IN LIFE AND DEATH: POLITICS AND POLITICIANS

In Goan politics, the politician is an indispensable cult figure, one whose image is more important than his or her ability to discharge his or her public responsibilities. The unexpected presence of the ailing Pandurang Madkaikar, Cumbharjua MLA, for the first time in public in 11 months, at the floor test of the BJP government, a few weeks ago is a case in point. Madkaikar, who suffered a brain stroke last year, has been away from public life all this while. Despite his ill health, Madkaikar contributed, or was forced to contribute, to the cutthroat power struggles, even though he has not discharged his public responsibilities and was dispensed from his minister’s post since last year.

In the images beamed by local news channels, Madkaikar looks cheerful although he is clearly not fully fit. Two attendants hold him steady as he slowly inches his way to his seat. Once seated, he does not appear to be comfortable. But he manages to joke and chat with his colleagues while two uniformed guards keep a close watch throughout. During the decisive moment of the floor test, Madkaikar raises his hand with difficulty—another attendant helps him.

To be fair, Madkaikar is not the only one who has clung to power despite ill health while being unable to function in a public capacity. There was former MLA of Mapusa, the late Francis D’Souza, who clung to his position. It was common knowledge to his constituents in Mapusa that D’Souza would frequently be away for treatment. The former CM, the late Manohar Parrikar, is, of course, the most recent example of clinging to power as the CM. In Parrikar’s case, the BJP and the Chief Minister’s Office went on a propaganda blitzkrieg to convince all that the CM was in good health.

In the farce that is contemporary Goan politics, Madkaikar’s public appearance at the floor test showed the BJP government in poor light. There was simply no able second-rung leadership—a comment oft repeated following Parrikar’s demise as well. Surely, the people of Goa deserve better. Especially since the in-fighting amongst various elected representatives has plunged Goa into an uncertain political future while the destruction of its people and landscape, initiated by various governments, both present and previous, is continuing unabated.

The lack of substitute leadership stems from the fact that Goan politicians jealously cultivate their own cult. They make themselves apparently indispensable to the voters as well as their followers. Many political commentators have stressed that Parrikar was the one who cultivated a cult following for himself more than anyone else. Parrikar’s close friend and mentor, Subhash Velingkar was one of the commentators who gives the best insight into Parrikar’s functioning. Reflecting on Parrikar’s political career, Velingkar noted to a local news channel that Parrikar was “dictatorial” by nature. He was often unable to work with the rest of the leadership in his party.

Velingkar and many other commentators allude to the ‘cult of the personality’—a figure like the kings and queens of olden times—in Parrikar’s functioning and rise to power. In fact, all politics in Goa operates through the ‘cult of the personality’. The constituent or the voter is expected to be beholden to the politician in a patron-client relationship, while in a democracy such a relationship is theoretically and legally not necessary. Parrikar, though the best example, is not the only one who assiduously cultivated his own cult. Others, like Madkaikar too, cultivated their own cults.

Whether driven by naked ambition, a greed for power, the persistence of their supporters, or social circumstances, politicians like D’Souza, Madkaikar, and Parrikar enable and sustain a politics of the ‘cult of the personality’. This leaves truly little room for efficient leadership to emerge and thrive. Rather than having leaders who lead, we only have rulers who want power and nothing but power. These rulers, in fact, serve those who fund their campaigns more than the people who vote for them. As such the most important function of democratic politics—to govern society efficiently and look after the welfare of each of its members—becomes a marginal issue in the grand scheme of cutthroat power struggles.

Think about Parrikar’s compromises with the casino and mining companies which have almost destroyed the rivers and forests and think also about his belief in Hindutva which has furthered the already existing social and communal fractures in Goan society. To think, then, of Parrikar’s legacy as an indispensable leader and cult figure is to realize the damage done by cult figures to the social fabric, culture, environment, and polity.

One of the reasons why the ‘cult of the personality’ marks our electoral politics is because our society is fundamentally stratified by caste and class. The severely stratified society makes it easier for politicians from dominant groups to become godfathers to leaders from the Bahujan underclass. The leaders from the Bahujan underclass find it difficult to rise and survive unless they compromise with the agendas of their groups. The result is dismal for a democratic polity: subaltern groups are further marginalized and minoritized simultaneously with environmental and cultural destruction.

In life and in death, the careers and legacies of politicians have lasting scars on the landscape, the culture of the land, and the future of the polity. 

