Contemporary identity politics often presents contradictions between the leaders from marginalized groups and the people they claim to represent. A visiting scholar unpacks this phenomenon, starting with a popular Netflix series.
by Poulomi Chakrabarti
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, the prequel to the hit Netflix series, opened to a spectacular reception this past summer and is already one of the most watched shows on the platform. True to the Bridgerton brand, we are treated to a gorgeous multiracial cast in Regency-era fashion, classical renditions of pop songs, and of course steamy sex. But what has perhaps generated the most interest is that the series finally addresses race, especially since the first two seasons were widely criticized for being colorblind. Queen Charlotte gives us the origin story of how this idyllic multicultural kingdom came to be.
If you haven’t watched it yet, here's the plot in a nutshell: The financial crisis following the American Revolution forces the British court to broker a marriage between King George III and the fiery German princess, Charlotte. But there is one small problem—she is Black. The union is vital to Britain’s economic survival. This inspires the “Great Experiment”—integrating wealthy nonwhite members into the aristocracy as a way to reinforce Charlotte’s position and set norms for a new society. The story is about Queen Charlotte’s ascent to power as she navigates the expectations of the racist nobility and an anxious Black elite, while finding love in a man saddled with mental illness.
George III has been cruelly labeled as the “mad king” in some history books, but the rest of the story is far from reality. The real Queen Charlotte was most likely not Black. The eighteenth century was the peak of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. Black, brown, and Asian people did live in Britain at the time, but they led segregated lives. And they were certainly not welcome in the nobility. Fast forward two hundred fifty years, given what we know of Meghan Markle’s experience, little has changed.
The prequel has come under some fire again for its superficial interrogation of race (a common theme in Shonda Rhimes shows). The Black characters are concerned about titles and being invited to fancy balls rather than any real social justice. Such criticism may be a little unfair; Bridgerton is an escapist romance, after all. But the parallels with contemporary politics are hard to ignore.
Identity politics is increasingly being hijacked by narrow elite interests. As philosopher Olúfemi Táíwò observes in his new book Elite Capture, the privileged within marginalized groups employ the language of identity and subjugation to further their interests, while their political agenda is often at odds with the vulnerable people that they claim to represent. Washington DC’s Black mayor, Muriel Bowser, for example, had “Black Lives Matter” boldly painted on sixteenth street to express solidarity with protesters, while investing millions in law enforcement and surveillance at the same time. Or the Congressional Black Caucus’s support of Reagan’s Anti-Drug Abuse Act 1986 that hurt working-class Blacks disproportionately through mass incarceration and welfare cuts. This phenomenon is not unique to race politics in America—the term “elite capture” is actually borrowed from international development, where local leaders pocket foreign aid.
But some of the most radical activists, like Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Nelson Mandela, would have been considered “elite.” In fact, social movements tend to be led by elites within the group. How should we make sense of this contradiction? It’s easy to be dismayed by contemporary politics. The history of movements by marginalized groups globally may offer some insights.
Elites are able to organize because of better access to resources, networks, and time. But what stands out across identity-based movements is that they are motivated by the desire for “status,” or respect from others. Lady Danbury and her Black friends in Bridgerton don’t care that much about money; they are already wealthy. They demand to be treated with the same dignity as their white counterparts—to be given the same titles and not denied entry into the same social clubs. Social psychologists have shown that people value fairness because injustice hurts our status. Nothing stings more than humiliation.
We observe this time and time again in biographies of leaders. Before Gandhi became the great Mahatma, as a young lawyer he was thrown out of a first-class train compartment in South Africa. He described the incident, “My overcoat was in my luggage, but I did not dare to ask for it lest I should be insulted again, so I sat and shivered.” Such experiences of racism pushed him to protest discriminatory laws. He campaigned for civil rights in South Africa for two decades before joining the independence movement in India. A plaque on the platform in Pietermaritzburg Station reads, “This incident changed the course of his life.”
Well-off Blacks express greater discontent about racial relations in America than their working-class counterparts. The urban rebellion in the sixties was in fact largely led by the Black middle class. India, a country I study more closely, has a long history of anti-caste social movements. The first such mobilization, the Channar Revolt in mid-nineteenth-century Kerala, was led by upwardly mobile Nadars who protested a humiliating dress code that didn’t allow lower-caste women to cover their breasts.
