Gujarat's Muslims reject victimhood

[jairamesh]

Gujarat's Muslims reject victimhood...11 years on. http://www.niticentral.com/2013/02/27/gujaratÃÔ-muslims-reject-victimhood-50450.html

What can you say about a ÃÚes we can moment that has left Leftist NGOs activism looking schizophrenic, a columnistÃÔ weekly ramblings symptomatic of an obsessive compulsive disorder, while blurring the line between a retired judgeÃÔ claim to ÃÇreedom of speech and what appears to be borderline intellectual senility? First consider this an activist who has spent almost all of last 11 years feeding on others victimhood to pursue a personal campaign of vendetta has the door slammed in her face by those very same victims both literally and metaphorically in a span of one week. The debilitating effect this can have on such an activist, who has made a career out of endlessly litigating in national courts while playing the victim herself internationally to attract funding, has to be seen to be believed. Last Saturday, NGO activist Teesta Setalvad posted a Facebook message on a campaign to disinvite Narendra Modi from a non-descript event in Delhi. The irony of course was that neither was Modi invited to that event nor had he accepted any invitation to attend. A cursory perusal of the eventÃÔ formal brochure reveals no mention of ModiÃÔ participation. An unofficial website that claims to speak of the event had a reference to ModiÃÔ likely presence with no official sanction or confirmation. Yet this did not stop a schizophrenic reaction from the extended ecosystem of Leftist activists to protest the non-invite and to even claim success in that protest. The schizophrenia and desperation within the activist community, that has made a living off the 2002 Gujarat riots for over a decade, is distinctly palpable and it is not without reason. On February 20, DNAÃÔ Mayank Aggarwal filed a report from New Delhi titled èujarat riots victims seek protection from money-minting NGOs? The report goes on to explain how a group of Muslim families from AhmedabadÃÔ Gulbarg co-operative Housing Society had asked the Ahmedabad Police Commissioner to prevent the entry of meddlesome NGO activists into their area to mark the 11th anniversary of the 2002 Gujarat riots. The report further goes on to elaborate on the core complaint of the residents of Gulbarg Society against the NGO activists. One begins to appreciate how NGO activism over the 2002 riots had long strayed from the path of justice to morph into a money-making commercial enterprise with perpetual victimhood guaranteeing funds for perpetuity. Rather than help the victim families of Gulbarg move on with their lives, it was disgusting to learn that the NGO activists had made false promises over real estate alongside morbid plans for a permanent museum celebrating death. Where the Muslim families of Gulbarg were able to see through the duplicity of 2002 riots activism, the largely Mulsim town of Salaya went a step further to do an Obama by sending a ÃÚes we can message to the rest of India and to the world at large. A week earlier on February 13, NDTVÃÔ Rohit Bhan filed a story from Salaya, Jamnagar in Gujarat titled øhy this Muslim-majority town voted for Narendra ModiÃÔ BJP? Describing how 45-year-old Salim Mohammad Baghaad, a local municipal Corporator, had dared to defy conventional wisdom and do the unthinkable join the BJP, the report goes on to narrate how the Muslim majority town voted in 26 Muslim BJP candidates to the local Government. The Obamesque ÃÚes we can message from Salaya will hopefully register with those liberal pundits who have come to confuse their personal prejudice against Narendra Modi with a non-existent Muslim bogey. If SalayaÃÔ Muslims, with their ÃÚes we can message, have embraced Narendra Modi, elsewhere influential voices from within the Muslim Community are signalling clearly to the Congress that they should not be taken for granted by raising the Narendra Modi bogey. In an excellent analysis piece titled âre Muslim voters really supporting Narendra Modi?? Nistula Hebbar of the ET Bureau, citing Maulana Vastanvi, explains how there is a new Muslim middle class that is not unlike their neo-middle class cousins in sharing the same hopes and aspirations. Those who speak of Muslim estrangement by raising Narendra Modi would do well to read this piece to realise that there is a real contention for the Muslim vote and it is about aspirations from the future and not about fears from the past. From Salaya to Gulbarg the winds of change may have made the 2002 riots a distant nightmare. They have also left more than one activist debilitated. Where NGO activists are suffering schizophrenic reactions, activist-columnists like Aakar Patel find themselves stuck with a Narendra Modi obsessive compulsive disorder. Week after week, Patel finds himself writing a column that meanders from one Modi clich to another offering no new insight leading one to wonder what it is exactly with this obsession? In the worst shape is retired Supreme Court Judge and Press Council Chairman Shri Markandey Katju, who clearly has been unable to handle the whiff of fresh air blowing across from Salaya to Gulbarg. With due respect to his age and service to the nation through the highest court, one would expect him to retire from public office gracefully rather than make a spectacle of himself in this manner, not just in Indian media but abroad as well. As we approach another anniversary of the horrific incidents of February 2002 one hopes that the process of justice continues unhindered while a neo-aspirational Muslim middle class looks to the Future with an open mind rather than through the prism of the past.

No surprise Teesta Setalvad "was innit for the money" and in the process blackening the name of other well meaning NGOs.

[CSK Fan]

The funniest thing is that the same posters post big stuff about never forgiving Pakistan, that bringing peace and partnership with Pakistan is cowardice, we can never forgive and never forget, they will stab us in the back, etc, etc. But when it comes to muslims, then all talks come into leaving the past behind and not living on victimhood BTW, fighting for justice and not forgiving murder of your own family members is not victimhood. The next time a bomb blast kills people, please dont show any outrage either as you dont want to celebrate victimhood BTW, OP reads like another propaganda articel for Modi, fair enough their are propoganda article both for and against him, doesnt make either completely true

[Dumbbells]

In Gujarat riots 30% of the victims were Hindus(Excluding the 59 karsevaks burnt). Gujarat's muslim population is 8%. Go figure.

[The Outsider]

In Gujarat riots 30% of the victims were Hindus(Excluding the 59 karsevaks burnt). Gujarat's muslim population is 8%. Go figure.

Figure what?

[Tiger80]

The funniest thing is that the same posters post big stuff about never forgiving Pakistan, that bringing peace and partnership with Pakistan is cowardice, we can never forgive and never forget, they will stab us in the back, etc, etc. But when it comes to muslims, then all talks come into leaving the past behind and not living on victimhood BTW, fighting for justice and not forgiving murder of your own family members is not victimhood. The next time a bomb blast kills people, please dont show any outrage either as you dont want to celebrate victimhood BTW, OP reads like another propaganda articel for Modi, fair enough their are propoganda article both for and against him, doesnt make either completely true

How come people have different logic for different communnities. Sikhs are told again and again to leave past behind and forget about 1984.It is the very same secularists that say so yet for Muslims of Gujarat they should keep fighting for Justice