Development Politics vs Identity Politics

Any government democratic or otherwise has agendas and propagandas. Polices that eventually burns down to politics. Any political party and for that matter even the ruling class will have policies be it either classified as development politics or identity politics. Development politics, the name itself is quite clearly stating that the agendas are welfare oriented, were it’s the politics for the people by the people and of the people, policies can have a long term return or otherwise, but benefit to the society is the main aim.

Identity politics is more about establishing a political party as a brand and marketing itself to stay ahead of the competition, it has got to do with able politicians who started off on the development foot and the successors are just extending the name and benefits of the previous good work that has been done. Party and power are the main motives of the politics and development is there just at fag end.

Identity politics can me more clearly defined in the context of power monopoly where there exist only one main power and no strong opposition to control it. A case in point can be the politics in west Bengal with the CPI(M) ruling the state for 34yrs now. Parties at the time of election are just identified by the fact that they ruled for so long and so forth and no scope of developmental thinking is even induced, coz they know, they are at the mercy of these parties which are bound to be re elected and as said the development at the fag end has always been there. But CPI(M) didn’t start of as identity politics, in the very first opportunity to act as the power holders, they connected with masses mostly poor an crushed out the communist culture if any that pervaded in West Bengal at that time, private players and industries regardless of their backgrounds were considered enemies and stress was given on agriculture and allied works which instantly struck a cord with the poor masses that Bengal had ,which consisted of the waves of immigrants from Bangladesh that came in two different lots. But now as evident West Bengal had earned a reputation of non industrial state and the actions of communist feelings disregard for the rich even though not so cunning still prevades in the lower masses of West Bengal .With trade unions in full swing, bandhs and the power of the masses to spill blood at the slightest context has turned the communist people of Bengal into institutions of egos and irresponsibility. But as every cloud has a silver lining, change is sweeping in West Bengal, how competent the present strong opposition in West Bengal would be is yet to be tested on ground but the powerhouses have known identity politics isn’t gonna work anymore.

Another example of development politics overshadowing strong identity politics is the win of Nitish Kumar from Bihar. a state so pressed in the darkness, underdeveloped illiterate masses have now come to realize, that funny talks up the podium and the dose of entertainment that Mr. Lalu Prasad has been giving them in his sweet humorous tone is not gonna actually help them survive, where every other state is running into technology and development. People have realized that the unbound pool of resources in Bihar in the form of resources human or other needs to be tapped and development is the way ahead.

But more importantly the kind of politics played it’s the people who need to wake up from their limbo and have rational logical thoughts; the assessment of every bit in and around them is the need of the hour. If it can be preached politics developmental or identity will have to keep development as their fore most agenda