READING ‘THE KINDNESS MANIFESTO’: POLITICS AND FR. BISMARQUE

When you wanted a cool atmosphere, instead of providing shade,

We cut trees and gave you air conditioners

I am sorry, extremely sorry. I believe the cry of the

Earth is also the cry of our beautiful Children

– The Kindness Manifesto

How does one read Fr. Bismarque Dias’ The Kindness Manifesto, which was used by him during campaigning for the Goa assembly elections in 2012? Eschewing grand rhetoric about development – or such other populist-phrases – the Manifesto sought to make environmental degradation as central to politics. To begin with, we have to contextualize the Manifesto with the contemporary political realities in Goa. Being a priest, Fr. Bismarque’s ethical understanding was also structured by theological and spiritual influences, and one needs to look at these too. Given that the Manifesto was primarily concerned with an ethical understanding of environmental degradation and its redressal through electoral politics, a lot can be learnt by reading the Manifesto. 

Perhaps like all good ideas, The Kindness Campaign was too ahead of its times. Back in 2012, when Fr. Bismarque convened his first press conference at Old Goa, under the shadow of the Gandhi statue, the reporters seemed to be befuddled with his Manifesto. Compared to the manifestos of other political parties, Fr. Bismarque’s Manifesto lacked a point-by-point developmental agenda. As Fr. Bismarque’s foray into politics was precisely an attempt to bridge the gap between spirituality/ethics and the ground realities in Goa, it was quite unfortunate that there was no deeper engagement in charting out a political vision.

Though many people in Goa could easily see the link between Fr. Bismarque’s Manifesto and the ground realities in Goa, and sympathized and admired his grit and determination, it did not translate into votes. Let us again go back to 3 March 2012. On this day of reckoning for the Manifesto, it is interesting to consider the testimony of a Catholic voter from Cumbharjua: Richard Gomes a Cumbharjua voter said in an interview to Outlook, “‘No Catholic candidate can win in Cumbharjua, so we have to look for alternatives,’ …[because] ‘Hindus are communal, and will never vote for a Catholic in this [Cumbharjua] seat. Since they are a majority, we all have to find a candidate who is somewhat okay with us and responsive to our concerns’”.

Whether the logic of Richard Gomes is a false equivalence or not, the issue here is about whether voters in Goa can make choices that can empower them. The immediacy to survive in the current political climate can render any attempts at better political visions ineffective. Thus, the question that the Manifesto did not engage with was why environmental degradation had to be fought first rather than battling for political representation.  This issue also needs as urgent attention as environmental degradation, precisely because skewed political representation enables anti-environmental policies and laws on the populace by giving power to those that have very little concern for the environment.

The nature of ideas that the Manifesto articulated are not very new within the Catholic Church, and have been around for at least a hundred years. Long before the current Pope issued his Encyclical Letter, ‘Laudato Si’: On Care of Our Common Home’, in May 2015, trying to raise awareness about environmental degradation, faulty governmental policies the world over, and its impact on the poor of the world, Fr. Bismarque’s Kindness Campaign attempted to raise awareness about these very issues. Despite his conflicts with the Church hierarchy in Goa, Fr. Bismarque’s Manifesto and activism need not be seen in isolation, but constituting a part of this larger world of ideas and activism.

One needs to focus closely on the forgiveness the Manifesto sought to ask from the “children” for destroying the “Earth”. The idea of asking forgiveness, I would argue, draws its inspiration from conventional Catholic theology. Further on, Franciscan spirituality with its emphasis on celebrating nature as God’s creation and therefore lovingly preserving it, can be said to be the other influence. Interestingly, the Manifesto is structured in the form of a poem or a song, as opposed to the usual bullet-pointed claims that one finds in other political/electoral manifestos. The Manifesto, therefore, can be linked to ‘The Canticle of Brother Sun’ by St. Francis of Assisi (not surprisingly an inspiration for the ‘Laudato Si’’, given that Pope Francis takes his name from the author of the ‘Canticle’). Just like that document, the Manifesto argues for eschewing wealth and riches in favor of poverty and simple living. The Manifesto sought to fashion a Goan self that would relate compassionately to nature, as a political act. To vote for Fr. Bismarque was therefore a vote to change one’s relationship with nature.

