Understanding Culture and Identity

Why does a Tamil-speaking family in Chennai, a Khasi community in Meghalaya, and a Sikh household in Punjab all feel deeply attached to ways of life that look so different from one another, yet each calls itself fully Indian? The answer lies in two of the most powerful ideas in political theory: culture and identity. Together, they shape how we see ourselves, how we relate to others, and how the state decides whom to recognise and accommodate. Understanding these concepts is the first step to making sense of multiculturalism, identity politics, and the everyday debates over reservation, language, and religious freedom.

What culture means in political theory 🔗

Culture refers to the shared way of life of a community: its values, beliefs, customs, language, rituals, and practices that are passed down across generations. Unlike biological traits such as skin colour or height, culture is not inherited through genes. It is learned, transmitted socially, and constantly reshaped through interaction with other communities.

The British-Indian political theorist Bhikhu Parekh, one of the most influential voices in this field, argues that culture is best understood not as a fixed possession but as a system of meaning through which people make sense of themselves and the world. In his analysis of multicultural societies, Parekh stresses that human beings are deeply shaped by culture, that cultures are always plural, and that no single culture holds the complete truth about how to live well.

This last point matters a great deal. Parekh challenges what he calls “moral monism”, the assumption that there is one correct way of life that all rational people should adopt. Instead, he insists that all cultures are born out of interaction with others and absorb outside influences, which means no culture is self-generating or wholly superior to the rest. This idea cuts against Eurocentrism just as much as it cuts against any narrow form of cultural pride.

Culture is dynamic, not frozen 🔗

A common mistake is to treat culture as a museum exhibit, something static that must be preserved exactly as it was. In reality, cultures evolve. Indian cuisine, festivals, fashion, and even religious practices have changed enormously over centuries through trade, migration, and conquest. Recognising this fluidity is important, because political claims often rely on presenting culture as ancient and unchanging when it is in fact living and contested.

How identity is connected to culture 🔗

Identity is the sense of self that a person derives from belonging to particular groups: a religion, a language community, a region, a caste, a gender, or a nation. Culture and identity are tightly intertwined. The culture we are raised in supplies the categories, symbols, and stories through which we understand who we are. When someone says “I am a Bengali” or “I am a Muslim”, they are expressing both a cultural belonging and a personal identity.

The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor offered an influential account of this link in his essay “The Politics of Recognition”. He argued that identity is formed in dialogue and interaction with other people, and that recognition by others is essential to how we see ourselves. The flip side is equally important: when a group is ignored or portrayed negatively, that misrecognition can become a genuine form of harm.

Recognition and misrecognition 🔗

Taylor’s central insight is that withholding recognition is not a neutral act. According to his theory, the absence of recognition or outright misrecognition can trap a person in a false, distorted, and reduced sense of being. If a community is constantly told that its language is backward or its customs are primitive, members of that community may internalise a damaged self-image. This is why demands for cultural recognition are not merely about pride; they are about dignity and psychological wellbeing.

From the politics of equal dignity to the politics of difference 🔗

This brings us to one of the most important distinctions in contemporary political theory: the shift from a politics of equal dignity to a politics of difference.

A politics of equal dignity aims to give everyone an identical set of rights and freedoms, treating all citizens the same regardless of their background. This is the classic liberal promise of equality before the law.

A politics of difference, by contrast, focuses on recognising the unique, authentic identity of an individual or group. As Taylor explained, this approach holds that with the rise of modern identity came a new demand: that everyone be recognised for their distinct identity rather than flattened into sameness. The argument here is subtle but powerful. Treating everyone identically can seem fair, but a so-called “difference-blind” approach often quietly reflects the assumptions of the dominant culture and disadvantages minorities.

Why difference-blindness can be unfair 🔗

Consider a workplace that schedules all official holidays around the majority’s festivals, or an education system that teaches only the dominant language. On the surface this looks neutral. In practice, it forces minority communities to adapt while the majority’s culture sets the default. Critics of pure universalism argue that this supposedly neutral framework is in fact a reflection of a hegemonic culture presenting itself as universal. The politics of difference responds by asking the state to actively accommodate diversity rather than pretending differences do not exist.

Identity politics and the demand for recognition 🔗

Identity politics, sometimes called the politics of recognition, is a political movement organised around the assertion and recognition of group identities. It centres on the claim that minority communities, defined by religion, language, ethnicity, caste, gender, or sexual orientation, deserve recognition of their distinct identities and protection of their cultural rights.

Multiculturalism as a body of theory is closely linked to this movement. It is associated with the recognition of minority rights and cultural difference, and the major theoretical debates around it took shape in the 1990s through the work of thinkers like Will Kymlicka, Iris Marion Young, Charles Taylor, and Bhikhu Parekh.

