Ethnicity and Identity movements ( Sociology Optional)

Introduction

  • Ethnicity refers to social traits like nationality, tribe, and religious faith, shared language, shared culture, and shared traditions that are shared by a human population.
  • Two elements provide the basis to identify ethnic groups: first, the accentuation of cultural traits and, second, the sense that those traits distinguish the group from the members of the society who do not share the differentiating characteristic.

Thinkers Perspective

  • The term Ethnicity was first used by the French nationalist and scientist, Georges Vacher de la Pouge, to describe the “natural and counterfeit” cultural, psychological and social characteristics of a population, and in order to distinguish the latter from the concept of race which he defined as a series of physical characteristics.
  • Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory, choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by the belief of common descent.
  • Jóhanna Birnir defines ethnicity as group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location.
  • Ghosh defines Ethnicity as "the process of formation and reformation of consciousness of identity (real or supposed) in terms of one or more socialcultural-political symbols of domination/subjugation of a group(s) or community by another that emerge out of the processes of assimilation, acculturation, interaction, competition and conflict”.
  • Fredrik Barth argued that ethnic identity was a means to create boundaries that enabled a group to distance themselves from one another. Barth was quite forceful about his position as he strongly maintained that ethnic boundaries define a group and not the “cultural stuff that encloses it”.

Ethnicity and nationality

  • In some cases, especially involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality.
  • Anthropologists and historians, following the modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century.
  • They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided with state boundaries.
  • Nation-states, however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another.
  • Members of excluded groups will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to the extent of complete political separation in their nation-state.
  • Under these conditions when people moved from one state to another,or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state.

Factors of Tribal Discontent

  • Tribal unrest and discontent, thus, may be described as the cumula­tive of a number of contributory factors.
  • The main factors were:
    • Lethargy, indifference, and lack of sympathy from administrators and bureaucrats in dealing with tribal grievances.
    • Harshness of forest laws and regulations.
    • Lack of legislation to prevent the passing of tribal land into the hands of non-tribals.
    • Ineffective government measures to rehabilitate tribal population.
    • Lack of interest and dynamism among the political elite to solve tribal problems.
    • Delay in implementation of recommendations made by high level bodies.
    • Discrimination in implementation of reformatory measures.
  • In short, the causes of tribal unrest may be described as economic, so­cial and political.

Ethnic Movements

  • Organized by groups whose distinctiveness is based on national origin, culture, language, religion, territory, or phenotype, ethnic movements are enacted with the purpose of promoting or resisting social change.
  • Ethnic groups express grievances or claims on behalf of the larger collective through organized group efforts which are often directed at actors and institutions or other ethnic groups.
  • The target of an ethnic movement can vary depending upon its goals, which can include improving the status of minority groups, influencing policy, or demanding independence

Ethnonationalism

  • Ethnic nationalism, also known as ethnonationalism, is a form of nationalism wherein the nation and nationality are defined in terms of ethnicity, with emphasis on an ethnocentric (and in some cases an ethnocratic) approach to various political issues related to national affirmation of a particular ethnic group.

Thinkers Perspective

  • According to Walker, the concept “denotes both the loyalty to a nation deprived of its own state and the loyalty to an ethnic group embodied in a specific state, particularly where the latter is conceived as a nation-state.
  • In ethno-nationalism, a group develops a loyalty to its nation which is marked by the desire of an ethnic community and the community to have absolute authority over its own political, economic, and social This denotes the pursuit of statehood on the part of an ethnic nation.
  • K N Panikkar writes that periodically ethnic identities and loyalties surfaced in Indian polity, using different strategies and methods. Unfortunately, the state responded to the aspirations of these marginalised groups by methods that relied more on force, and this led to greater alienation of these communities. Ethnic conflict takes place when mobilized identity groups struggle for autonomy and power in an established nation or a newly formed state.