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

FRAGILE POLITICAL ALLIANCES IN GOA

The political developments in the last 30 days may have surely given Goans a sense of déjà vu. With BJP’s Laxmikant Parsekar appearing to revolt, and two Congress MLAs joining the BJP, Goans may have remembered the decades of political instability from the 1970s. The logical question to ask, therefore, is why has Goa witnessed such fragile political regimes? Is there something deeper than merely opportunism and avarice in Goan politics?

If one looks at the earliest elections held in Goa under Indian rule, primordial ties of caste and sub-castes determined the outcomes of elections. They still do, of course. Religion played a part too in the propaganda, but underlying the religious propaganda were the intricate tentacles of caste and sub-caste alliances. Goa’s first chief minister, Dayanand Bandodkar and his MGP came to power by routing a largely Saraswat caste-led Indian National Congress. While the defeat was humiliating for the Congress, for Bandodkar and his MGP, the victory heralded a new configuration of political power and reforms. Bandodkar’s regime was made up of a conglomeration of bahujan castes positioned against upper caste interests, which in due course of time, as Goa University’s Parag Porobo writes in India’s First Democratic Revolution (2015), started disintegrating as the alliance partners, sub-castes within a larger bahujan class, vied for power with each other.

The manner in which Bandodkar’s MGP fragmented due to internal schisms and how politics was structured post-Bandodkar teaches us a thing or two about Goan politics. Recent events suggest that the age-old pattern of fragile political alliances is firmly in place. One can suggest that the fragmented nature of the society allows dominant caste groups to form strategic alliances with one or two of these bahujan sub-castes, in the absence of a consolidated bahujan class. ‘Catholics’ and ‘Muslims’ can also work in a similar way in certain circumstances. For a small state like Goa, within the Indian electoral system of simple majorities, this caste and sub-caste alliances mean that governments can be toppled with one or two ‘rebel’ MLAs.

The rot goes deeper as the social, economic, and political power is concentrated in the hands of a few. Those who already have money and social privilege have been the most successful in capturing political power and also concentrating it in the hands of their coteries. After all, even Bandodkar could mobilize such support because he had the means to; he was an established businessman in the mining sector. Essentially, if we are to understand the role economic capital, or money, plays in elections one should not simply think of it as “greed” but the ability of various groups to pool their resources together.

While Bandodkar’s regime was the only one that can be considered to push for social justice by extending land and education rights to sections of society that were hitherto denied these, successive government seem to be undoing these reforms. There is no need to look any further than the politicking over the Medium of Instruction controversy and the massive land grabs in recent times. Arguably, such a political and social setup does little to bring about positive change. The voters have to depend on a strong leader, i.e. an autocrat-like ruler, largely to ensure that they get government jobs and their “work” gets done. The voters here are not equal citizens, whose right it is to enjoy the benefits of democracy, but they are clients to, and supplicants before, the leader who is the patron.

Wasn’t it a short time ago, February 2017 to be precise, that the office of the Election Commission, through its Chief Electoral Officer, launched a media campaign encouraging the citizens of Goa to vote in large numbers? Given how the current BJP government was formed and the current chaos, the campaign by the election commission, in hindsight, appears to be a cruel joke on the people of Goa. One could argue that the brief of the Election Commission does not go beyond ensuring free and fair elections. But who is to be held responsible for the chaos and uncertainty into which Goa descends after the elections? While elections appear to be a good start towards the control of our own destiny, the unaccountability and shameless backtracking from campaign promises would suggest otherwise. Moreover, short-term and strategic political alliances – all beneficial to the political class and their small coterie of supporters – give us cause to believe that our votes in reality are not valuable at all.

I do not want to suggest that all is lost. As O Heraldo columnist Amita Kanekar suggested a while ago, fragile alliances, leading to fragile governments, are actually useful in stopping the complete annihilation of the Goan people and landscape that the ruling establishment seems currently bent on. One could agree or disagree on the usefulness of fragile alliances for safeguarding Goa. The reasons for such alliances emerging are complex, fragmented social condition being the chief amongst them. At the end of the day, most people in Goa feel cheated with the political situation and the succeeding generations will bear the cost of damages created by the recent governments.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 7 November, 2018)

PASTORAL LETTERS AND INDIANNESS

Over the last couple of years, pastoral letters written by various bishops in India have led to national furore over their contents. While the writing of pastoral letters is routine, these letters found themselves in the eye of the storm largely because they were written around the time of elections and referenced the problematic political conditions affecting minoritized caste and religious groups. The most recent of such pastoral letters to have received the attention and ire of Indian media is written by Anil Couto, the Archbishop of Delhi. But if one considers all the recent statements together, a particular pattern emerges – one that concerns the health of the Indian polity. Let us proceed chronologically.

