On the 19 of
December this year, the anniversary of the successful completion of the Indian
action to integrate Goa into the Indian Union, two status messages popped up on
Facebook. The first read “61 Years of illegal
occupation by rapist from Delhi. Some call it being liberated”; the second
read, “The day Portuguese colonial rule was replaced by Indian colonial rule.”
Both of these messages demonstrate the unease felt by a segment of
Goans (regardless of religious identity) with regard to the consequences of
what the Indian nation-state calls “Liberation”. While somewhat uncomfortable
with the first proposition, I was glad for the suggestion of the second message,
because it put a good amount of the Indian nation-state’s relationship with Goa
in context; that Goa, and Goans, were inducted into a colonial relationship
with India from 19 December 1961. The sooner we begin to start seeing the
relationship in this light, the sooner we will be able to remove ourselves from
the sticky situation that the politics of “Special Status” will eventually take
us. I argue therefore, that
counter-intuitively, confronting the colonial nature of the Indian relationship
with Goa will save Goa from the disastrous politics contained within the
Special Status move. To do this, I seek to make a distinction between the
colonialism of the Indian nation, and the constitutionalism of the Indian
state.
The first status
message referred to above makes two points. The first proposes that Indian
sovereignty over Goa is illegal, a possibly logical conclusion given that the
Goan people were, never really asked what their options would be subsequent to
this “Liberation” from Portuguese sovereignty. They were not asked in 1961, at
the conclusion of the Indian action; and they were not asked in 1974 when the
successors to Salazar’s Estado Novo
conceded India’s claim’s over Goa. Problematising the legal status of India’s
continuing claims on Goa should not however blind us to the fact, as it seems
to have blinded the author of this status message, that the Indian action in
Goa was in fact a liberation for a great segment of the Goan population. Once
and for all, it broke the back of the native feudal structure that enjoyed a
reciprocal relationship with Portuguese sovereignty. Portuguese sovereignty
sustained this feudal structure, and the feudal structure sustained Portuguese
sovereignty over Goa. It was the challenge to this feudal structure that enabled
a great number of Goans to pursue careers and relish freedoms that they had
till date not enjoyed.
There is a
popular misconception that democracy was unknown in Goa until the Indians came
and introduced Goans to this system of governance. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Goans were familiar with democracy from the time Portugal, of
which Goa was part, became a constitutional monarchy. This was a liberal
democracy however, and its scope severely restricted. It was nevertheless a democracy,
and this induction into democracy was only deepened as a result of the
induction into the Indian Union that gave every adult the right to participate
in electing the representatives of the state. It was this deeper democracy,
enabled through the provisions of the Indian Constitution that broke back of
Goan feudalism, and for this reason, the actions in 1961 were, as much as they
enabled Indian colonialism, should also be seen as a liberation.
India then,
comes to Goans as a double edged sword, liberative, and at the same time
exploitative. The demands for Special Status, in its popular sense, seek to
deal with the exploitative or the colonial manner of India’s relationship with
Goa. This popular sentiment however, is being exploited by another
understanding for Special Status, one discussed in the preceding column. This
understanding, pushed by the political, economic and social elites of the State
seeks greater autonomy to enable greater unaccountability of these elites. This
latter demand for Special Status would set us against the liberative project of
the Indian Constitution. Indeed, we should bear in mind, that a number of the
demands that twine with Special Status today, are effectively demands that
militate against the freedoms guaranteed as fundamental rights to the citizens
of India. Presenting feudal pre-1961 as an ideal, they challenge the claims of
“outsiders” to the gamut of rights enshrined in the Indian constitution. 
One particular
example is that where a number of pro-special status Goans exulted in the destruction of the makeshift residences of waste-managers in Margão
in the middle of the monsoon season. Challenging the accession of some people
to basic rights today will ensure that the same rights are denied to those who
now deny to outsiders tomorrow. The problem in Goa, especially vis-à-vis land,
is that a power equation, in particular a colonial power equation, presided
over by Delhi, that allows certain kinds of Goans, Indians and foreigners
superiors powers over the common person is not being challenged. A Special
Status agenda that limits ownership of land to Goans alone, will simply not
resolve the problem that is rooted in the colonial nature of India’s
relationship with Goa (and other peripheries of the Indian Union’s neo-colonial
empire). A constitutional project however, is committed to see real equality,
not merely procedural equality, realised, and would deal with this hitherto
unchallenged power equation.
The response of
the common person therefore, ought to be located in a commitment to the
constitutional project. As suggested earlier, this constitutional project began
in Goa in 1834, and it is necessary to recall this history if we are to
simultaneously challenge the rhetoric of Indian nationalism while at the same
time supporting a project of Indian constitutionalism. Such a project would see
that there can be a concept of an India that is wedded not to national
cohesion, and the suppression of rights that it is accompanied by; nor to a
Goan nationalism, that is simultaneously based on suppressing discussion of
local problems; but is wedded to an constitutional project, Indian or otherwise.
Such a constitutional project would ensure that rights are taken seriously; as
opposed to the current Indian national practice that does not take these rights
seriously. This is an Indian nation-state
that does not respect the individual, whether it is the cases where women are denied
the ability to lodge a complaint of rape and treated like it is their fault, where
persons are routinely tortured, or people dispossessed to suit the
developmental goals of its capitalist classes. Indeed, a movement on Special
Status that is incapable of taking a nuanced position on the future of the
mining industry in Goa is one that is not taking constitutional issues
seriously.
In sum, the
event in 1961 was not wholly without redemption. It was in fact genuinely
liberative for a large segment of the Goan population, even as it trapped them
within a colonial relationship of another, and continuing, kind. The response
to this colonialism is emphatically not the current brand of demands for
Special Status, but a commitment to the constitutional project that the Indian
State promised, and any state should. It will eventually be a realisation of these
constitutional ideals that will ensure that the future of Goa is a secure one.
(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 16 Jan 2013)
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