TEMPLES AND MAHAJANS

Post-colonial Goan politics has always been about playing the Hindu bahujan against their Catholic counterparts. Fear of the Hindu bahujan is repeatedly instilled in Catholics using the bogeyman of Marathi and merger; the Hindu bahujan are constantly made hostile by falsely stating that the government panders to every Catholic demand, and by stoking communal sentiments about forced conversions, the Inquisition, western culture, food habits and so on and so forth. Of course, both these sections are quite often pitted together against Muslims. In all of this the hegemony of the Hindu upper-caste is left untouched. This pattern is amply clear if we look at the Konkani language agitation in the past, and the present mobilization of the Bharitiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) and RSS, along with some Marathivadis. Note also the manner in which Nagri Konkani in the Antruzi dialect (which is the dialect of the Saraswats) is still the official language of Goa.

The movement by the Forum for Rights of Children in Education (FORCE) launched in 2011, took a clear stance against this hegemony. More recently, the issue of replacing the old idol at the Marcaim temple in Ponda is on the boil, and is rightly termed as a “Mahajan v/s Bahujan” issue. Of course the antecedents of these two movements are not recent. The demand made by FORCE – that of government funding for English medium primary schools through an act of legislation – can be traced to the resentment over the imposition of Nagri Konkani as medium of instruction (MoI) from 1994. The conflict between the “Mahajans v/s Bahujans” also has a history, with bahujan communities repeatedly trying to gain greater access and control of the temple properties and management, currently in the control of the mostly Saraswat Mahajans. The Nagri Konkani writer N. Shivdas, for instance, has been part of movements to gain access to such brahmanical shrines.

With a judicious and cautious use of the imagination, if we try to put these two movements together, it can be argued that it is not just the temples across Goa that are jealously controlled by Mahajans, but also the ‘temples of learning’ (pardon the metaphor), thus sustaining their hegemony in Goan public sphere.

Allow me to explain a bit more. By demanding that the Mahajan Act, or the Regulamento of 1886, be scrapped, the bahujan communities are in effect asking for a greater control of temple resources, the upkeep of which uses their labour and devotion. They are asking for the freedom and liberty to exercise their choice of deciding how the temples are to be run. Similarly, the movement launched by FORCE is also a movement that demands the freedom and liberty to make a choice to educate children in the language that the parents deem fit. This choice, as we all know, is currently held hostage to the irrational and casteist worldviews and politics of the BBSM-RSS combine – in other words, ‘Mahajans’ of the temples of learning. Isn’t it after all the futures of bahujan children that are being held hostage by these ‘mahajans’?

It is a similar form of power and hegemony that FORCE and the temple movement at Marcaim are fighting. However, we need to point out and understand some shortcomings within such movements.

In relation to the movement spearheaded by FORCE, there are some crucial gaps in their political mobilization that have come to light. Despite many views asserting that FORCE’s demands are not just the demands of the Catholic community, FORCE was cornered into being an organization which represents the demands of Catholics alone. As O Heraldo’s group editor Sujay Gupta recently observed, “…when the government was clearly trying to split the movement for rights of all [emphasis added] children by catering to – or ostensibly catering to – just minority institutions, FORCE allowed this to happen by not pointing out that the government was trying to shift the goalposts”. In other words, there was complacency in FORCE’s mobilization of making more and more allies.

Thus, one can observe that FORCE failed to sustain a consistent articulation that its demands are beneficial for the whole of Goa. Although the bahujan movement at Marcaim does aim for larger political gains beyond the control of temples, yet these aims are not articulated as such; or at least not discussed in the Goan press. The ongoing debates only highlight the potential impact that the Marcaim temple movement could have on the next elections. Limiting (or allowing to limit) the Marcaim issue or the movement by FORCE to shifts in electoral politics would mean that we set our eyes on short-term goals. Both FORCE and the people leading the Marcaim temple movement should think of themselves as fighting similar ‘Mahajan’ control and hegemony.

In the past, we have seen some notable – though short-lived – attempts to unite Catholics and bahujan Hindus through an alliance of the Marathi Rajbhasha Andolan and Romi Konknni Andolan. Perhaps, the only way lasting change can be brought about is by a sustained attempt over a number of years to build solidarity between bahujan interests across religions, that is, assert universal caste and class interests over other sectarian ones. It is in such solidarity that the hope for a common, nurturing, and secure society lies. 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 30 March, 2016)

APOLOGIES AND OUR PAST

Recently, Sudhin Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) demanded an apology from the current Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, who is of Goan origin, when the Goa Legislative Assembly moved a motion to felicitate him. Costa should apologize, said Dhavalikar, for colonial injustices. The RSS soon joined Dhavalikar and demanded an apology not only for colonialism, but also for conversions to Christianity. It would not be out of place to revisit past instances of demands for apologies due to the manner in which Portuguese colonialism is used as a stick with which to beat Christians in Goa.