A reading of the Manifesto with how electoral representation is structured in Goa reveals that Fr. Bismarque had to deal with many tough and complex issues. This is a predicament that many people face in Goa. Though the Manifesto emphasized the future of children, there was no attempt to address social and economic inequalities as they occur on the ground – while spiritual/theological understandings within the Christian Church clearly see environmental degradation impacting social and economic inequalities. How to bridge the gap between political vision and environmental degradation, political inaction, and rising religious fundamentalism in Goa is not just a question for Fr. Bismarque’s close associates and friends, but also for the people of Goa, and the Church hierarchy – with whom Fr. Bismarque had a tortuous relationship. This is needed if we do not want his ‘martyrdom’ to be worthless and in vain.

Illustration by Angela Ferrao

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 25 November, 2015) 

COMMUNAL GOENKARS? A RESPONSE TO VIKAS KAMAT

The following is a response by Vikas Kamat to my op-ed in O Heraldo, “Intolerance and the Minorotized Groups”, dt: 11 November, 2015:

All Goemkars Not Communal

By Vikas Kamat (12 Nov, 2015)

I read Dale Menezes’ article, “Intolerance and the minoritized groups”, in the Herald, dt. 11 Nov. 2015. I however, have to make a few observations regarding his opinion: As regards the Konkani language and the script issue, the Sahitya Akademi as well as the Government recognizes Konkani in Devanagari script as the official language of Goa. It would not have been possible for the Roman script to be accepted by the Sahitya Akademi and perhaps, Konkani would then never become its official language.

However, I agree that the Catholics in Goa find great difficulty studying in Devenagari. But today, we see many Konkani youth and author-poets who are Catholics, but find no difficulty with Devenagari script. Similarly, the Government of Goa has helped Roman Konkani by establishing the Dalgado Konkani Akademi (DKA).

However, except a few exceptions, the majority Hindus of Goa use Marathi for “official and formal” occasions since decades – right from their early morning newspaper to their wedding invitations.

Menezes has pointed out towards the representation of Goan Muslims in politics. I have also observed that the Goan Muslims have been underrepresented in politics, perhaps due to their miniscule population. One famous Muslim in Goan politics was Sheikh Hassan Haroon, some decades ago. But here, a difference has to be marked between Goan ‘niz Goemkar’ Muslims and non-Goan Muslims. Goa today has many Muslims, but a large chunk of them are the migrants from states like Karnataka – referred to as “ghaati” by Goans. But they meet the labour demands in Goa. These Muslims mostly hail from the Bijapur, Gadag and such parts of Karnataka.

In the recent Municipal polls, one gentleman called Qutubuddin has been elected by the voters.

He is a Muslim and is the people’s choice too, but he is not a Goan Muslim per se. Goans generally do not vote on religion lines. Right from the first Goa, Daman and Diu Legislative Assembly, this can be seen. Anthony D’Souza was elected in the first Assembly from a Hindu majority constituency in North Goa. Even today, Hindu voters vote for Christian candidates and vice versa. Based on a few isolated comments, Menezes should not paint the all Goemkar lot as communal.

MY RESPONSE:

I would like to thank Vikas Kamat for writing such a prompt response (12 November, 2015) to my op-ed, and also for agreeing on many points and arguments I made.

Apologies for being blunt, but it is ridiculous to say “[i]t would not have been possible for the Roman script to be accepted by the Sahitya Akademi and perhaps, Konkani would then never become its [Goa’s] official language”, without a touch of irony. What Kamat is trying to tell us, in essence, is that the Roman script and the people who use it are not legitimate carriers of Goan identity. Thus, a large section of Goans are excluded from Goan cultural life. The fact that the Goa government belatedly started giving out grants to Dalgado Konknni Akademi, does not take anything away from the fact that many Goans for a long time have been at the receiving end of “intolerance”.

Further, it is also important to call out the blatant display of xenophobia and islamophobia in relation to my argument about adequate representation for Muslims in Goa. I think, to make a distinction between Goan and non-Goan Muslims in response to claims for Muslim representation is another way to deny Muslims in Goa adequate representation, as on the ground Muslims are almost invisible-ized in politics. Although it is an oft-repeated anecdote in Goa that the Saraswat brahmins had migrated to Goa (is it a fact or fiction, is a story for another day), yet it is unthinkable today to think of the Saraswats as anything but Goan. One needs to ask why this distinction is made generally in the case of Muslims.

To end, it is not at all my aim to paint the whole of Goan lot as “communal”. In my mind, I am quite clear that those in Goa – be it the migrants, settlers, or natives – who have been at the receiving end of discrimination and intolerance can ever be “communal”. Fact is they can’t be. My only fault in this was to assume that this fact was obvious to all Goans.

