THE MEANING OF LIBERATION IN 2021

 

This is not the first time that Goans in large numbers have questioned if Goa is truly liberated. But this is the first time when a large number of peaceful citizens, including children, were detained by the police, for creating awareness about the destruction of Goa, right on 19 December, the day Goa was liberated from Portuguese rule! The recent protests, in a long history of protests in Goa, were sparked by the Government’s decision to promote the double-tracking of the South Western Railway, and a power line and a new National Highway through Goa’s lush green Mollem forest on its southern frontier. That the state government has received a grant of 100 crore rupees for the year-long celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of ‘Liberation Day’ only added to the irony of the situation. 

 

The first time that any serious debate took place on the meaning of liberation in contemporary Goa, at least in recent memory, was about 4 years ago. In 2016, many responded to some unsavory comments by a group of freedom fighters, who asserted that Goans who had opted for Portuguese citizenship must be punished. The irresponsible comments by some Freedom Fighters opened a Pandora’s Box and the ensuing debate highlighted that in a truly liberated Goa, the voices of the people would not be muzzled. In such a Goa, another strand of the same debate pointed out, the Goan landscape would not be destroyed by commissioning mega-projects in the fragile ecology of Goa.

 

In the current context, while Goans were debating if they truly enjoy liberty in their homeland, many people also remembered the Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar. His memory is alive and kicking largely because many, including political opponents, view the Government acting in a highhanded and dictatorial way. A spokesperson for the Aam Aadmi Party, Sandesh Telekar, and the supremo of the Goa Forward Party, Vijai Sardesai, likened the current CM Pramod Sawant’s repressive measures to those enacted by the Salazarist regime on the Goans who questioned Portuguese rule in Goa.

 

To an extent, remembering Salazar’s dictatorial regime at this moment makes sense. Goans are witnesses to how their liberties are being slyly eroded by the state through its police, among other institutions. While the full extent of Salazarist repression in Goa is yet to be studied, what is important in this context is that his name serves as a shorthand for the highhandedness of politicians and governments who repress the citizen’s right to free speech and dissent. The Sawant-led government’s refusal to allow any protest, along with its refusal to scrap the triad of destructive projects, is clearly seen as a dictatorial way of functioning. In liberated Goa, definitely, representatives of the people should be more responsive to the grievances of the electorate as well as the integrity of the state’s resources.

 

To his (dis)credit, Sawant is not the first Chief Minister of Goa to be likened to a dictator. His mentor, the late Manohar Parrikar, whose portrait sat next to Sawant when he took charge, was the first CM to receive the dishonor of being likened to a dictator. Ever since Parrikar first took charge as Chief Minister, after a decade-long saga of political horse-trading in the 1990s, his dictatorial style of functioning became the hallmark of his government. His word, it was said, was the law, and many of his supporters even admired that, claiming that such a style delivered the ‘good governance’ that was desperately needed in Goa then.

 

But comparisons to Salazar started happening about 10 years ago more openly. For instance, a gag order of sorts was issued against the tiatrist fraternity in 2014. This move came after Parrikar was being widely criticized, with his aura of ‘good governance’ waning. The tiatrists had had enough of his style of governance and, as is their tradition, were subjecting him to stinging criticism. The now-rescinded guidelines were framed for performances at the Ravindra Bhavan and explicitly demanded that MLAs should not be criticized nor attacked personally. Such a gag order revived memories of censorship, for tiatr and tiatrists were indeed under censorship in the final years of the Portuguese regime.

 

It is no coincidence that new debates about the meaning of ‘liberation’ or ‘liberty’ were articulated simultaneously with a revival of memories of a dictator or dictatorial ways of functioning. Liberty cannot exist without freedom of speech and protest. And these are the fundamental rights that are being extinguished in the name of development, or in the name of citizenship (by refusing to see the benefits of dual citizenship for Goans), or in the name of cultural-religious politics (like indirect beef bans or frequent shortages, and increasing communalization of the society by political parties and their fringe groups). Freedom and liberty, then, appear to be a distant dream or an illusion, or something that, at best, can be found in the pages of textbooks or in politicians’ speeches.

 

Goa’s post-Liberation history has been one economic crisis after another. In recent years these economic crises have only deepened, and new social problems have added to the state’s woes. The people of Goa have paid a high price of poor economic planning, an almost non-existent regulation of industry, and development of an extractive nature, be it for tourism, or in the iron ore mining, or in the unregulated growth of the real estate industry. The forcible promotion of projects and the destruction of Goa will only further erode the confidence of Goans of having any rights or protection in their own homeland.

