Abstract
The intrapersonal inequalities faced by migrant workers or the farmers’ who committed suicides were cases of what had already occurred. But the possibility of ethically unacceptable experiences over time brings aspirations for a future without these intrapersonal inequalities. This chapter explores aspirations for a future with fewer intrapersonal inequalities. It distinguishes between aspirations of emancipation and aspirations of dominance. Building on the aspirations of emancipation typically involves presenting a case of being a victim. As victimhood becomes an effective narrative in the negotiations of democracy, multiple groups begin to claim this condition. In the resultant environment of competitive victimhood, it could even be used as an instrument of dominance. The chapter develops two indicators to capture these processes, one of the victimhood of dominance and the other of the victimhood of emancipation. The data from the National Institute of Advanced Studies survey shows that across the four forms of rural transformation, the victimhood of dominance is far greater than the victimhood of emancipation. This contributes to a politics where the effort is to climb up an extremely unequal hierarchy, rather than challenge that inequality itself.
