The term 'Identity Politics' has recently gripped the imagination of intellectuals and academics. Historians, political scientists and sociologists are especially active in exploring the interaction of 'multiple identities' in a society. Nowhere is this debate keener than here on the subcontinent, which anthropologists have often referred to as a live ethnological museum. Historical debate has latched on to an exciting exploration of 'multiple identities' and 'identity politics' in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The common meeting ground in this historical debate is 'undivided India', i.e., British/Colonial India.
At an animated session at the Netaji Institute of Asian Studies, which is situated in the former residence of the Bose family at 1 Woodburn Park, Calcutta, Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, presented a paper built around two inter-locking themes: (1) the interaction of three identities, 'Indian', 'Bengali' and 'Muslim', and (2) three defining moments in this complex inter-relationship, namely, the early 1920s, when a Bengali identity emerged vis-a-vis the Indian identity, then the 1930s, when the Bengali Muslims articulated a distinct identity of their own in public debate, and finally 1971, preceded by the Bhasha Andolan of the early 1950s, which presaged the emergence of Bangladesh.
In the lively discussion that followed, Professor Sugata Bose of the Tufts University, the US, emphasised the multicultural and historical basis of a true federation for India. Leaders of public opinion in early twentieth century India, and these included such eminent figures as Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, C R Das, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Aurobindo Ghosh et al, were deeply aware of the co-existence of many languages and cultures in a common Indian civilisation, and of the political need to federate them. And they were no less acutely aware of the existence of Hindustan and Islam in the subcontinent, and of the urgent need for a genuine 'federation of faiths' (Mohammad Ali).
These identities were not static. They were shifting, evolving, interacting all the time. There was no telling, in the early 1920s, which way they would turn. Take the identity dubbed 'Bengali', widely discussed in magazines and journals in the early 1920s. This identity had first sprung into public prominence during the partition of Bengal by Lord Curzon in 1905. In the nineteenth century, however, educational, cultural and political endeavours hardly emphasised the term Bengali. The Hindoo College of 1817, and the 'Hindoo Mela' of the mid-nineteenth century, were both enterprises of which Bengalis are still proud today, though the secular-minded among them are somewhat embarrassed by the use of the term 'Hindoo'. Many Muslims in Bengal, indeed, supported the partition effected by Lord Curzon.
All this, as Professor Bhattacharya and his commentators pointed out, changed dramatically and suddenly in the early 1920s. The Non-co-operation -Khilafat movement of 1920 united Hindus and Muslims, all over India and especially in Bengal. And then the Bengal Pact between Hindus and Muslims, concluded by C R Das and Abdul Karim in 1924, came up for ratification by the Indian National Congress, so that the whole country might follow suit. This did not quite happen. And, meanwhile, the Non-co-operation-Khilafat movement collapsed. The unity exhibited everywhere during the short but wonderful period of five years (1920-1925) was unprecedented. It was a period when, as a commentator observed at the Netaji Institute of Asian Studies, the triple identity Indian-Bengali-Muslim existed in unwonted harmony. Nostalgically and somewhat regretfully, the assembled historians recognised that not only was this period unprecedented, but it was never afterwards repeated. Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in Bengal on a massive scale in 1926. And ultimately India was partitioned in 1947. The identities dubbed Indian, Bengali and Muslim were all torn asunder in that year, and yet another re-assemblage followed in 1971.
Professor Bose nostalgically recalled the youth he had passed at 1 Woodburn Park and added that a brief echo of the wonderful 'defining moment' of 1920-25 was heard again when the Indian National Army was led by Subhas Chandra Bose into a united war against British colonialism. Hindus and Muslims, and men from different regions, participated in this patriotic war. But it was not quite the same thing: Imphal and Kohima were too far away from Delhi.
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One wonders, in retrospect, what might have happened if the British position in India had been shattered by the Japanese attack. Suppose the INA regiments, Hindu, Muslim, Tamil and Punjabi soldiers mingled into them, had marched into the Red Fort. What then? How would Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the All-Indian Muslim League, which had already formulated the demand for Pakistan (in a loose and undefined manner), have received this development? And how would the Congress high command, which had expelled Bose on the eve of the Second World War, have reacted ? These are 'ifs' and 'might-have-beens', useful for counter-factual analysis, but no more.
The theoretical point, however, is quite clear. Identities are not rigidly fixed in history, and no collision between any two identities can with confidence be pronounced to be 'destined'. Historians and political scientists who predict such things do so at their peril. Professor Bhattacharya has demonstrated the pitfalls of such a procedure. His book on the subject is awaited. Identities merge, part, co-exist, re-assemble. These things are never pre-determined by any factors, objective or otherwise. It is the chain of historical circumstances which, in their succession and totality, determines the outcome. A fragile, or glorious, unpredictability hangs over it all. There is always hope.