 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 6 January, 2021)

CULTURE WARS: PORTUGUESE HERITAGE IN GOA

The Indira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA), based at New Delhi has been documenting and studying Indian culture since 1985. Recently, the IGNCA has embarked on an ambitious project of promoting the endangered culture and traditions of various tribes in India. As part of this initiative, the IGNCA has decided to establish three regional centers in Ranchi, Jharkhand, Pondicherry, and in Goa. Sachchidanand Joshi, Member Secretary of the IGNCA was quoted in the press explaining the general objectives of the project, “We do not have reliable database for various tribes including endangered tribes. These are changing and someone needs to document the change”.

Though the objective of this project seems to be oriented towards preserving marginalized groups and their endangered traditions, IGNCA’s view of Goan culture, tradition, and history seem to be lacking as far as Goans are concerned. In the first place, IGNCA understands Goan culture as one that is “dying”. An official from IGNCA was quoted in a prominent national daily, “…we have set up our regional centre in Goa and signed an MoU with Ravindra Bhawan to launch a massive hunt for the folklore artistes to take part in theatres, perform folk dance, sing folk songs and play various musical instruments which have nothing to do with Portuguese culture. The idea is to save the dying cultural heritage of Goa by reviving and recording them”. In other words, the IGNCA has already written the epitaph of a vibrant and living community and its culture.

Secondly, and perhaps more problematically, the IGNCA posits Goan culture, especially that of rural and Bahujan Goa, as being different from and untouched by Portuguese culture. To assume that rural cultures exist without any external influences is to essentialize them as cultures isolated from the rest. If they have been isolated from the rest it is largely because these traditions were limited to a particular caste or tribal group, and not part of the traditions of a wider and diverse community.

This is not the first time that cultural chauvinists – both from Goa and outside – have had a problem with Goa’s different culture; different, that is, from what is seen as “mainstream” Indian or Hindu culture. This Goan difference is not simply confined to the Christians of Goa. Indeed, the temple architecture until very recently borrowed elements from Renaissance architecture as well as from Islamicate art. That the IGNCA is today leading this movement of reform or purification is not surprising given that one of the aims of the Centre is to “evolve models of research programmes and arts administrations more portinent [pertinent] to the Indian ethos”.

India’s caste system ensures that tribal and Dalitbahujan communities remain backwards. Preserving cultural practices mired in casteist and discriminatory social relations could also mean that these people remain marginalized. Thus, the whole idea of preserving cultural practices – of creating essentially happy museumized cultures – necessarily must address the issue of how these very same practices allow for discrimination to persist.

And it is not like all kinds of Goan cultural traditions have not received the support and encouragement of state machinery – whether of the colonial or of the nation-state. And each of these states has promoted these cultural traditions for their own selfish ends. For instance, the late Portuguese colonial state, around the 1940s and 1950s, was responsible for the identification and promotion of several folk traditions from Goa – such as the ghodde-moddnni and dangar dances – as authentic Goan folk traditions. Ironically, this is the precise moment when many of folk traditions found in Goa come to be seen as Goan for the first time ever.

With Indian rule from 1961, the Indian and Goan government promoted many of these folkloric traditions for generating income from tourism from the 1970s. And now the present government with its narrow understanding of Indian and Goan culture seems to be promoting a ‘Goan culture’ or parts of Goan culture in order to purify the same from Portuguese influences.

So where does this leave Goan culture in contemporary times? Probably in a bad place because new efforts to define (or re-define) Goan culture possibly would rob it of its diversity and the various cultural influences in its history. For instance, if we say that we have to rid Goa of its Portuguese influences then an art form like the mando would have to disappear. Goa will be poorer because a classic mando like Adeus Korcho Vellu Pavlo, composed by Torquato de Figuereido in 1905, will no longer be part of its cultural heritage. One could even say that tiatr, owing its origins to western opera can also be termed as foreign or un-Indian. The list, perhaps, will be quite long if we hold on to this thinking of ‘cultural purity’.

Cultural purists in India and Goa miss a crucial point: the intervention of the Portuguese and the cultural practices that evolved in this long period are crucial in the creation of Goa or how Goa developed through time. There is no Goa outside of this history of myriad cultural influences converging to form its cultural characters, beginning from the time of the Estado da Índia. In a similar way it is also important to remember that many traditions fundamental to Indian culture, such as in food, developed as a result of Portuguese commercial policies. Chilies and potatoes, for instance, reached the shores of the Indian subcontinent some five centuries ago. Stated in a different way, there is no pure Goan culture – whether Portuguese or Indian.

