It is by now widely recognised that with the 1980s came a new tide of political movements and struggles around questions of community identity, globally as well as in Southasia. On the international level, the real break from earlier kinds of politics – what can be referred to as modernist politics – came with the collapse of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The disintegration of both of these socialist states, which formally recognised no official identity other than that of the citizen, was soon followed by an explosion of xenophobic nationalisms and identity wars. Conflicts between the Russians and Chechens, Serbians and Croatians, Serbians and Bosnians and so on soon engulfed the territories where these states once stood.
Within the United States, UK and Europe, this was likewise a period of major challenge to the ideals of liberal democracy and its non-recognition of community rights. Former colonial people, now living in these countries, gradually created pressures for multicultural citizenship. The matter is not as simple as it may seem, however, for by recognising the rights of these communities to their own cultural practices, the host countries were forced to put their own concepts of secularism and citizenship in jeopardy. So, for example, what eventually shook the foundations of the French republic was not 'Islamic terrorism' but the picture of three young girls going to school in headscarves. The debate over the 'display of religious symbols' in public has only intensified since that first incident, in 1989.
In India, the beginning of the 1980s was marked by the rise of the 'anti-foreigners' trend in Assam and the Khalistan movement in Punjab, to name just two of the most well-known identity-led agitations. The former also had a wider resonance for the Southasian region as a whole, as the claim being made was that 'outsiders' from Bangladesh were illegally migrating into Assam and threatening the distinctiveness of 'Assamese culture'.
Indeed, the 1980s have been generally recognised by political theorists as the period of the global rise of 'identity politics'. This signalled the global winding-down of the several 'emancipatory' political approaches that had come about during the modern age, including liberal democracy and socialism. Identity politics have, therefore, been the subject of much scholarly writing in recent years. But during that time, identity politics has also come to be something of a pejorative term, with many referring to this idea as merely 'symbolic', with no material basis. This has led to widespread suggestions: that identity politics can only be divisive and sectarian, rather than unifying; and also that identity-based approaches overwhelm 'unmarked' secular identities, such as class. So, for example, critics of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati claim that she indulges in merely symbolic politics – expressed, for instance, in the installation of statues of Dr B R Ambedkar around the state.