In 2015, the Bharatiya Bhasha Suraksha Manch (BBSM) led a campaign that demanded that English as a medium of instruction (MoI) in primary schools to be not funded by the Goa government. Despite a widespread demand from all sections of Goan society for English, the BBSM and other such right-wing organizations blamed Catholics and the Church for going against the interest of Indian culture. As is usual, these organizations attempted to pit ‘Hindu sentiment’ against the Christian communities in Goa. In response to the false accusations, the Archbishop of Goa and Daman, Felipe Neri Ferrao at the annual Christmas civic reception pointed out that in terms of education, and in other matters like religious tolerance and Goa’s environmental destruction the role of the Church was viewed with suspicion.

What followed the speech at the civic reception were wild accusations about the Church not being Indian enough – or being directly responsible for Goan Christians being disloyal to Goan ethos and Indian culture. An editor of a prominent Marathi daily – who recently coined the bizarre and Islamophobic term “Kristi Jihad” – even went to the extent of finding proof of the Archbishop’s/Church’s un-Indianness in the fact that the gathering was addressed in English!

Towards the end of 2017 and with the Gujarat State legislative assembly elections round the corner, Thomas Macwan, the Archbishop of Gandhinagar found his pastoral latter being splashed across TV news channels, and loud, uncouth debates conducted over its contents. The letter cautioned that the growing influence of nationalism was threatening the core constitutional values of India. The relevant portion of the letter needs to be quoted for a better understanding of what Archbishop Macwan was concerned about: “We are aware that the secular fabric of our country is at stake. Human rights are being violated. The constitutional rights are being trampled. Not a single day goes without an attack on our churches, church personnel, faithful or institutions. There is a growing sense of insecurity among the minorities, OBCs, BCs, poor etc”.

Archbishop Macwan’s letter was directed to re-claim what he understood to be an Indianness – secular in character – that is disintegrating due to ugly power struggles. Even if India may not have a great track record of upholding secularism and protecting marginalized groups in the past, letters such as those of Archbishop Macwan repose faith in the founding principles of the Indian constitution. The manner in which this is done is by swearing allegiance to a certain idea of nationhood – or Indianness – for securing rights and citizenship. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a gap, an ever widening gap, between the noble principles enshrined in the Indian constitution and contemporary Indian nationalism (irrespective of political leanings); there is no equality as such and there are no equal partners in this nationhood.

Which is why we are in a situation wherein only few groups can legitimately speak for the ‘nation’ – and ‘minorities’, or the minoritized are not a part of this group. This was very clear through the furore that followed Archbishop Couto’s letter; most had no idea what was so objectionable in the letter. In many ways, one could consider Archbishop Couto’s letter (along with Archbishop Ferrao’s recent letter) as similarly directing our attention to hold fast onto the founding constitutional principles. While we welcome the calls for following the constitutional principles, one has to be careful while understanding the repeated references to the “secular fabric” of India. One cannot assume that there was secularism which is now under threat; the numerous instances of planned sectarian violence over the course of the last half century against marginalized groups are a case in point. Secularism, if one goes by its fraught history in India, is not something that seamlessly exists with the current idea of Indian nationhood, but a promise that needs to be realized.

And it is precisely in times of elections – or impending elections – that one feels the threat to the constitutional principles. In this sense, many of the bishops in India who have expressed concerns about the political future of the people owing to an election cannot be faulted. However, if one thinks that it is only in times of elections that one can stop the rapid rot of the Indian political system then one is sadly mistaken. Elections come and go and short-term politicking does little to improve the lot of the poor and marginalized.

In times of deep political crisis, one feels the need for moral leadership. In this sense, the Church in India is quite suited considering its systematic and long-term charity work and the ideas of compassion it brings to public life. Therefore, it is legitimate for the Church to be concerned and act in the here and now, without compromising its core values. But it has to recognize that marginalization of various groups is a deeper problem, beyond the scope of nationalism and elections. 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 6 June, 2018)