The National Identity XXII: The grand victimhood treadmill
The eternal quest to be a victim… but not in my name

Being a victim is not a virtue — and that is true for all so called ‘marginalized groups’. That is true for the upper castes who think they have been hard done by generations of reservations and that is true for a whole body of people who think their minority identity has somehow marked them out for persecution.
Be a victim — but not in my name, simply because you have your mental and physical faculties to go out there and do something for yourself, your family and your community. Don’t play a victim simply because you were turned away from five job interviews — I have been turned away from more than a 100 (of the thousands I actually applied to. Although it could also be because I am constantly overreaching!) and I am getting by just fine. That is because I know what I need to work on and it isn’t to polish my minority credentials so I turn into a more exotic breed of minority that somehow embelishes a firm’s credentials as an equal opportunity employer — it is to simply work hard and be more knowledgeable in whatever field I want to get ahead in.
Be a victim — but not in my name, because the federal government protects your rights, it protects your state’s rights and it protects you against murder. We don’t need an anti-lynching law just like we don’t need an anti-beheading law. Both are simply murder and the penalty for that can be anything the court prescribes. The constant meddling by an overreaching Supreme Court isn’t helpful or welcome. Although thankfully, and in their grandest tradition of independence, the Supreme Court did disregard the ludicrous argument to compensate the victims based on caste and reglion. This is not in support of the current government and neither is it to condone any incident of mob violence. It is simply to say that let us have democracy in its real form — where broad strokes of the Parliament’s lawmaking pen protect all your fundamental rights. Yes, this idea (and indeed this publication) is more classical liberal than India can countenance, but it is simply the form which will give us the most benefit. Especially when we have a regressive left (yes, a borrowed phrase) and an out of control right which is outrightly majoritarian.
However, don’t play victim — because you can still stand up on your two feet and voice your concerns. Dissent is still alive and well across universities, hundreds of cafes and millions of chai-sutta (tea-cigarette) shops. Nobody made these places unsafe overnight — learn to respect your opponent’s view and all will be fine. No government divided or united the nation overnight. If we, as a nation, were dying to pick up arms we would have done so already. Long simmering discontent has always been on display. Playing victim, by being readily offended, is the only thing which makes the other side intolerant. Have racous debates and rabid free speech (within limits and with consequences) and stop being offended because you are slightly darker than the person next to you. In a race to be thin skinned you will always lose to the next special interest group — but if you just had slightly thicker skin and were willing to listen and be critisized, perhaps you have a chance of functioning in a normal democacy.
A vehicle to distribute spoils of the state
The Government has turned into a vehicle to distribute the spoils of the state and that is the most disconcerting, yet unifying, thread between all the political parties. There are no parties who have no identity agenda and it has been sewn into our very fabric that the only way forward is to identify with a group and then go all in — for good or bad. That is the most patently absurd way to run a government and a nation — and we are busy trying to perfect it.

This has also resulted in a government which is forever trying to right historical wrongs — is it not their job to be forward looking and lead us? Of course certain sections of society have had it very good for very long, but let them compete in the 21st century’s marketplace of ideas. Let us stop propping up each and every special interest group. A dominant caste like the Marathas, now want reservations — and with the slew of reservations which have been doled out in the past, are they really wrong in demanding their share?
This is not to deny the thousands of marginalized groups their history, which is one of persecution. But is it not the duty of the government, and fellow citizens, to acknowledge the wrongs done, atone for them and move on? There can be rich Dalits just as there can be penurious Brahmins. There can be vile Scheduled Tribes with truly barbaric practises just as there can be land owners with a conscience. And yes, there can be poor Marathas who now organize themselves around the plank of reservation. Such a coalesion of discontent has proven to be the surest way for an opportune political party to swoop in and dominate the group’s vote for multiple generations.
Identifying with them less than a year out from the general elections is fortuitious, but comes from a well-honed political playbook. Ditto the Patidars in Gujarat or the Lego movement in Italy. If our State continues to engage in righting historical wrongs and distributing the spoils of the state, where does it ever stop? Almost all states in India have around 50% reservation, and we are still engaged in a race for ‘our group’ to be labelled more backward than the others.
The parable of the pedestrian
There are many arguments (and parables) which speak to this deep seated victimhood complex that all special interest groups display. The parable of the pedestrian goes something like this — imagine if you get hit by a car being driven by a billionaire and the only way for you to make a complete recovery is years, even decades, of physiotherapy. No surgery, no amount of money which you win in the courts, or through the billionaire’s grief stricken conscience, can help alleviate that pain. The pedestrian, no doubt muttering under his breath, still has to bear that burden and self-heal. Well, that is the moral of this parable — there are certain wrongs where the perpetrators, even if they have been perpetrators for centuries, cannot heal the victim. The perpetrators cannot make the victim whole — either monetarily or morally. The victim has to, simply, begin the process of self-healing.
Nehru’s Independence Day speech, long after he uttered the famous “ at the stroke of the midnight hour”, actually says this;
“Ending of poverty and ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunity”
Ending inequality of opportunity, not inequality of outcome — and the Constitution delivered. Outcomes occur due to intelligence, grit, perseverance and many other factors which the government cannot ever hope to control, although successive governments have made it fashionable to say that they can. It nets them votes.
The only reason we have ratios of 10,000:1 for acceptance into state police forces as a constable is simply because the bureaucracy and the State have turned into the most efficient way of distributing the spoils of the state in an inefficient nation.
Hence, what does a farmer’s son do when his family has never paid an income tax? When they don’t know the pinch of paying for services and receiving next to nothing in return? When their friends who migrated to urban India regale them with tales of horror? They try to get into a system which has never taxed them and will now pay them in perpetuity and make them lord of a mini-fiefdom by doling out the plethora of jobs in a bloated bureaucracy and state that should never have been there. Of course, farmer distress is an issue deeper than the lens I am currently using — but is it not the Government’s duty to ensure that their produce can reach the right markets at the right rates by ensuring free and fair pricing and a modicum of transport and storage infrastructure?
Today, the distressed farmer is a victim and so is Nirav Modi — only in India, but not in my name.
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National Identity III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII , IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX, XXX, XXXI
XIV: Inside the Special Forces identity crisis
XIX: The Indian soldier in Kashmir