To not recognize this fact would only mean that we will be hastening the process of fabricating our own history and promoting a general amnesia regarding the same.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 25 October, 2017)

ACTIVISM, IDEALISM, AND REALITIES ON THE GROUND

Irom Sharmila’s recent loss in the Manipur Assembly elections has sparked off a debate. Many commentators, largely on social media, were shocked to learn that Irom Sharmila only managed to get 90 votes. These commentators contrasted Irom Sharmila’s bad show at the elections with her 16 years of struggle against the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA. Many felt that Irom Sharmila’s long and arduous activism should have resulted in her sailing through; or at least ensured a close fight against her opponent.

Like in Manipur, Goa also witnessed a few activists jumping into the electoral arena. Some contested as independent candidates, while others contested on the tickets offered by political parties. In most of these cases these activists performed very poorly. The focus of this article is the activist of a particular kind who contests elections after trying to reform the system from the outside. This activist is deeply connected with localized, environment-related, socially conscious movements and generally hails from the marginalized sections. As such an activist does his/her activism at a huge personal sacrifice. Their activism, by default, makes them anti-establishment.

I would like to briefly discuss the activism of Ravindra Velip, who unsuccessfully contested in Sanguem. The rampant destruction caused by the mining companies in cahoots with the Goa government forced Velip to oppose this destruction of his native village of Caurem. Leading several agitations, Velip and his fellow-activists were arrested in March 2016. Here he suffered a murderous assault. Velip and his fellow villagers in Caurem – a village largely populated by STs – were not necessarily opposed to mining per se but refused to put up with the illegalities of the mining companies and the government. They rather argued that the locals had a claim to the resources of the village, wherein most of the benefits will go to the people of the area rather than giant corporations. Contesting in the constituency of Sanguem, which contains many mines, Velip brought his experiences as an anti-mining activist to his campaign. Indeed, he used his experiences to articulate a politics of change. But the end result was dismal – Velip only received 658 votes.

If one follows Velip’s interventions in the public sphere, it will be clear that his politics is neither lacking in activism nor in idealism. So why did such activism and idealism not translate into a thumping victory? To this, we can suggest that there is a gap between idealism and how people vote. On the other side of the issue, there is also a gap between ideals and how power is brokered once representatives are elected. Recent events leading to the formation of the Manohar Parrikar-led government have shown that electoral verdicts can be turned upside down in a matter of few hours. What happens and what is said behind closed doors is not known to the general public. Removed from the public eye, these negotiations operate in an economy that subverts any politics of idealism.

Away from the corridors of power, it is believed that ‘the people’ form the keystone of the electoral process. If the poor performance of activists in this election is any indication, then it appears that other factors come into play that make people vote for the status quo. One can observe that votes are cast on the basis of the ‘cult of the personality’. This person generally emerges as a leader by making it big in business and/or facilitating the bureaucratic and legal difficulties of the people of his area. He/she is an activist of another type (in common parlance, a ‘social worker’), the quintessential person who gets your work done. This person due to being rich, or of dominant caste, or due to an extensive personal network that he creates habitually reaches out to people in times of need, even if he is conveniently not addressing the structural set up that has caused the problems for the people in the first place. Often this ‘cult of the personality’ neatly fits into the aspiration of various caste groups; sometimes people simply vote because the candidate belongs to their own caste.

What also takes precedence as well over idealism is the access to basic amenities in towns and villages.Voting is done on the basis of how effectively a candidate can deliver development, which in common parlance means water, electricity, roads, or at least claims to effectively deliver this development once elected. (Such a development is not the same as the other type of development which the government promotes through mega-projects). These issues, closest to the lived reality of the people, resonate more effectively than idealism that claims to overhaul the entire system.And, painful as it is, we have to accept that money and other such favors are also exchanged that do affect the outcomes of elections.

To be fair, many activists have actively worked against the exchange of money during elections, and to bring about transparency in the corridors of power, but the fact that it makes very little impact on elections, or on persons in the higher echelons of power suggests that issues of basic amenities, and local or caste-based loyalties take precedence over the current form of idealism.The activist and his/her idealism cannot tackle such well-entrenched power structures as easily as one might think.These ideals seem to not work if pitted against the ‘cult of the personality’ and the exchange of money for votes. Even the anti-incumbency wave doesn’t seem to have much of an impact.

Considering such realities that affect whom people choose to vote in elections,activists need to think more deeply how idealism needs to be compatible with the complex decisions that people make whilst voting. It will be quite tragic if politics in Goa does not get enriched by the huge sacrifices made by activists from marginalized communities, and if principles of liberty, equality, and justice are not deepened in Goan politics. Or else, we will only witness more power struggles detrimental to public interests.

(Illustrations by Angela Ferrao. First published in O Heraldo, dt: 29 March, 2017)