Chapter 21 - The Triumph of Identity Politics

Summary

Over the past 100 years or so a tradition of identity politics has dominated the region. Such politics seek to mobilise people on the basis of their religious or ethnic identity, often by using the language of kinship. This trend has progressively chipped away at the inclusive, overarching regional culture that had evolved over many previous centuries. Some cultural identities were turned into razor-sharp tools that proved effective in new, sometimes lethal power struggles. Other identities came under attack or were relegated to the political margins. Identity politics reworked the social fabric and created new fault lines that to many Bangladeshis now appear to be natural, inescapable and age-old. Among these political identities are ‘Bengali’ vs. ‘Bangladeshi’, ‘Bengali’ vs. ‘Muslim’, and various ethnic minority identities. Confrontations between Bengali identities and indigenous ones led to a long and still unresolved armed conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.