THE GHOST OF ‘DENATIONALISATION’

The recent vituperative comments made by certain writers and ‘freedom-fighters’, reported in the press in the context of the demand for state support for English as Medium of Instruction (MoI) forces us to search for a deeper understanding of the issue of language politics. Given that the problem identified by such statements is about doing something that is antithetical to the national ways of life, one need to ask how we have reached this moment. One of the ways that we can understand the issue is by focusing on the operation of Indian nationalism in Goa.

Reference to T. B. Cunha’s pamphlet Denationalisation of Goans, (1944) is critical to the task at hand as many of these offensive comments either make a direct reference to Cunha and/or base their arguments on his ‘denationalisation’ thesis. Cunha wrote this pamphlet at a time when Indian nationalism was growing powerfully and anti-imperialist nationalist movements were emerging around the globe. While it is clear that Cunha went hammer and tongs against the propaganda of the Portuguese state, one would also be struck with the contradictory nature of his ideological claims. Cunha’s basic thesis was that Portuguese colonialism had “enslaved” the Goan – particularly the monolithically constructed Goan Catholic, thus preventing a national feeling or pride from emerging in their hearts. According to Cunha, a long history of the Portuguese presence in Goa and a long and complex history of Christianization had produced a Goan “essentially [of] a slavish character”, who was happy to ape Western manners and customs on his own volition.

The most glaring contradiction in Cunha’s pamphlet was his attempt at creating a single enemy against which Indian nationalism could be positioned. In this scheme of things, Cunha not only identified the Portuguese rule as the enemy, but also ended up portraying all Goan Christians as a comprador class. Reading Cunha’s pamphlet carefully one realizes that to delegitimize the Portuguese state he portrayed Goan people as being denied agency and being oppressed. However, he also claimed that Goans – particularly the Christians – were happy in their enslavement by the Portuguese and thereby furthering the interests of the Portuguese state against Indian interests. What was never explained was how a people who had been enslaved by a system, ideology, or culture had, simultaneously, the agency to further the interests of the same system, ideology, or culture. Even if we assume that some Goans were enslaved, how could slaves be the bad guys or the compradors?

In his haste to make Goa Indian and evoke feelings of Indian-ness in Goans, Cunha left Goan Catholics no choice – either you had to be Indian or you were nothing. Such an attitude is reflected in his rather bizarre assertion: “Even in her present return to saree, the Catholic Goan woman is not guided by any national feeling since she still prefers foreign material to Indian for her new dress. It would be a better proof of her patriotic spirit to continue to dress in European attire but give preference to Indian cloth” (p. 30).

This skewed logic of the oppressed simultaneously furthering their own oppression is also seen when Cunha discusses the state of language and literature in Goa, as part of ‘denationalisation’ thesis. Critical to the current politics in linguistic and pedagogic policies, it needs to be quoted at length. Cunha says, “The obstacles set up to the cultivation of their mother-tongue [by the Portuguese] deprived Goans of their most natural instrument for the expression of their highest thoughts and deepest feelings, checked all spontaneity and deprived them of a literature worthy of the name. Ashamed of their uncultivated language, the educated class professes to despise it. Forced to write in a foreign language, they are bound to produce merely imitations lacking in the creative spirit and originality which are the privilege of those who are inspired by the deep consciousness of the race. Their thoughts are borrowed from the distant West…” (p. 25).

Following the ‘denationalisation’ thesis wherein the church, the Portuguese state, and all Christians were claimed to be working to enslave all Goans, it becomes immediately clear why the demand of English as MoI was initially (and still seen) as a conspiracy hatched by Christians and supported by the Church. Apart from the bizarre accusation made by Naguesh Karmali against the church, Raju Nayak, the editor of a prominent Marathi daily recently berated the Church for its lack of Indian-ness. Further the editor in question said that the church was responsible for Goans opting for Portuguese citizenship, and concluded that “English education is not only inadequate to create ideal citizens and skilled service class, but also responsible for the sin (sic) of creating a generation of selfish, narrow-minded individuals who have no sense of belonging towards the nation. Cunha referred to this attitude as ‘denationalisation’ because the Church strengthened the colonial power in Goa and continued a colonial legacy after that”.

In other words, the nationalism espoused by Cunha and blindly reproduced by his followers continues to create problems – like a ghost that haunts frequently. What the followers of the ‘denationalisation’ thesis do not understand is that it is an inadequate framework to deal with the problems of Goa. In fact, it is such offensive views that push people to a corner, and not the other way round.

