ome years ago when | was returning to England from a short trip abroad (I was then Master of Trinity College in Cam- bridge), the immigration officer at Heathrow, who scrutinized my Indian passport rather thoroughly, posed a philosophical question of some intricacy. Looking at my home address on the immigra- tion form (Master's Lodge, Trinity College, Cambridge), he asked me whether the Master, whose hospitality I evidently enjoyed, was a close friend of mine. This gave me pause since it was not alto- gether clear to me whether | could claim to be a friend of myself. On some reflection, | came to the conclusion that the answer must be yes, since I often treat myself in a fairly friendly way, and furthermore, when | say silly things, | can immediately see that s. Since all this took with friends like me, | do not need any enemie: some time to work out, the immigration officer wanted to know why exactly did I hesitate, and in particular whether there was some irregularity in my being in Britain Well, that practical issue was eventually resolved, but the con- versation was a reminder, if one were needed, that identity can be acomplicated matter. There is, of course, no great difficulty in per- suading ourselves that an object is identical to itself. Wittgenstein, the great philosopher, once remarked that “there is no finer exam- ple of a useless proposition” than saying that something is identi- 1 ——— xaCopyrighted Material xii Prologue cal to itself, but he went on to argue that the proposition, though completely useless, is nevertheless “connected with a certain play of the imagination.” When we shift our attention from the notion of being identi- cal to oneself to that of sharing an identity with others of a particu- lar group (which is the form the idea of social identity very often takes), the complexity increases further. Indeed, many contem- porary political and social issues revolve around conflicting claims of disparate identities involving different groups, since the con- ception of identity influences, in many different ways, our thoughts and actions. ‘The violent events and atrocities of the last few years have ush- ered ina period of terrible confusion as well as dreadful conflicts. The politics of global confrontation is frequently seen as a corol- lary of religious or cultural divisions in the world. Indeed, the world is increasingly seen, if only implicitly, as a federation of reli- gions or of civilizations, thereby ignoring all the other ways in which people see themselves. Underlying this line of thinking is the odd presumption that the people of the world can be uniquely categorized according to some singular and overarching system of partitioning. Civilizational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a “solitarist” approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group (in this case defined by civilization or religion, in contrast with earlier reliance on nationalities and classes). A solitarist approach can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups—we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction, an American cit- izen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a lib- eral, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer inPrologue xiii gay and lesbian rights, a theater lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply com- mitted to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English). Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simulta- neously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category. Given our inescapably plural identities, we have to decide on the relative importance of our different ass affiliations in any particular context. Central to leading a human life, therefore, are the responsi- bilities of choice and reasoning, In contrast, violence is promoted by the cultivation of a sense of inevitability about some allegedly unique—often belligerent—identity that we are supposed to have and which apparently makes extensive demands on us (sometimes. of a most disagreeable kind). The imposition of an allegedly unique identity is often a crucial component of the “martial art” of fomenting sectarian confrontation. Unfortunately, many well-intentioned attempts to stop such violence are also handicapped by the perceived absence of choice about our identities, and this can seriously damage our ability to defeat violence. When the prospects of good relations among dif- ferent human beings are seen (as they increasingly are) primarily in terms of “amity among civilizations,” or “dialogue between reli- gious groups,” or “friendly relations between different communi- ties” (ignoring the great many different ways in which people relate to each other), a serious miniaturization of human beings precedes the devised programs for peace. Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when the man- ifold divisions in the world are unified into one allegedly dominant system of classification—in terms of religion, or community, or culture, or nation, or civilization (treating each as uniquely pow- ociations anda Prologue erful in the context of that particular approach to war and peace). The uniquely partitioned world is much more divisive than the universe of plural and diverse categories that shape the world in which we live. It goes not only against the old-fashioned belief that “we human beings are all much the same” (which tends to be ridiculed these days—not entirely without reason—as much too softheaded), but also against the less discussed but much more plausible understanding that we are diversely different. The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity, and in the appreciation that they cut across each other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of impenetra- ble division. Indeed, conceptual disarray, and not just nasty intentions, sig- nificantly contribute to the turmoil and barbarity we see around us. The illusion of destiny, particularly about some singular iden- tity or other (and their alleged implications), nurtures violence in the world through omissions as well as commissions. We have to see clearly that we have many dis act with each other in a great many different ways (no matter what the instigators and their flustered opponents tell us). There is room for us to decide on our priorities. The neglect of the plurality of our affiliations and of the need for choice and reasoning obscures the world in which we live. It pushes us in the direction of the terrifying prospects portrayed by Matthew Arnold in “Dover Beach”: inct affiliations and can inter- And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night. We can do better than that.