Politics is mostly representative. It positions itself as standing for a group of people, a community and even the entire citizenry of a country. We also saw a kind of politics that sort to squeeze out the trace of representation. It is the politics that says not in my name. It removed the we from the politics of we. This interesting turn in politics that does a kind of apophasis on representation irrupted against the war on terrorism declared by the then President Bush administration. We also saw it in India against the lynch mobs that killed to protect the holy cow. It is a politics of we without the we. It is a politics that withholds what the we is assumed to designate. It is still the politics of we but it enables us to distance ourselves from the kind of politics that is done in our name. It is a voluntary exclusion from politics that is done in our name. Often politics draw its legitimacy in the name of the people, community and the nation. Identity politics is politics done in the name of some designated community or nation. By withdrawing our name from such politics of the name/ identity, we have the possibility of dismantling the legitimacy of identity politics of the name.
The politics of the name actually seems to play the game of the children in the open space where the question ‘who is me today?’ offers the roleplay to them. We can also do an examination of the politics of the name by asking the same question: ‘who is me today? ‘. This question can become profound if we ask: ‘who is going to be me today?’ We can refine the question and ask, ‘who is standing in for me today?’ The politics of the name assigns us a subject position. We are the real subjects of this politics. Those who actually do the politics are simply surrogates who do all politics in our name. This means we are made the subject of the politics of the name without making us subjects. The politics of the name usurp the sovereignty of the subject in many ways while the politics of not in my name restores the same. In several ways, the politics of the name hollows the subject and take up its place and does politics in its name. The politics that we call not in my name tries to displace the surrogate who does politics in our name. Politics of the name is actually a surrogate politics and has to be punctured by the politics of not in my name. Democracy depends on this surrogacy. This is why politics of not in my name can usher in a participatory dimension to a democracy that may have become a magnet for vested interest.
We need to sometimes to withdraw the we from the we, the people in whose name politics has its life and being. We need this politics of the we without the we to sanitize our democracy. This means we cannot become silent spectators but have to inventively engage the politics of democracy and lead it to the good of every individual citizen. If we do not engage we have politics that is done in our name. It is also a politics of we without the we. It is a politics that leaves us behind and moves ahead using our name. This is why we have to restore the we. This can be done only by a paradox. We have to do a second order hollowing of the we without the we that is reining in our name. This is exactly what we do when we do politics of not in my name. We squeeze out the we from the politics of the name which is paradoxically also a politics of we without the we. This withdrawal of the we have the power of righting, the politics that has become the hiding place of several evils. We need this politics of sanitization. We need to clean up the political arena and we can only do it by doing the politics of we without the we on the reigning representative politics which is also a politics of we without the we at another end of the spiral. To dismantle the politics of the name we need the politics of not in my name. We have the challenge to disrupt the we of the politics of the name by withholding it from designating us.
There is a promise in the politics of not in my name. We need to engage it from time to time to free us from a small minority doing politics of vested interest in our name. We have the challenge to withdraw our name from this politics of vested interest. Withdrawing our name is a way of restoring our name. We have to understand the wedlock between the politics of name and the politics of not in my name. In fact, the politics of the name is operational without my name. Our name in the politics of name is hollowed out. Our name is simply nominal. It is a politics of name without my name. To recover from our name being abused by vested interest, we need to perform the same operation on the politics of name that is hiding my name. We have to delegitimize it by withdrawing our name. It is an earth-shattering politics to the politics of name. It needs the name to have its life and being. When we withdraw our name it becomes orphaned and castrated. The good side of this deconstruction of the politics of the name is that it restores our name. It also ushers in the possibility of bringing in emancipative politics for us. Today we need this politics more than before. We need authentic politics of not in my name to be staged from time to time to democratize our democracy.