Similarly, in the adjoining state of Tamil Nadu, the anti-caste Justice Party was founded by wealthy lower-caste landowners who experienced a sense of “status dislocation” due to colonial policies that privileged Brahmins. Marguerite Barnett, the first African American woman to lead a major university, incidentally wrote her doctoral dissertation on this movement. Caste is not always an easy concept for Western scholars to grasp. Perhaps in part because of her own identity, she was perceptive of the power of humiliation when she interviewed Justice Party leaders about their decision to join the movement. Barnett writes, “the first reason that they cited was the backward state of non-Brahmins, the need for their uplift, and Brahmin dominance of administrative posts and politics. But then the tone of the respondent would change, and with emotion he would recount some personal incident, insult to his dignity, or psychic injury suffered at the hands of the Brahmins, and would relate this to being designated a Suddhra (lower-caste).”
In unequal societies, one of the means through which group status is enhanced is through representation in institutions of power, particularly the state. Political scientist Tali Mendelberg argues that political mobilization is not just an attempt to gain resources and power, but is often a way to obtain status. The impulse against exclusion that drove Justice Party members to demand lower-caste representation in government is the same impulse that motivates white working-class voters to support Trump in America and right-wing populists in Europe. Status matters. But does status politics always hinder social justice?
Again, looking back at India, politics in Kerala and Tamil Nadu was mired in narrow interests and representational demands for decades. Their leaders were called populist, neo-patrimonial, and even retributive toward Brahmins. But the legitimacy, and ultimately survival, of social movements depends on their ability to broaden their base and build solidarities across marginalized populations. As the movement made inroads among the masses and democratized, elite concerns of status gradually gave way to a more redistributive agenda and an inclusive civil society. This process took decades. Kerala is now celebrated as a rare case of social democracy in the developing world. Tamil Nadu is one of the strongest welfare states in India. In my own research, I find that Indian states with greater representation of mobilized marginal groups in the legislature and bureaucracy spend more on social development.
Sociologist Andreas Wimmer argues that the transformation of hierarchical societies to modern nations involves the incorporation of ethnic groups into the state-building process—“political participation, equal treatment before the law and protection from the arbitrariness of state power, dignity for the weak and poor, and social justice and security were fully realized only for those who came to be regarded as true members of the nation.” If the political trajectory of southern India provides any cues, there is no escaping elite capture, at least in the short term. That is just how power works. But the key takeaway is internal democracy and accountability within social movements can steer identity politics toward the interests of the less privileged. Calling out elite capture and the frivolousness of Bridgerton is part of this democratization.
Contributor Bio
Poulomi Chakrabarti is an assistant professor of political science at Queen’s University in Canada and a visiting scholar in the Department of Government at Harvard University. A former Weatherhead Scholars Program Visiting Scholar, she is currently working on her first book on status politics and redistribution. She presented related research on status at the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Comparative Inequality and Inclusion’s workshop in April 2023.
Captions
- Illustration of Queen Charlotte from the Netflix series. Credit: Kristin Caulfield, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University
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Gandhi (center) with his secretary, Miss Sonia Schlesin, and his colleague Mr. Polak in front of his law office, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1905. Credit: Wikimedia, Public Domain
Author's Note: Like most white-collar professionals at the time, Gandhi dressed in Western formal wear. He didn’t adopt the iconic loincloth until 1921. He returned to India to join the Indian independence movement in 1915. Travels throughout the country exposed him to the plight of ordinary Indians, most of whom lived in abject poverty. The loincloth was a symbol of his identification with the poor. The Indian National Congress was an organization of the urban elite in the early twentieth century. Gandhi was instrumental in transforming this narrow opposition to British rule to a mass movement that reached deep within the countryside, mobilizing peasants, workers, and women. -
A group photo of Justice Party leaders of the Madras Presidency taken in the 1920s. Sir P. Thyagagoraya Chetty is seated at the center (with a girl sitting beside). Also present in the photograph are Raja of Panagal, Raja of Venkatagir, and Arcot Ramaswamy Mudaliar. Credit: Wikimedia, Public Domain
Author's Note: The two major political parties in contemporary Tamil Nadu, Dravisa Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), trace their roots to the Justice Party and the Dravidian movement. The founders of the Justice Party—T. M. Nair, P. Theagaraya Chetty, and Kurma Venkata Reddy Naidu—were wealthy professionals who had been active in Madras city politics. The party presented itself as anti-elite and the movement was strongly critical of Brahminical Hinduism, but its leaders had opposed minority rights for Muslims and untouchable castes in its early years. Dravidian parties became more inclusive and adopted a broad welfarist agenda over time as they expanded their electoral base.