that my country people would vote in someone who was clearly responsible for the 2002 genocide in Gujarat. Without realizing it I distanced myself from the country, while actually having more conversations about what had happened with the few that felt the way I did. Even though I lived in Singapore, I was working on and off with activists in Bombay, participating in a few brainstormings, attending events when I was in Bombay. 

The discrimination against Muslims went up, the country’s economy slid down. I was so sure that my fellow Indians would not tolerate this and would vote them out. BJP came back in 2019 with a thumping majority.

I fell into a depression. I didn’t realise it till much later how much it was connected to national and cultural identity and happenings, and not with personal stuff. The BJP revoked Kashmir’s special status, they won the Ram Mandir case and boasted how they would build this huge temple there. The CAA passed in both houses of parliament. Many fellow Indians on fb shared this information and more with glee along with hate stories about how vile the Congress was almost daily. I stooped while walking, which created a pressure on my spine, my brain was in a grey fog. I was in pain. I hated going to Bombay. For the first time I considered changing my citizenship.

Then one Thursday or Friday in December when I was sitting with a friend at the Esplanade Toast Box, my phone began pinging. Picture, after picture of huge crowds on the roads protesting the police violence at Jamia appeared. I could not believe how quickly my spirits lifted after. That is the India I felt close to. It validated my own Indian identity.

Many India’s, many Indian identities exist. It’s tricky, wide and deep. I am curious about them. I am more curious about how that non-identification with the mainstream identity, feeling marginalised by my country people depressed me so deeply. Much more to explore and I want to keep writing but have appointments to attend to and must stop.