The Indian dimension of identity claims 🔗

Indian politics offers some of the richest examples of these dynamics anywhere in the world. Demands for linguistic states in the 1950s, reservation policies for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, and protections for religious and tribal communities are all, in different ways, expressions of the politics of recognition. Parekh himself observed that as India’s national self-understanding has shifted, minority communities have mobilised to press for adequate political recognition. These are not abstract questions but live political issues that shape elections, court judgments, and constitutional debates.

The shift from universalism to particularism 🔗

Behind these debates lies a deeper philosophical movement from universalism to particularism.

Universalism holds that there are common standards, rights, and values that apply to all human beings everywhere, regardless of their culture. The Enlightenment ideal of universal human rights is a classic example.

Particularism insists that values and identities are rooted in specific cultural contexts, and that we cannot judge or organise all communities by a single yardstick. Multiculturalism leans toward particularism because it asks us to take seriously the specific claims of particular communities rather than dissolving them into a universal mould.

It is worth noting that this is not an all-or-nothing choice. Many theorists, including Parekh, try to hold both together: defending some universal commitments such as human dignity while still respecting cultural particularity. The tension between the two is exactly what makes multicultural politics so difficult and so interesting.

Post-colonial theory and the challenge to Western hegemony 🔗

The rise of identity politics did not happen in a vacuum. It is closely linked to post-colonial theory, which emerged from literary and cultural criticism in the 1970s and 1980s through scholars such as Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, and Gayatri Spivak.

Post-colonial theory focuses on the lasting legacy of colonialism and the way Western powers sought to dominate the world through both conquest and cultural influence. Edward Said’s landmark book Orientalism showed how Western scholarship constructed the “Orient” as exotic, backward, and inferior, a representation that was tied to the power structures of colonial control. Gayatri Spivak, meanwhile, introduced the idea of the “subaltern” to describe groups excluded from dominant power structures, and questioned whether Western intellectuals could ever truly speak on their behalf.

Why this matters for non-Western traditions 🔗

The political payoff of post-colonial thought is its insistence that non-Western political traditions are legitimate in their own right. It rejects the assumption that liberalism, secularism, and free markets are simply rational, universal truths, arguing instead that these ideas grew out of a particular Western, often Christian, experience and were then presented as universal norms. By exposing the cultural specificity of supposedly universal ideas, post-colonial theory gives intellectual weight to the claims of formerly colonised peoples to define politics on their own terms. For a country like India, with its own deep traditions of statecraft, ethics, and pluralism long predating European contact, this is a particularly resonant argument.

Bringing it together: culture, identity, and multiculturalism 🔗

We can now see how the pieces fit. Culture provides the shared meanings and practices of a community. Identity is the sense of self that grows out of belonging to such communities. Because identity depends on recognition, the failure to recognise a group’s culture can become a source of injustice. Identity politics arises as communities demand that their distinct identities be acknowledged and protected. Multiculturalism is the theoretical and policy response that argues a just society should actively respect and accommodate this diversity rather than force everyone into a single mould.

For Parekh, multiculturalism is not just a set of policies but a perspective built on three ideas: that humans are shaped by culture, that cultures are always plural, and that cultural diversity is a valuable source of mutual learning. Seen this way, accommodating diversity is not merely a burden the state must tolerate. It is an opportunity for communities to learn from one another and build a richer common life.

Of course, multiculturalism has its critics on all sides. Some worry that emphasising group identity fragments national unity and breeds endless competition between communities. Others fear that protecting “culture” can shield oppressive practices, especially against women and dissenters within a group, from legitimate criticism. These are serious objections, and any thoughtful student of political theory has to weigh them carefully. The goal is not to settle these debates with a slogan but to understand why they are so hard to resolve.

What do you think? Should a society treat all citizens identically in the name of equality, or actively recognise and accommodate their cultural differences? And when a group’s cultural practice clashes with an individual’s rights, which one should the state protect?

References

1. https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/political-theory-and-the-multicultural-society
2. https://www.india-seminar.com/1999/484/484%20parekh.htm
3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03906701.2022.2045141
4. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14687968251384855
5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/postcolonial-theory
6. https://www.ijarst.in/public/uploads/paper/980671726043702.pdf
7. https://www.fpri.org/article/2015/10/post-colonial-states-and-the-struggle-for-identity-in-the-middle-east-since-world-war-two/
8. https://learninglink.oup.com/access/content/ramgotra-choat1e-resources/ramgotra-choat1e-key-thinker-bhikhu-parekh