Thread on separate electorates and identity politics (in response to @Aakar__Patel) https://twitter.com/Aakar__Patel/status/1292488417851277313

Identity politics always leads to the reification of identity. We've seen it with caste which as a system has only grown stronger with time, from precolonial to colonial to postcolonial India (S. Bayly's account is good on this) 1/

...and we've seen it with religion - Hindu and Muslim responses to devolution created a kind of 'communal' identity in the late 19C and early 20C that was considerably more violent, and exclusionary, than before 2/

While no fan of FPTP (much prefer PR), what it does is force parties to triangulate - hence even Muslim parties (IUML, Fourth Party, MIM etc) are forced to solicit votes from non-Muslims 3/

Same goes for Hindus - we've even seen the BJP striking deals with Shia elites, who as ever, are more worried of Sunnis than the Sangh 4/

If we want to fight Hindu nationalism, we have to push religion out of the public sphere, make religion irrelevant 5/

Separate electorates does the opposite - makes it the sine qua non of politics (forces everyone into marked categories - at once Chagla becomes Muslim, Gopalan Hindu etc) 6/

With identity politics, Muslim politics all too often becomes about the sharia, AMU, Urdu; Hindu politics the temple, Hindi, narratives of replacement - real issues, class included, recede from view 7/

As for 'othering in existence today', I quite agree, but still think India's quite far from the point of no return 8/

Sustained engagement (politics, trade, marriage, friendship) between Hindu and Muslim is possible, and can increase only if we undermine religious identity 9/

For the historical record, it was Indian Muslims (Congressmen like Azad and former Leaguers like Begum Rasul), not Hindus, who led the charge against, and did for, separate electorates in India in 1948-9 10/10