Identities in conflict: To be Right, you must oppose the Left

If Vedanta is about purifying the soul, then Tantra celebrates the impure flesh. Vedanta is the Dakshina-marga, the southern path, indicated by the right hand when you sit facing the east. So the left hand, Vama-marga, points to the North. North creates South. Left creates Right. Tantra creates Vedanta. Things are defined by opposition.

In the USA, one man spent 20 years ensuring conservative judges dominated the US Supreme Court so that women could be stripped of the 50-year-old right to abort an unwanted fetus. He saw himself as ‘pro-life’ which means by definition, those who opposed him, the left liberals, were ‘anti-life’. A clever play of words to turn the other into the inferior, and the vile. Much like how woman-shunning monastic Vedanta reviles woman-loving sensual Tantra.

The Left defines itself by rejecting the structure of gender. Womanhood is now a performance. The liberal judges refuse to define gender. So the Right clarifies – there are only two: male and female. Ancient Indian grammar insists there are three. The third category includes everyone who is neither male or female and those who are both male and female. So the asexual, the bisexual, the homosexual, the transexual. Ancient India did not create the alphabet mafia which speaks of diversity and inclusion, and is now accused of diluting conservative values through intrusion.

In America, through the power of universities and the intellectual class, gender has nothing to do with biology. Pronouns have become battlefronts. In the United Kingdom, the Supreme Court has taken a stand. There are two genders. Trans women are not women. This has made many women’s organisations happy, those who saw the trans movement as a Trojan horse encroaching on safe spaces for women. Are these feminists to be seen as Left or Right? Are Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists to be seen as conservative, pseudo-Left, actually-Right, those who define women by biology?

Hollywood, long a champion against anti-Semitism, and producer of dozens of Holocaust movies, is caught in a bind. To be Left, one is expected to not just support gender fluidity but also support Palestine. Never mind if Palestinians don’t support homosexuality or gender fluidity. But the Left, champion of LGBTQI+ rights, cannot be seen supporting rich ‘settler colony’ Israel using clever ‘survival’ arguments to justify genocide.

Meanwhile, in India, we find historians still arguing about the nature of 1857. While British historians insisted it was a mutiny against the British Raj, nationalist scholars insisted it was an uprising against an oppressive colonial regime. Savarkar introduced the idea that it was the first fight for independence. Now, there is a book which argues that 1857 was an attempt to establish the Mughal empire and was essentially jihad. Each of these arguments serves a different political group, the British, the secular, the fundamentalist, the ultra-fundamentalist, and the nationalist. It is clear that historians function like lawyers. They argue a case. Their approach to scholarship is highly combative. To be secular, one must speak against Hindus. To be nationalist, one has to speak against Muslims. If you speak against Muslims, you are Right. If you speak against Hindus, you are Left.

Historians are in perpetual combat with rivals. Books are written to disprove the belief that Hindus were non-violent and Muslims and Christians were violent. Books are written to disprove Buddhists were pacifists. Books are written to disprove Muslims were barbarians who entered and destroyed the Hindu hegemony. Books are written to disprove colonisation created Israel. And to prove that terrorism is actually a cry for justice. Left justifies rebel violence. Right justifies state violence. For the Left, Tipu Sultan was not a coloniser, and Kashmir was never colonised. For the Right, the reverse is the only stand they can take. Data can prove both sides.

Identity thus emerges in a debating society. Who you are depends on who you oppose. To have an identity, you have to take sides. Sitting on the fence is not allowed. Left or Right. Palestine or Israel. Pro-life or Pro-gun. Pro-trans or Pro-women. Mutiny or Uprising or Jihad. Pro-Hindu or Pro-Muslim or Pro-Buddhist. And if you align with one idea, other ideas telescope themselves. So to support abortion, means to support women, means to support trans, means to support Palestine, even if Palestinian Muslims do not believe in women’s rights, abortion rights, or gay rights.

If you criticise Palestine or Islam, you are not Left. You are betraying Edward Said, the Palestinian Christian, who accused the West of Orientalism. The only way to be Left is to mock colonial West and ‘settler-colony’ Israel, support indigenous rights, and promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. But then you are confronted with the horror when Muslim immigrants and Maori tribal youth oppose the Pride Parades of LGBTQI+ folks. Which side do you take to affirm your Left credentials?