Impacts of Ethnonationalism

  • There was a resurgence of ethnic conflict in a number of parts of the world, particularly during the 1990s, while the assault on America on 11 September 2001 underscored the threat that the new menace of masscasualty terrorism posed to the world.
  • A new world order ethno-nationalism was commonly associated with the horrors of ethnic cleansing, a term that originated in the Balkans in the early 1990s.
  • This gave ethnonationalism a bad name and also meant that it tended to be linked with secession and the break-up of states, as well as with political mobilisation leading to war.
  • Ethno-nationalism also tended to be associated with minorities dissatisfied with their place in an existing polity.
  • Issue of Identity Crises: North East is home to almost 75 major population groups and sub groups who speak almost 400 languages and dialects. Based on factors like race, language and religion, various sub regions in this part of the country display distinct socio-cultural and political leanings and attributes. This was one of the main contributory factor for the creation of four states out of the erstwhile state of Assam. But, in fact, the phenomenon was much broader than simply providing recourse for rebellious minorities.

Ethno-national conflict

  • The 19th century saw the development of the political ideology of ethnic nationalism, when the concept of race was tied to nationalism, first by German theorists including Johann Gottfried von Herder.
  • Instances of societies focusing on ethnic ties, arguably to the exclusion of history or historical context, have resulted in the justification of nationalist goals.
  • Two periods frequently cited as examples of this are the 19th-century consolidation and expansion of the German Empire and the 20th century Nazi Germany.
  • Each promoted the pan-ethnic idea that these governments were acquiring only lands that had always been inhabited by ethnic Germans.
  • Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by the state or its constituents.
  • In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways.
  • Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view, the state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals.
  • Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka, argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within the boundaries of the nation-state.

Factors Responsible for Ethnic Movements/ Upsurges in India

  • For Rajni Kothari ethnic upsurges are a consequence of the homogenising trend of modern states and of their technological/educational imperatives.
  • For Dipankar Gupta, ethnicity is basically a political process.
  • Cohen (1974) has also argued that ethnicity does not require a cultural or historical explanation; contemporary politics and ‘structural conditions’ are the keys to understand the phenomenon.
  • Priya Arya explains some of the critical factors responsible for inflamed ethnicity in India:
  1. India is a plural society. It is characterized by a large diversity in its population with multitudes of castes and several religious, linguistic, cultural and racial groups living here. Because of intense competition for scarce economic resources and the heightened consciousness among people of different groups to preserve their age old cultures.
  2. Lopsided economic development of the country because of which some groups feel that they have been marginalised and completely left behind in the process of development, makes them highly susceptible to the politics of ethnicity.
  3. Representative parliamentary democracy in India where different ethnic groups (castes, religious groups, linguistic groups etc.) compete for political power.
  4. Increasing politicization of caste and religion: Caste and religious identities are often whipped up by political leaders to mobilize people for their vested interests and petty political mileage.
  5. Fear among minorities both linguistic and religious that they might get assimilated into the dominant culture, leading to the dilution of their cultural heritage. Such feelings have also increased because of the process of globalization and cultural homogenization occurring everywhere. Cultural globalization is causing even the Hindu majority to assert itself and is spawning Hindu revivalism in India. Resistance, Mobilisation and Change
  6. Intense feeling of alienation among the tribes of India because of faulty development policies, leading to forced displacement from their age -old habitats, lands and forests reducing them to abject poverty.
  • Other factors could be:
  • Modernisation and Ethnicity
  • Political Economy
  • Relative Deprivation
  • Ethnicity and Resource Competition
  • Elite-Competition
  • Internal Colonialism
  • Cultural Deprivation
  • External Factors

Identity Movements

Introduction

  • Melucci (1989) even posits that all social movements have an identity dimension (on the link between social movements and identity.
  • The identity movements express two complementary types of collective demands: 1) the defence of interests and the promotion of rights of certain groups of individuals who feel discriminated against, and 2) the search for symbolic recognition by a significant other.
  • Identity movements defend the interests, world visions, and values of groups of individuals or communities defined by such characteristics as phenotype (or race) and ethnicity; sex; language; sexual orientation; mythical origins and ancestral territory.

Objectives

  • First, they denounce injustice toward minorities.
  • Second, they convey the idea that specific cultures must be taken into consideration when public policies are elaborated so that they meet the specific needs of minorities.
  • Third, they demand greater control of their institutions – a demand that sometimes goes as far as self-government.

