Our Multiple Identities

by Dr Raymond Perrier · April 19, 2015

When I first arrived in South Africa five years ago, I went to open a bank account. And at the end of the process the bank clerk asked me a strange question: What should I put as your cultural classification?
I was tempted to ask if there was a category called metropolitan sophisticate, but before I could, he gave me the options: Black, White, Coloured or Indian. And so, on the grounds that it was the least inaccurate description, I found myself for the first time in my 43 years defining myself as Indian.
My parents who were both born in India and lived all their early years in India and yet would no longer call themselves Indian were most amused. I had come home!

Now that I live in Durban, there is a part of me that does indeed feel that I have come home. After all, this is the largest Indian city in the world outside the sub-continent, and Indian religious traditions, cultural practices, clothing, architecture, music and food especially food pervade the city.

Against that backdrop, I am working out what it means for me to be Indian. I have resisted the temptation to get my car wheels chromed, or to marry my first cousin, or to sort out my investments or any of those other Indian stereotypes, good and bad.

Instead, I am grappling with this new identity. Part of what makes this so interesting is that in Durban for me to be Indian is not exceptional. Everywhere else I have lived I could be described as the Indian guy, since there were no others around. In Durban that does not work. So my Indian identity is not about sticking out from the crowd but blending in with it.

The question of identity is a fascinating one and it touches on the heart of our relationship with God. Often we use identity as a way of marking inclusion in one group but exclusion from another. Thus, if I identify as a Pirates fan, I am at the same time making it clear I am not a Kaiser Chiefs supporter.

But most identities are much less polar than this. Catholic is an interesting word. Many of our fellow churchgoers, if asked Are you a Christian?, would reply No, Im Catholic. And so the identifier Catholic is used to show inclusion in one group but, ironically, by asserting exclusion from another group, Christian, to which the person also belongs.

Tribal identities can be similarly complex. While the rule is that you follow your father’s tribe, I know someone with a Tswana father but who grew up speaking Sotho and Zulu before Tswana and was far removed from the practices of his father’s ancestors. Does he really have to define himself as Tswana to the exclusion of any other identity?

So it is with nationality. Having been born in Britain, schooled in Britain, entirely steeped in British manners and customs, and carrying a British passport, I would never tick myself as Indian over British on a list. But what if British Indian existed as a category?

Part of the added complexity of Indian identity is that it overlaps with religious identity. Indeed, in some languages, the same word is used to denote a person from the country and a person who follows Hinduism. This has led some nationalistic Hindus to depict non-Hindu Indians as not proper Indians. And yet there are as many Muslims in India as in Pakistan; and more Catholics in India than in Ireland!

Recently I joined Ela Gandhi and thousands of others to re-enact the famous Salt March that the Mahatma led in 1930 in defiance of an iniquitous British tax on the making of salt. I wonder what drew me to participate? Partly because it was a good Durban thing to do. Partly, the undoubted charisma of the Mahatma’s granddaughter. In part, a desire to connect with a famous march from history and reflect on its relevance today.

But I think I was also moved by a desire to assert that, while being British and Catholic, I was also in some sense Indian; this historic protest against injustice was a part of my history too.

As a child I overheard a judge at a ballroom dancing exam at which I had just done well commenting to my teacher: Well of course, they do have good rhythm. I was not entirely sure what “they” in his sentence meant, so later I asked my mother why the judge would have thought that Catholics had particularly good rhythm. Not understanding the double entendre of my question, I could not appreciate at the time why all the adults fell about laughing.

When God, the final judge, looks back at our lives my assumption is that he will not categorise any one of us because of the religion(s) or nation(s) or culture(s) to which we belong. Instead, God will see each of us as the unique individual he created.

There is a famous Rabbinic warning. When I face God at the end of my life and he asks me, Why did I not act like Moses? I will have a ready answer: Because you did not create me to be Moses. But what will I say when God asks me: Why did you not act like Raymond?