In search of not a particular identity but a potential identity

"Brothers and sisters of America", these simple words filled a hall with roar of claps. Occasion was the international conference of Religions where swami Vivekanand spoke about Hinduism. The conference was an attempt to understand every religion and to try and respect the various religious identities that people all around the world possessed. Around a century later on the same day, 11 September, the world shook again but this time not because of opening of an avenue to share across these diverse identities but because of emergence of a single identity that we all seem to identify ourselves with. Identity of intolerance! It indeed has become the most practiced religion!! Amartya Sen in his excellently written book Identity and Violence draws our attention to the very cause of all violence as the clash of these identities and the neglect of the fact that there are n number of identities that we possess at any point of time and that all of them should get their correct weightage. A hindu is not just a hidutava fundamentalist nor is a muslim an arrogant islamic one . There are other facets of their identity that they should be as proud of, like that of nationality , cultural lineage, family background and many others By acknowledging this we can better appreciate the fact that there has been a tradition of rich sharing between the two so called belligerent identities. Over emphasizing any one of them is bound to produce an imbalance and hence generate friction. Quite a similar analogy can be drawn in our personal world as well. One may be a software professional, may be the best in his team, but he is also a son, a brother, a husband, a friend , a colleague, the moment other facets are ignored the individual is bound to lose mental peace. Challenge is thus not to "discover" a particular identity but to "build" a potential identity by doing justice to every such role. If we become intolerant and do not step forward to redistribute our extent of emphasis over the varied roles that we have to play, we create an inescapable identity crises. We must assign proper weights to these roles rather than completely removing all but one from the list. Just as the world is going global we must also try to become global in our reach of these identities.