Answer in about 150 words: Identity has become an important phenomenon in the modern politics in India. Discuss. (2026, 10 Marks)
Identity politics is political action organised around a shared ascriptive or cultural marker — caste, faith, language, tribe, gender — to win recognition and resources for that group. Charles Taylor (“The Politics of Recognition”, 1992) argued that misrecognition is itself a form of oppression. In India, the democratic process gave such identities a vote and a platform. They are not survivals of tradition but products of democratic competition.
Arenas of identity politics
| Identity | Contemporary anchor |
|---|---|
| Caste | Caste enumeration in Census 2027 (Union Cabinet decision, 30 April 2025); SC sub-classification upheld in Davinder Singh (2024) |
| Religion | Hindu consolidation; Muslim tactical voting in 2024; the Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025 |
| Region and language | Tamil Nadu’s rejection of the three-language formula (2025); TVK’s May 2026 victory; southern opposition to delimitation |
| Tribe | Manipur’s Meitei–Kuki-Zo violence (from May 2023); Ladakh’s Sixth Schedule demand |
| Gender | Women’s turnout ahead of men’s in 2024; the 106th Amendment (2023) on legislative reservation; women-targeted cash transfers |
Why identity matters
- Rajni Kothari showed that democracy politicises caste: ascriptive networks became vehicles of mobilisation and bargaining.
- Yogendra Yadav’s second democratic upsurge brought Dalits, OBCs and Adivasis into politics on their own terms, through their own parties.
- The pluralist case for this is that identity assertion signals a deepening democracy, since only authoritarian regimes can suppress it.
- Markets and migration have not dissolved identity; they have produced new ones, such as nativist job-quota demands and aspirational youth constituencies.
Recognition and redistribution
Nancy Fraser argued that justice needs both recognition and redistribution, and warned that recognition struggles can displace material claims. Indian identity politics often joins the two: reservation turns recognition of caste into a share of jobs and seats. Yet the risks are real:
- Amartya Sen (Identity and Violence, 2006) shows that the “solitarist” reduction of people to a single identity feeds communal and ethnic polarisation.
- Benefits concentrate in dominant sub-groups; the Rohini Commission (2023) reportedly found central OBC benefits captured by a few castes. Recognition empowers the organised and articulate within a community while its weakest members stay invisible — the logic behind the Pasmanda and sub-classification demands.
- Symbolic politics can displace governance, although welfare delivery now cuts across identity blocs.
Conclusion
Identity has become central to Indian politics because democracy rewards organised groups. Its value depends on the use made of it: identity politics widens democracy when it expands access and harms it when it hardens boundaries or protects an existing share. The task is to channel it into parity of participation rather than suppress it.