In June 1980, the name of Camões was mired in controversy. This controversy erupted, it seems, for a number of reasons. These included the cultural programs organized to commemorate the Fourth Death Centenary of Camões, the installation of a marble medallion bearing the image of Camões on the Ashoka Pillar in the Municipal Garden in Panjim, and the invitation extended to the last Governor-General of Portuguese India, Manuel Antonio Vassalo e Silva to attend the celebrations. Owing to the fact that diplomatic relations were normalized between Lisbon and New Delhi in 1974, the decision to commemorate the Fourth Death Centenary of Camões and to invite Vassalo e Silva seems to have been approved at the highest governmental levels in Portugal and India.

The Nationalist Citizens Action Committee mobilized the protests against the celebration of a Portuguese literary and national icon. There are no prizes for guessing what these protests were against – Portuguese colonialism and the indignities, injustices, and oppression of four-and-a-half centuries. In the ensuing melee, the one event that actually grabbed headlines was the apology that Vassalo e Silva was made to offer, after a demonstration that stopped him from paying his respects at the Martyr’s Memorial in Panjim. As one of the newspapers at that time reported, “The former Governor General yielded to the demand for [an] apology when the demonstrators told him that they had no objection to his placing the wreath but only if he expressed regret for the indignities committed on Goan people including freedom fighters by the erstwhile Portuguese regime”.^§

Vassalo e Silva was forced to apologize despite the fact that he believed that “[t]he liberation of Goa was in the interest of Goans. Though Portugal ruled Goa for 450 years, this territory had always remained a part and parcel of India, irrespective of some people who might feel otherwise. It was also in the interest of Portugal that Goa should go back to the hands of Goans”. Similarly, George Vaz, a member of the Communist Party of India, made an important observation which can help us in understanding why Vassalo e Silva held such an opinion: “General Vassalo e Silva … when he was the Governor General of Goa, was secretly associated with the left movement in Portugal, which finally overthrew the Salazar dictatorship; a movement which ushered in the liberation of most of the African colonies of Portugal … General Vassalo e Silva represented that section in Portugal which had hailed the Liberation of Goa”.^§

In fact, during the days surrounding the controversy, the “humanitarian approach” of Vassalo e Silva and his love for Goa were highlighted. Writing to the editor of a newspaper in June 1980, D. W. Desai observed, “If there would have been any other representative [of] an imperialist country to govern Goa, Goans would have suffered horrible bloodshed. In spite of this fact, many Goans are kept [in the] blind to the good deeds of this good man.  [Goans] are prejudiced by his picture as is exhibited by some politicians who wanted only to create ill-feeling towards [the] Portuguese regime” [emphasis added].^§

From Navprabha (Marathi daily), dt: 5 June, 1980. Workers of the Panjim Municipality are pictured removing the marble medallion bearing Camoes' image. 

The 1980 demand could appear to be ‘secular’, with the protests against Vassalo e Silva led by the Nationalist Citizens Action Committee; and the Camões-medallion incident being condemned by the Bharatiya Depressed Classes League, Goa Unit, and the Congress-I.  Much like today, it would not be surprising if the protests in 1980 also had a subtext of hurt at the history of Christianization in Goa, as is today clearly expressed by the statements issued by the RSS. Thus, even though we might observe secular political outfits and Bahujan organizations leading the protests in 1980, the movement nevertheless was trapped within a nationalist understanding of Goa’s past, wherein Christianization and Portuguese colonialism are viewed to have caused the destruction of the culture of Goa.

The multi-faceted figure of Vassalo e Silva and the complex history in which he was situated, exposes the hollowness of demands for apologies. For surely, one apology tended by a former functionary of the colonial regime should have been enough, right? But apparently that is not so. The business of apologies has an insidious relationship with nationalism and how Bahujan identities are manipulated for devious gains. Given that Indian nationalism in Goa has always pitched itself against an enemy, first against Portuguese colonialism, and then against Goan Christians as continuing that ‘colonial’ legacy, it is by ignoring and/or distorting certain facts/events in history today that the Hindu Bahujan are perpetually pitched against their Christian counterparts, and as a substitute for Portuguese colonialism. This is perhaps how brahmanical power and communalization thrives in Goa.

 Due to his association with the Portuguese left, Vassalo e Silva may have believed that an apology may have been apt for past colonial rule. However, such apologies end up condemning Christians in Goa, marking them as enemies, and pitching Hindu Bahujans against them for crimes that are more ‘imagined’ than real. It is time to recognize this fact.    

^§ Quotations from The Navhind Times, dt: 10 & 11 June, 1980. 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 3 February, 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)