THE POLITICS OF THE UNDERLINGS: A QUICK HISTORY

There is no doubt that the issue of the ‘migrant’ in Goa exposes the more significant problem of caste conflicts. Last month the issue of non-Goans changing their names to Goan ones made quite the stir, primarily because of electoral frauds and benefits of government employment are at stake. The blame mostly fell on the Banjaras, a traditionally nomadic community. In recent times, some sections of this community have achieved social and economic mobility. Nevertheless, a large part of this community still fares poorly on many human development indices.

With the inclusion of non-Goans through legal (or at times, an illegal) change of names, many fear that Goans will be marginalized in getting government jobs and in elections. These fears might be baseless. Nowadays, voting rarely has any consequences for government formation, and getting government jobs is a matter of ‘influence’ as a recent news report indicate. However, the noteworthy aspect of the debate was the protest by the Bhandari Samaj against migrants changing surnames.

While clippings of newspaper notices informing the public of name changes, mainly to Catholic surnames, have circulated for some years now, the present issue was about the “misuse” of the Naik surname. The Bhandari Samaj, who are among the Goan users of the said surname, contended that “outsiders” had no right to use the surname. In the debate aired on local TV, a leader of the Banjara Samaj argued that their folklore preserved a memory of the usage of ‘Naik’ as a marker of identity, and hence there was nothing wrong in changing their names to Naik.

Historically speaking, the term ‘Naik,’ which is a rank or title, has an interesting genealogy. In seventeenth-century documents, persons bearing the name or title of ‘Naik’ were usually associated with military service, sometimes even becoming rulers. Thus, kingdoms across the western coast had chiefs or governors or commanders called “Naique,” as they are recorded in Portuguese documents of the Estado da Índia. The Nayaka kingdoms of South India, which were established after the fall of the Vijayanagara empire after 1600s, were originally military commanders in the service of the rajahs of Vijayanagara. From Shivaji onwards, peasant and subaltern caste groups claimed a kshatriya status; their successful capture of state power across the Deccan and South India helped them to claim a new identity and a new way of life.

In Goa, at least since the nineteenth century, many non-Catholic subaltern groups have made claims to a higher kshatriya or particularly a Maratha warrior status. The formation of a group like the Bhandari Samaj, or a conglomeration of subaltern groups like the Bahujan Samaj owes its success to the history of subaltern caste mobilization. Shivaji and Sambhaji, as Maratha warrior figures par excellence, have a deep cultural resonance for these subaltern groups. We also have the example of the Kalavant Samaj that successfully mobilized since the nineteenth century for a better way of life, culminating in the formation of the Gomantak Maratha Samaj. Each instance of upward social mobility shows clear evidence of an adoption of a new group identity, as the scholarship of Anjali Arondekar and Parag Parabo demonstrate.

The Banjara Samaj appears to claim a kshatriya status. Thus, genealogies and folklore that link them to warrior lineages, such as Rajput, are cited for better living conditions, especially education and employment, for its members today. It is not surprising, therefore, that two groups claiming Kshatriya lineages—through the rank or title of ‘Naik’—should come into conflict when the issue in Goa is ostensibly one of ‘migrants.’ Which migrants, one may ask? Apparently, those who are upwardly mobile or at least claim upward mobility!

What the subaltern groups did in the nineteenth century and what the Banjaras are trying to do now is not different at all from upper caste groups. The Saraswat and Kayasth jatis mobilized similarly for a higher status in British India in the nineteenth century. The census that the British compiled pitted one group against the other, and not necessarily one caste against the other. Thus, the Saraswat jatis were competing with other Brahmin jatis in Maharashtra as valuable resources like government employment were at stake, and not just ritual honors in temples. Vaman Varde Valaulikar’s life and writings testify to this internal jati conflict.

The issue of name change is also not a new one. For instance, Muslim subaltern groups did the same thing since the nineteenth century. The butcher caste group adopted the surname Qureshi, the name of the tribal group from which the Prophet hailed. These groups adopted new (surname) identities to reclaim their humanity in a society that had marginalized them.

In our past, as well as in our present, we notice claims by several groups for higher status. These claims are tied to a desire for better material conditions in life: housing, jobs, education and so forth. Today we observe the success (however marginal) of many communities who had claimed a higher status and dignity a century or more ago. It takes that long to better one’s condition!