INTOLERANCE AND THE MINORITIZED GROUPS

Goa’s Chief Minister, Laxmikant Parsekar, has been receiving flak ever since he took charge from November 2014. Not simply due to the faulty policies that his government seems eager to force down the throats of the Goan people, but also due to controversial and sometimes silly comments in the media.

However, over the last several months we have been witness to a modicum of clarity and good sense displayed by the same Parsekar on the issue of consumption of beef in Goa. In March this year, Parsekar issued a statement saying that there cannot be a beef-ban in Goa, as beef is part of the diet of a lot of people in the state. Since the issue of whether Muslims, Dalits, Christians, and Adivasis living in India should or should not consume beef is being raked up with alarming frequency, Parsekar did not shy away from issuing another statement earlier this month. Modifying his views a bit due to the existing political climate in North India and the debates surrounding the ‘rise of intolerance’ in India, Parsekar said, “I don’t feel the people of a community eat or use beef to hurt sentiments of others. It is part of their cuisine or preparation and we also accept the fact…” What one can also add to Parsekar’s statement is that rather than offending anybody, many Catholics (for example) feel quite awkward and embarrassed to serve pork and beef dishes at their own functions, thanks to a desire to accommodate the sentiments of their Muslim and Hindu friends. One can see that Parsekar is quite consistent in his views on beef-eating vis-à-vis the minoritized communities and to state something as plainly as he did is frankly quite remarkable.

But Parsekar did not stop at asserting that there was no intent for hurting sentiments by the consumption of beef. The problems in Parsekar’s comments arise when he tried to link the current situation of intolerance in rest of India to the tolerant ethos of Goa, which many believe existed for centuries. He said, “This maybe a tiny state, but our speciality is that Hindus, Catholics and Muslims can live together in harmony and peace. We know the importance of respecting each others’ feelings. Therefore, such issues are never blown out of proportion as in other state”. Reading such a view one should be ideally left with a few wrinkles on one’s forehead.

The question is how valid is the idea that Goa was always tolerant? While raising this question, allow me to also stress that Goa seems to witness a relatively ‘peaceful’ atmosphere as the ‘othering’ of minoritized groups like Christians and Muslims operate through means that appear as not overtly violent.

If we consider the politics of the Konkani language organized around the legitimization of the Nagri script as the official and de facto script of the culture and language of Goa, this vision of Goa having a long tradition of tolerance immediately fractures. By now it is common knowledge that a sizable population of the Catholic community has been excluded from the Goan public sphere. What’s more is that the people who asserted the right of Roman-scripted Konkani as legitimate in the Goan cultural and political sphere were (and are) frequently at the receiving end of vicious hate speech. Though I have said that this is common knowledge, yet it does not seem to have seeped into the common-sensical understanding of many prominent intellectuals and politicians in Goa. For why else would many in Goa celebrate the fact that many Nagri writers threatened to return their Sahitya Akademi awards, despite the fact that these very same people have presided over a regime that continues to marginalize and impose savarna hegemony over bahujan Hindus and various Catholic groups?

To further focus on the harmonious existence of various religious communities in Goa, one can ask about the extent to which Muslims are represented in Goan politics. Although there are many Goan Muslims, there is hardly any representation of that community in Goan politics from 1961. In a sense, one can observe the invisibilization of the Muslim population in Goa, as, right from 1961, the leadership of the community is solely in the hands of others. I think this is very serious as there is hardly anyone who will represent the needs and interests of the community, as for example in the fields of education, employment, and food habits. And since we are on the topic of political representation, I am reminded of the Pratap Singh Rane cabinet of 1980, wherein a sizable number of key posts were given to Christian MLAs, and apparently the mood prevailing then in Goa was that the government had turned into a Christian-controlled one (Kristanvancho sorkar). That a significant number of Goans at that time (which is not that long ago) felt uncomfortable with so many Christian MLAs in the Legislative Assembly, should ideally make us realize that the narrative about Goa’s harmony is a wee bit farcical. One would find many more such incidents.

So while Parsekar is absolutely right in asserting that consumption of beef is not linked to any desire to offend, the rising tide of ‘intolerance’ should not be viewed as an aberration to the normally tolerant and harmonious ethos, whether in Goa or India. In fact, if we think hard enough one will be confronted with a longer history of small and big incidents by which minoritized communities have been consistently and systematically subjected to discrimination. To not recognize this history is to miss a chance at furthering a truly egalitarian society. 

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 11 November, 2015) 

Please also see a reaction to this article by Vikas Kamat and my rebuttal to it here.

