Identity, An Analysis From A Common Man’s Perspective

[Guest article by Dr. Shahadat Ahmed]

Patriotism is a cool attribute to have in one’s neurons to live peacefully in most countries of the world. It does not matter whether you live in Somalia, Afghanistan or USA; you are made to believe that you are living in the best country in the world as you grow up chanting the national anthem of that country. There are aberrant people in every country who show some resistance in following this concept and once in a while those people deny to accept the passport of a particular country, be it America or Britain or Vatican City. When we argue that if there is no boundary of countries in the world, everybody will tend to move to more resourceful countries and it will be impossible to live in those countries, it probably makes sense, looking at the present situation of Syrian refugee’s European exodus. Getting a rented place in Munich will be impossible when suddenly a million people end up arriving at the major railway station of Munich. Even the roads of Bangalore are an example of how unplanned migration can be devastating. So the need of restricting people's movement across countries is very convincing but does that justify making everybody so patriotic that they start hating people of other nations? After going abroad only, I realized that in Pakistan also, clean shaved modern thinking human beings live and so was true with the Pakistani scientist whom I met in Berlin. He was of the opinion that India is a country full of saffron clad hate mongers. I was surprised to hear the opinion of friends from Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka about my beloved country India. It seems people from these countries have some complaint about our dealing with either their politics or their natural resources. They don’t love India, as much as we think they should. Sitting in India, we would never know, what brainwashing, those citizens go through in their childhood, to hate India so much.

My paternal property is in a remote village of south Assam which could have been a part of present day Bangladesh, had it not been taken back by Govt. of India, after two and a half days of Pakistani administration in the aftermath of 1947 independence. If my father were a Bangladeshi, because his paternal property was perhaps under the Bangladeshi administration, I would naturally be a Bangladeshi citizen. If my childhood was spent in Bangladesh and I had never got a chance to see any other country, I would love to praise Jibanananda Das by singing “Banglar Mukh Ami Dekhiachi, Ami Dekhite Chia Na Pritivir Roop” [I have seen the face of Bengal: I do not want to see the world anymore]. Historically every country's boundary is drawn and re-drawn through wars or through mutual treaties between two administrations. As a common man, how does it matter to me, which country I live in? I am more attached to my friends and relatives than to the big concept of a country. I have seen people, all of whose immediate family members have shifted to UK / USA and they are happily living there as if they are living in a small Hamlet of Sylhet. They never miss their motherland, as they have no childhood memory of climbing those tree branches or wetting feet on running rain water while returning from school. But first generation migrants miss those small things of childhood, and can neither be a happy lot in their motherland nor are they happy in their new found dream land. 

When our species slowly colonized this big land, now we called our mother earth from Africa to Papua New Guinea in the east and Siberia to the tip of South America in the west, they had no idea that their own species will restrict the human movement so much that people will have to hate people of another country to be loyal to the country they are living. 

Did it make any difference to the day to day life of a common farmer living in the village near Jena when he woke up in the morning of October 3, 1990, and found that he is the citizen of West Germany and no more under the administration of Socialistic Government of East Germany? I heard the story from my grandfather that they were very happy when they heard that India is an independent nation in the morning of 15th August 1947. After the initial euphoria, my grandfather had to go back to his farm and earn their livelihood to meet the end demand of his family of 11 children. Would his ploughing style or cows be any different if that land was attached to Pakistan and not a part of India? Similarly, people in many villages / towns throughout the world have become citizens of different countries in different times in history.

So is it a big deal to be affiliated to a particular country / faith / language? Do we have any choice, when we take birth in a family which speaks Samua, lives in Timbaktu and practises a religion of Osiris? Has anybody asked your permission if you would like to be called as an American or an Iranian before your parents decided to have you as their baby? 

After becoming a mature human being, I thought now I am an independent human being and can choose whatever country I want to live in and embrace whatever religion I find interesting. But do I have enough zeal or wish to change my country / religion? Can I like another religion or country as much as I like the religion and country of my childhood? Even if I have enough knowledge about another language, will I feel comfortable to speak English as I do for my mother tongue? 

So how does the choice develop? And is it necessary to have a stereotyped identity to support a family which ultimately needs some food, a decent education, safety, security and medical care?

We feel comfortable to have like-minded people around us. Are those people needed to be of the same religion, country and mother tongue to get along with? What happens if I die without any identity? I die not being a Bengali Muslim of Indian origin; I die in a car accident with so much mutilation in an unknown land that no one can take me in their group for final departure from the earth. Will my son get anyone to take me to grave and do my last rituals? Our biggest fear is death and I do not want to create a scene on that day and trouble my son with my dead body. So is my identity required only for that last fateful day? What if there was a system where people can be cremated without identity? I will directly go to hell as my present belief says, I need to utter and testify the oneness of God before taking the last breath in this world. When I took birth was there any information in my neurons for me to be called a Bengali Muslim? What if I took birth in a Chinese atheist family, who died in a car accident while bringing the newborn from Hospital to home and on the way an American Jew found me and adopted me as her son?  

We need an identity to have a happy life but if identity makes us forget to respect others' viewpoint, stops us respecting others' way of life, is it worth it?  What if nobody bothers, what you eat, which country you go, who your friend is, what prayers you do, will that make the world a nasty place? Will the entire terrorist fraternity from the neighboring countries infiltrate into our motherland and make us believe that their way of life is better than ours if there was no security in borders? Are we too fearful of a hypothetical situation, which may not be feasible? Does my stereotyped identity serve me better as a common man in any of my day-to-day dealing?  

Let’s ask these valid questions and live a happy fearless life and let others live the way they want to live their life. Jai Hind.