As history shows, the issue of the ‘migrants’ that is currently witnessing heated debates has its roots in claims to social mobility rather than identity. Hence, those who feel concerned with this issue of ‘migrants’ need to think of social justice and mobility more than identity.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 4 December, 2019)

MISPLACED PRIORITIES: PROFIT AT THE EXPENSE OF GOA

Of all the misplaced priorities of successive Goan governments, the most recent is the Vibrant Goa summit. The summit aimed to attract investment in the areas of pharma, tourism, IT, and real estate. Even a cursory glance at the industries that the Goan government is promoting should make the alarm bells ring. For it is precisely these industries and their unregulated promotion that causes economic, social, and cultural problems in Goa.

The problem with the government’s promotion of such business schemes lies in the non-recognition of the environmental cost on Goa and its people. Some weeks back, a tanker carrying the poisonous naphtha chemical, docked at the port in Vasco, drifted and ran aground in Dona Paula, posing a severe threat to the lives and livelihoods. We are still anxiously hoping that the poisonous chemical will not leak in the Goan waters, which are already polluted by MPT’s coal handling. The tanker drifted because the October retreating monsoons brought with it the cyclone Kyarr, causing much damage to life (in addition to trees and animals) and property.

The government’s response to disasters, whether man-made or natural, is inadequate. Governmental authorities do not display the initiative that one expects of their government to regulate and prevent disasters. It is not the first time that a ship has run aground. The infamous MV River Princess at Candolim and the barge hired for a wedding reception at Arossim have cause irreparable sand erosion at both these places. Cyclone Kyarr is not the first time that cyclonic winds have battered the coastline of Goa as well as caused floods. The government’s preparedness is almost nonexistent, which is to say that in times of crisis Goans can only depend on good fortune and the divine.

When the government is so inefficient to provide disaster management as well as the usual utilities like clean water (recall that Ilhas had no drinking water for 8-9 days in August and Ponda for even more this year) and regular electricity, it is beyond ridiculous that it promotes business and investment in Goa. How do you expect people to work if they do not have clean water to drink?

A note also on the Vibrant summits, the brainchild of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and a ‘Gujarat model of development’ is in order here. The claims of economic boost through the Vibrant Gujarat summit are at odds with the realities on ground. There is simply no accountability of the investment brought in by the thousands of MoUs signed in Gujarat. Compared to Goa’s 17 MoUs, Gujarat Vibrant summits have signed thousands of MoUs with business houses since its inception in 2003. The most recent assessment of the Vibrant Gujarat summit, with about 28,000 MoUs, confirms that it has not delivered on its lofty promises. And so, the question emerges: why does the government, assisted by the business community, engage in such shambolic ‘development’ and business practices?

The answer is startlingly simple: profit at any cost. By ‘profit,’ I do not only mean ‘greed’ of individuals but also a systemic problem wherein the social and political order rests on the extraction of natural resources by displacing the poor communities and an absence of fair redistribution of wealth. Demands for job creation or abysmal employment rates are then used as a smokescreen to promote businesses that do not care about worker rights and welfare. The government also does not display any seriousness in protecting worker rights. The result is an economic system that can collapse at any moment with catastrophic effects. Hence, it is a systemic problem that causes the most damage. Here’s how.

The government makes laws, such as those that create Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or Investment Promotion Boards, which give businesses incentives like tax breaks and a free hand to operate how they choose. Through its policies, such as trying to attract investment, the government abdicates its regulatory role—otherwise business houses refuse to participate in ‘boosting’ the economy. The government, as well as the business houses, circumvent the will and consent of the people on whose lands or in whose immediate vicinity these industries are established. Ignoring the irregularities, or rather actively promoting them, leads to massive losses to the exchequer. The exchequer also loses cash if the projects fail as the government, through a contractual binding, frees the business houses of all liabilities. In the case of the failed SEZs in Goa, the Goan government owes damages worth crores to the private business houses!

The systemic promotion of profit through law and policy is today, unfortunately, sustained by electoral democracy. Most people participate in the electoral democracy for basic amenities such as water, electricity, roads, and job security. But the result is opposite: both the government and business houses fail to deliver a stable economic system. Hence, the blame that individual voters are responsible for voting for the wrong guy by taking bribes, even if it is the case, does not explain the cause of my present situation. The vote of the honest voter also results in a systemic failure. Every government in power does the same thing, without fail.