Cunha’s thesis fails to recognize that rather than being enslaved Goans were using a variety of strategies to better their lives, the most famous amongst them was to educate their children in Portuguese, English, and Marathi (at least from the nineteenth-century). Writings were produced in Romi Konkani, Portuguese, Marathi, and perhaps even French in Goa. Rather than recognize and encourage diversity and choice, Cunha’s thesis restricts them. This is exactly how linguistic chauvinists think and act in Goa today.

The ideology of ‘denationalisation’ thrives because it is positioned against an enemy: it was Portuguese colonialism and the ‘denationalised’ Goan before, now only the ‘denationalised’ Christian remains.

(All quotes from Denationalisation are from the edition published by the Goa Government, no date)

(A slightly modified version was first published in O Heraldo, dt: 20 January, 2016)

‘MINORITY-APPEASEMENT’ OR ‘MAJORITY CASTEISM’?

November 2015 would be an unfortunate month for Goa. Not simply because Fr. Bismarque Dias, a fire-brand activist, was found dead under mysterious circumstances, but also because the Goan government  behaved in an atrocious manner in handling the investigation as well as the law and order situation following the peaceful protest on 21 November, 2015. At a time of outpouring of grief and emotion from the people of Goa, and at a time when politics in Goa is in dire need of ‘Kindness’ (to borrow Fr. Bismarque’s word upon which rests his 2012 election manifesto) one would be quite surprised – or rather, shocked – to see vicious anti-minority statements made in public by members of the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM). With the government increasingly growing unpopular in the eyes of the Goan people, it seems quite certain that members of the RSS-backed BBSM are making hay while the sun shines.

Simply put, the BBSM’s agenda is to block the grants-in-aid to English as a Medium of Instruction (MoI) in primary schools in Goa. In trying to safeguard ‘Indian culture’ (whatever that means), members of the BBSM think that it is the Christians in Goa who are responsible for the demand for English made by parents across the caste and religious divide. It has been quite clear for some time now that the BBSM is an openly rightwing group. Its hostility to minoritized groups is very evident. In the recently-held BBSM press conference, Arvind Bhatikar said to the ruling BJP party in Goa, “Your voter is Hindu. You are in power because of Hindus. Remember this and stop appeasing the minorities”.

This issue I think cannot be framed as one of increasing communalization, as one can see that the BBSM is always clever enough to keep token figures from the Hindu bahujan samaj and the Catholic community in their press conferences and photo-ops. Neither can the vicious hostility to Goa’s minoritized groups can be understood as an issue of increasing “intolerance”. If this was the case, persons like Naguesh Karmali and Pundalik Naik (staunch members of the BBSM and Nagri Konkani litterateurs) would not have aligned with the RSS-backed BBSM, while at the same time protesting the Sahitya Akademi’s silence on the recent murders of writers and rationalists.

So the question is, how do we then, understand the comments that are made by Arvind Bhatikar and the members of the BBSM? The most important way is to see how Brahmanism operates in maintaining its own power. It is no secret that both the RSS and the Nagri Konkani camp (from which most of the Konkani “stalwarts” are drawn) are tightly controlled by brahmins. The Nagri Konkani project itself is the project of the Saraswat caste hegemony. In this context, it would profit us quite a lot if we invoke the comments of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who observed, “Is it reasonable to expect the secular Brahmins to take part in a movement directed against the priestly Brahmins? In my judgment, it is useless to make a distinction between the secular Brahmins and priestly Brahmins. Both are kith and kin. They are two arms of the same body, and one is bound to fight for the existence of the other”. Clearly, the rightwing brahmins in the RSS and the secular brahmins (who, like Uday Bhembre and Arvind Bhatikar, have so far been projected as ostensibly ‘secular’ and ‘progressive’) have come together under the umbrella of BBSM – and one can only presume that the reason to do so is to maintain each others’ existence.

I am not the first one to see similarities between the methods employed by right-wing Hindu groups and those that are employed by cultural purists like the BBSM – a major chunk of whose leadership consists of the “stalwarts” of the Nagri Konkani camp. Kaustubh Naik argues that in Goa the Nagri Konkani camp functions as a “local culture police” much like Hindu right-wing groups. This local culture police want to “impose a singular identity by carefully erasing all cultural differences to ensure the hegemony of a dominant social group”, i.e. the “Hindu Saraswats” according to Naik (The Goan Everyday, dt: 29 September, 2015).

Where is the minority-appeasement in such a scenario? If repeated struggles by the Goan people, for greater equality in political life and for a greater recognition of their individual and community rights, are diligently scuttled by dominant caste groups (with of course tokens from the Christian community and the Hindu bahujan samaj), then, once again, where is the appeasement? In the context of ‘minority-appeasement’ one cannot help but draw parallels in the manner in which Christians in Goa are made into a scapegoat like Muslims in many parts of India. By making Christians of Goa a scapegoat for a demand that clearly is not confined to them alone, a bid for maintaining caste hegemony is cleverly disguised as a concern for Indian culture – and, most importantly, Indian languages.

