Victim Bazaar, Bilkis Bano, NGOs, and the forgotten Wandhama Massacre!

Last updated on: January 29, 2008 at 7:15 am by Desh Kapoor

Victim Bazaar, Bilkis Bano, NGOs, and the forgotten Wandhama Massacre! 2008-01-29T07:15:35-06:00 Desh Kapoor

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For long NGOs and the activists in India have made rich careers in activism for Muslims, Dalits, and for the farmers. Often, they tend to concentrate on the negative and the trite. They miss – deliberately, one can argue – the positives of a section of the society thus amplifying the feeling of victimization for perpetuity amongst a section. That is how they characterize themselves henceforth. It comes at the real cost of a victim’s progress. Here is an excellent article on the bazaar of victims – NGO ishtyle!

For five years, Citizen Nagar is, for the NGOs, the symbol of what is wrong with Gujarat’s Muslims. They lost their livelihoods, they are far from their places of work, schools or medical facilities. But who chose that location? Who bought the land and resettled the families near the reeking garbage dump? The same NGOs who are complaining today. Rather than encourage and prepare them to return home or to rebuild their lives, the NGOs, according to a prominent Muslim philanthropist, “threw money at the families and created victims for life”.

It was haphazard, poorly thought out and downright cruel. First the mad rioters killed people and Modi’s government looked the other way. And since then, the media and many NGOs are trying to ensure that they always remain just that: victims.

There is a discussion on Rahul Pandita’s blog on the experience of Manoj Dhar – a Kashmiri – who saw everyone of his family killed and no one was brought to justice vs Bilkis Bano. This is what Rahul writes:

let me point out a glaring difference between Manoj and Bilkis:

Manoj couldn’t do it since no champion of human rights in this country – such as Arundhati Roy – care a fig about him. Obviously, he is not a case worth writing about in her flowery essays. The bigger irony, perhaps, is the fact that out of personal miseries of people like Bilkis Bano, many people in my country have carved out illustrious careers for themselves. This, to me, is the biggest tragedy.

And he is right about the difference – if it wasn’t for the many prominent NGO honchos and the good samaritan Muslim lawyers, she would be a statistic!

Unfortunately, if I or you were to discuss about Kashmir and the genocide and ethnic cleansing – which was carried out while all these NGOs were sleeping and every “secular” Muslim spokesman was mouthing trite words once in 5 years (if they were “good” and passionate NGO-walas) or NOTHING at all (if they were “moderates”)… we would be nothing more than “fascist saffronists”!

Passionate defense and secularity of that is the preserve of only some in this country. Selectiveness is an art. It reveals more in what it hides!

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