So what victim-meets-victim programmes do is make me angry — because I am yet again labelled as the victim. I resent the reminder of victimhood being foisted on me. Apparently, in Gujarat, you can’t escape being a victim if you have once been identified as one. Victimhood takes different forms, searches for different contexts, waits for many anniversaries — but it’s always there. This is bizarre and made more so by the fact that there seems to be no recognition that all this coming together is not happening organically but because, in effect, different groups are being told they all have reasons to be afraid.

The state once wanted to decide for me in Gujarat where I stood in the scheme of things. Now, civil society groups also want to do that. That the motives might be different makes little difference. I don’t want the state or civil society groups to decide for me. I want the space and the time to decide for myself.

This is not an exceptionally demanding request. This is not a request that should surprise either politicians or civil society groups. This is not even a request that really needs to be made. Then why am I making it? And many in Gujarat feel this way.

We have to say this aloud because willy-nilly we have been playing a role decided for us. That role was something terrible when the state’s politics took that horrible turn. When civil society responded to that, and respond it had to, the role changed, the script changed, the people deciding the role changed, the motives were obviously infinitely better — but it was still a role I, and we, were expected to play.

... contd.