The liberal DNA

Sixth, liberals have a more complex view of the "tradition" question. The left positioned itself in the vanguard of progressivism by a wholescale delegitimising of everything past; secularism for it was not so much a political ideal as a weapon of cultural assault. The centre and the Congress were interested in culture only in so far as it was aligned with identity. And the right was interested in assimilating culture into a stultifying uniformity. Liberals will defend political secularism and not compromise on basic ideas of individual freedom, equality, dignity. But they have no stake in polarising cultural wars. Like the best moments in the nationalist movement, they believe that tradition can be transcended without making all its animating impulses despicable.

Seventh, liberals recognise the horrifying social inequalities perpetuated by caste. And they recognise that many of these, particularly in the case of Dalits, will need to be taken into account to build a society that is fair and inclusive. But unlike all political parties, they want forms of affirmative action that do not trap individuals in their identities, that do not reduce complex questions of discrimination to an indiscriminate formula of power sharing. Their goal is a conception of citizenship where identities matter less and less to what people get qua citizens.

Finally, liberals have two dispositions as a matter of moral psychology. They take on board a complex view of historical causality, where there are more shades of grey, unintended consequences, strange juxtapositions than the narratives of the left or the right allow. Second, they do not reduce everything to either the question of power, as in the case of the left, or the identity question, as in the case of the right. Intellectual argument, questions of culture, or possibilities of self-knowledge and self-realisation cannot be simply reduced to power or identity.

... contd.

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