As serious as the nature of the comments made by BBSM’s Arvind Bhatikar is, they are also very routine and banal. One must not be fooled into believing that such comments are an exception to the rule, or an aberration. For all parents who are concerned about the future of their children, the need of the hour is not simply to ensure full recognition for the grants to be given to English as MoI, but also to challenge a vicious ideology that would deny people the right to choose.

And all said and done, even if we call this ‘minority-appeasement’, it is only going to do Goa a lot of good.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 9 December, 2015) 

THE HYPOCRISY OF GOA’S PROTESTING AWARDEES

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES, DALE LUIS MENEZES, AMITA KANEKAR, VISHVESH KANDOLKAR, and KAUSTUBH NAIK

In the context of a number of Sahitya Akademi awardees across India returning their respective awards in protest against the growing intolerance in India, in Goa around fourteen Sahitya Akademi awardees together with Padmashri awardees Maria Aurora Couto and Amitav Ghosh came together and issued a joint statement on 15 October, 2015. One would be struck by the hypocrisy contained in their press note released were it not for the fact that their politics of intolerance is so blatantly displayed all over the same note.

In their statement these local notables condemn “the rising trend of intolerance in the country which threatens freedom of expression…[and] the age-old liberal and all-encompassing philosophical traditions of this country.” One would take this concern seriously were it not for the fact many of these notables have been complicit not only in acts of intolerance themselves, but also physical violence.

For some years now there have been demands from many quarters that Konkani literature written in the Roman script also be given governmental recognition. But Sahitya Akademi awardees like Pundalik Naik and N. Shivdas, who have presided over the Goa Konkani Academy, have not felt it necessary to take up this cause and ensure that a Konkani tradition with a longer history than that in the Nagari script one is recognised. On the contrary, all of these protesting SahityaAkademi awardees and Padmashri Couto have watched silently while Roman-scriptKonkani has been officially ignored and excluded from all kind of state recognition, including awards and grants.

In addition, these persons have maintained a studious silence while their associates, such as Uday Bhembre and Nagesh Karmali, have engaged in the most vicious hate speech against the Catholic community in the course of the Medium of Instruction controversy (that has raged from 2011), when Goan parents demanded the right to determine the manner in which their children are educated. Where was their concern for the alleged liberal traditions, and traditional bonhomie, of Goa then?

To make matters worse, these same notables watched silently when in 2005 Naguesh Karmali, a member of this verygroup of protestors, led a violent mob in destroying public and private property on the grounds that such property was encouraging Portuguese (read as Catholic) culture in Goa.Given that Goa has had a long and historical relationship with Portugal, doesn’t the violent smashing of manifestations of this relationship amount to an act of the very same rabid communalism that these worthies profess to protest against?

In light of these inconsistencies, and the equally amusing announcement that they will hold on to their awards until the meeting of the executive committee of the Sahitya Akademi, it appears that these awardees seem more interested on jumping onto the bandwagon of political trendiness, than for any desire to stand against the growing intolerance in the country, and indeed, Goa itself.

We would like to stress that while it is true that the government of Mr. Modi has definitely presided over a rise in intolerance in the country, the roots of this intolerance lie deeper in the country’s history. As we have already pointed out, a number, if not all, of these Goan awardees are complicit in this intolerance. Their complicity is further evident in the manner in which they phrase their protest within the language of Hindutva. Why, for example, are the recent acts compared to ‘talibanism’, instead of calling them Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism? Talibanism is a phenomenon situated outside the country, when Hindutva is the problem actually at hand, given that Kalbargi, Pansare and Dabholkar lost their lives as a result of their opposition to this ideology. Indeed, Hindu nationalism has been a problem since before Indian independence. In referencing the Taliban, these awardees continue the refusal to recognize Hindu nationalism as the single greatest cause of concern in this country since 1947.

In conclusion, we would be more convinced of the genuine concerns of these state awardees from Goa if we heard them also protest the exclusion of Konkani in the Roman script from legislative recognition, also the violent condemnation of the Goans who are simply asking for English as a state-supported medium of instruction for their children, and also the lack of implementation of constitutional guarantees for education and jobs to historically discriminated-against Goan communities. Such protests would go further in establishing norms for the respect of fundamental rights, and the establishment of law and order in our state and country.

(First published in DNAIndia (Web) on 23 October, 2015)