DADRI AND THE ‘IDEA OF INDIA’

The gruesome lynching of a 50-year old man, Muhammad Akhlaq by a frenzied mob has led many in India to question the direction in which the country is headed. Muhammad Akhlaq, as we know, was murdered on the mere suspicion of having stored beef in his house. This lynching and other instances of violence in the past was followed by many Indian writers returning their literary awards in protest against the rising intolerance in India. The debates surrounding the death of Muhammad Akhlaq, and other such incidents in the past, took an interesting though predictable turn.

The debate around the ‘idea of India’ and ‘secularism’ within the secular-liberal media was the most interesting and predictable. One could see many laments about the loss of the ‘idea of India’. At this point, it is important to ask what this ‘idea of India’ means. To put it simply, the ‘idea of India’ imagines the modern nation (and state) of India as an ancient and glorious civilization, having a history of more than 5000 years. This unbroken history was believed to have sustained a remarkable artistic and literary tradition (exemplified by Sanskrit texts) and a cultural efflorescence that was inclusive and tolerant, despite ‘minor’ irritants like the subjugation of millions of people under the caste system and the deplorable condition of women. Though Jawaharlal Nehru apparently envisioned a ‘modern’ India (though it was far from it), the ‘idea of India’ as an ancient and timeless civilization gained prominence from his time onwards, and one can observe many prominent public intellectuals and academics actually defending and indeed longing for this ‘idea of India’ which is Nehruvian to the core.

As an example of the reiteration of the Nehruvian ‘idea of India’ following the growing number of incidents like the death of Muhammad Akhlaq, one can read Shyam Saran’s article. Saran, a former Foreign Secretary and current chairman of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (an independent think-tank), opens his article by asking, “What is left now of the idea of India? The expansive cultural sensibility, the persistent sense of wonder and curiosity, the delight in open discourse and debate with no point of view discarded, and above all the embrace of humanity with all its quirks and eccentricities – these have been the hallmark of a civilisation which has mostly seen itself as a journey not a destination”.

Lofty poetic exhortations are but poor guides out of any problem. For despite acknowledging that for most of India’s post-colonial history has “been a relentless slide towards…a tragic parody” of the ideals enshrined at the moment of Independence, Saran closes his article by forcefully arguing that “[i]f we value the idea of India we must not only Make in India but defend the idea of India too”.

At this point it is imperative to ask if the ‘idea of India’ was really all-inclusive, as the Nehruvian secular-liberal intellectuals are inclined to believe. Given that rapes, murder, and lynching are routine for many Dalit communities in India, and that the rise of banal violence and rioting against minority communities is not a recent phenomenon, one wonders how the notion of plural and inclusive ethos of the ‘idea of India’ can be sustained. To understand why, despite having a seemingly inclusive and progressive vision, violence is regularly visited upon marginalized and minoritized communities in India, one need not look at India’s ancient history but the modern debates by which a ‘secular’ India was constructed.

To begin with, the ‘idea of India’ was not at all inclusive. Shabnum Tejani, studying the development of the idea of ‘secularism’ in India in her book Indian Secularism: A Social and Intellectual History, 1890-1950, argued that rather than creating conditions for a just and equal society, the powers-that-be who debated about the nature and essence of Indian secularism, broadly wanted to create a political structure based on Hindu majoritarianism. What the defenders of the ‘idea of India’ miss is that right from the 1950s, the equation of power has been firmly in the hands of the Hindu upper-castes and a more equitable distribution of power has not been achieved. For instance, it can be observed that many of the cow-protection laws in various states were first legislated under the aegis of the Congress party. Similarly, suspicion and targeting of Christian missionaries (foreign or otherwise) was routine from the 1950s.

 

There is also no reason to believe that ancient India was a tolerant space, as we can observe that Buddhism as a religious movement arose against the excesses of Brahmanism. Similarly, a literary tradition that saw the production of the Manusmriti cannot be, by any stretch of imagination, considered as tolerant. That access to the knowledge produced in Sanskrit was the exclusive privilege of brahmins and the glorification of the same exclusive knowledge today as “wisdom”, should be enough to dispel any myths of inclusivity and sagacity.

Considering the above mentioned facts it seems a bit silly that someone would, in the face of rising violence, argue for a defense of the ‘idea of India’ even though, like Saran, many observe that “churches [are] being burnt or Dalits being hacked to death”. If at all there is any seriousness in countering the rising trend of intolerance, it is not by defending this ‘idea’ which has no real basis in history or reality, but by rigorously questioning it.

(First published in O Heraldo, dt: 28 October, 2015)