Thus, we need to change our thinking about profit and economic growth. Stock market statistics are not a sign of progress and prosperity. As long as businesses demand unfair incentives, and as long as the government (party affiliation notwithstanding) humors such demands, the economic and social ills will continue unabated. Both the government and business houses must think of a ‘slower economy of life,’ meaning not a slow down of economic progress but a stable system that offers redistributive justice.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 6 November, 2019)

IDENTITY AND BELONGING IN INDIA

As it happens now and then, papers published in reputed scientific journals receive media attention because the findings impact politics. Last month, two papers published in Cell and Science reopened debates about the origins of Indian civilization and consequently the cultural identity and belonging of contemporary Indians. The bone of contention was the ‘Aryan migration’ theory. In other words, the debate was whether Indian culture was indigenous or a result of foreign influence thousands of years ago. Surprisingly, while the written, peer-reviewed papers did not dispute the said migration theory, two of the authors, in a press conference, claimed otherwise. As embarrassing as the contradictory statements were for the professional reputation of the scholars, the incident also suggests the misuse of history and archaeology for political gains.

That India’s history is being misused for political gains is a concern that is as old as the nation—which is to say, about 70 years. Scholars, public intellectuals, and lay citizens worry that communal readings of history may compromise the secular credentials of the Indian nation-state. For these intellectuals committed to secularism-as-religious-equality, the idea of belonging—that is, what makes one person ‘Indian’ in relation to other Indians—rests on fealty to a multicultural past. Even if it is true that the history of the subcontinent witnessed prolonged episodes of multicultural tolerance, the linking of this diversified history by scholars and pubic intellectuals to the present-day Indian nation-state may be hasty. While it may be true that ancient and pre-colonial history of India witnessed episodes of great cultural efflorescence in addition to tolerance, it is also equally valid that this history was marked by violence of various sorts.

That is why the present-day Indian nation-state, or, the Union of India, to use the technical term, was a political project aimed at extending civil liberties without the hindrances of religion, caste, class, creed, and ethnicity. Thus, the Constitution of India emerging out of an experience of anti-colonial struggles took its inspiration from models of western liberal democracies. The idea, then, was not to go back to an ancient and glorious past but to rectify centuries of injustice suffered by the marginalized through colonialism, caste, creed, and gender.

Many scholars forget the recentness of the democratic project in India when they suggest that the proper way to understand contemporary belonging in India depends on an accurate understanding of ancient history. In the last five years scholars such as Jonathan Gill Harris (The First Firangis, 2015) and Audrey Truschke (Aurangzeb, 2017), and writers like Manu Pillai (Rebel Sultans, 2018) and Siddhartha Sarma (Carpenters and Kings, 2019) write, in elegant and accessible prose, that pre-colonial India which contained persons of different identities and belonging did not depend on narrow religious or sectarian conceptions like today. The lesson, therefore, is that contemporary India should emulate pre-colonial India. These writers are partly right, and the lessons they teach have value.

One of the key ways in which many recent authors talk about belonging is through the figure of the migrant. It may be the European migrant ‘who became Indian’ in Harris’ work or the Persian or Central Asian migrants (or invaders as they are popularly called) who established the Mughal and Deccani sultanates in the works of Truschke and Pillai, or it could be a ‘migrant’ religion like Christianity in Sarma’s book. The figure of the migrant provides historical evidence of a malleable pre-colonial culture, one that contemporary Indians need to emulate. Though, the extent of the malleability of this pre-colonial Indian culture is still open to debate.

While these authors are not wrong in making such an assertion, they run on the wishful hope that the political vision of the Indian nation-state must also be the political vision within pre-colonial polities, such as the Mughals or the Marathas. Only Truschke’s work departs from such a view. This thinking is patently inaccurate as the political agendas of various polities of the past, separated by vast amounts of time, were different from the political agendas of the Indian nation-state. Merely by arguing that a secular and welcoming culture existed in the past does not strengthen the political vision of the Indian constitution, neither does it excuse shortcomings of the nation-state. On the contrary, such arguments only leave history vulnerable to misuse.

To understand the problems with present-day disputes regarding belonging, one needs to look no further than the various amendments to India’s Citizenship Act, 1955. While the Act initially granted citizenship to all based on birth or jus solis, subsequent amendments have restricted this right to citizenship only if one’s parents, either one or both, are Indian citizens. The amendment of this act, to the best of my knowledge, has so far hardly been part of debates on belonging in India. To state it simply, an eminently modernist project of granting citizenship under the nation-state is being eroded for several decades.

Debates about belonging or the ‘Aryan’ migration theory always contain an immediate political purpose, as seen in the politics surrounding the National Registry of Citizens across India. The observation that pre-colonial realities and belonging are different from the way belonging is conceptualized in present-day India, should make historians and public intellectuals ask different questions. Not so much “what makes an Indian Indian?” in a cultural sense but “why does religion or ethnicity or any other marker become the rallying point for conflict and legal exclusion at various moments in time?” By asking different questions, one would guard against the misuse of history – whether Indian or Goan.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 2 October, 2019)