Issue of Tribal identity

  • Identity is concerned' with the self-esteem and self-image of a community real or imaginary dealing with the existence and role.
  • Every single entity differs from other in certain manner. When on the basis of these exclusive characteristics people or group of people start separating themselves to gain something, the issue of identity is said to be cropped up.
  • In contemporary Indian society, various identities related movement is found on establishment of modern values of equality of individual and group.
  • All movements cannot be said to be only identity movements but some are.
  • These movements are nothing but struggle to get equal status and thereby sharing the benefits of politico-economic development of the nation.
  • In ancient period, the deprivileged group has tried to gain socially, politically and economically by changing their present identity. For example, through the process of Sanskritisation lower castes and tribes have achieved higher status by claiming new identities of Brahmin, Kshatriya and occasionally of Vaishya.
  • But today this is being done by claiming their present cultural as right and not inferior. The groups don't give up their present behavior pattern rather preserve it. They claim, their culture is not inferior to anybody else's and no one can take their rights away on this basis.
  • Tribal societies too have witnessed such changes. If in the past they have tried to assimilate themselves in Hindu social order discarding their own distinct lifestyle, today they are not interested in changing their identity. They want to share the benefits of development by preserving their traditional identity.
  • The movements are result of a mix of causes. If on the one hand it is caused due to socio-economic deprivation and exploitation of tribal people, then, on the other hand, it is said to be orchestrated by elite among tribes for political gain. It is also due to proliferations of pluralistic ethos, democratic norms so on.

Conclusion

  • Cultural differences and ethnic conflicts are important issues shaping international politics.
  • Because cultural affiliations and ethnic identity are particularly strong factors shaping group relations, these conflicts have led to tremendous human suffering and are a significant threat to international security.
  • Instability, refugee flows, spillover effects, and other international consequences guarantee that ethnic conflict remains an issue on the international political agenda.
  • However, it is not the cultural differences per se that lead to conflict but the political, ideological, and economic goals of international actors, regardless of whether these actors are states or ethnic groups.
  • Given the complexity of ethnic and cultural conflicts, there is no easy solution to related issues

Separatist Movements/Movements for separate statehood

  • Indian states consist of different linguistic, religious and cultural groups existing along with unequal level of regional development within a state.
  • In certain context, these diversities and become the grounds for generation of regional consciousness within a state.
  • Those having such consciousness underline that within the existing administrative arrangement, their region is not given fair treatment by the state government, central government or other regions within their state. And solution to their grievances can be found if their region becomes a separate state from the state in which such region exists.
  • In India, statehood demands have been coming up from the 1950s onwards.
  • According to estimate by A.K. Singh (2009), there are more than thirty statehood and autonomy movements in India.

Sociological aspects of movements for separate states

REASONS

  • The factors are related to language, culture, customs, religion, historical background, and level of development.
  • The advocates of new states allege that their regions are discriminated or remain neglected on the grounds of such factors.
  • Together, they become the basis of formation of regional identities, which result in general of movement for creation of separate states.
  • Other factors being:
    • Competition for local resources.
    • Government negligence towards certain regions
    • Improper allocation of the resources,
    • Difference in culture, language, religion, etc.
    • The economy's failure to create enough employment opportunities
    • Popular mobilization and the democratic political process is also one of the reasons.
    • ‘The sons of the soil' sentiments

Impact/Issues arising

  • Different statehood may lead to the hegemony of the dominant community/ caste/ tribe over their power structures.
  • This can lead to emergence of intra-regional rivalries among the sub-regions.
  • The creation of new states may also lead to certain negative political consequences like a small group of legislators could make or break a government at will.
  • There is also possibility of increase in the inter-State water, power and boundary disputes.
  • The division of states would require huge funds for building new capitals and maintaining a large number of Governors, Chief Ministers, Ministers and administrators. Ex: in division of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana (establishment of new capital at Amravati).
  • Creation of smaller states only transfers power from the old state capital to new state capital without empowering already existing institutions like Gram Panchayat, District Collector, etc.

Constitutional Provisions

  • Indian constitution empowers the Union government to create new states out of existing states or two merge one state with other. This process is called reorganisation of the states.
  • The basis of reorganisation could be linguistic, religious, ethnic or administrative.
  • The procedure for statehood is given on Article 3.