form of identity (whether ethnic, social, cultural or
religious) based in turn on processes of identification. Like
commercial advertising for commodities, the propaganda
of political parties and leaders serves the purpose of
enticing the individual to identify with a particular ‘brand’
of politics, and by doing so to bind their own personal
sense of identity with its successful propagation or defence.
Just as Hinduism aimed at the transcendence of
individual ego-identity, a ‘New Socialism’ – recognised in
its essence as a type of ‘Hindu Socialism’ or ‘Soul-Scientific
Socialism’ – would aim at the transcendence of all forms of
identity politics through a politics of pure awareness. For pure
awareness – including awareness of identity – itself
transcends identity. A new politics of awareness would reveal
the symbolic character of political events as the expression
of contradictions not just in society but in the mass psyche
of humanity and that of each individual, contradictions
based on conflicting and unaware identifications.