In response to a taunt, “Who do you think you are?” Bakshi responds: “In India we don’t think who we are, we know who we are.” For those of us, who are never quite sure what it means to know who we are, such confidence is a great source of envy. Collective identities are produced through complex social, psychological and historical mechanisms. Or worse, the truism that the solidarity behind collective identities is often sustained by identifying a threat or an enemy. Just as nationalism is a form of collective aggrandisement and narcissism, so do most collective identities run the same risk. Our constant inability to think of individuals outside of the collective noun under which we slot them has a similar effect.

Source: Indian Express April 10, 2018 19:30 UTC