Notes of an Itinerant Mendicant

Letters from Portugal: The Kiss...

2012-01-22T05:42:00.000-08:00

We were fairly intimate in Goa,which is why when she came to Lisbon, we spent a good amount of time together.It was in the course of these meetings; long, languid summer afternoons in thepark, that she, a regular visitor to Lisbon, felt the need to educate me in thesubtle manners of Portuguese society.

‘When you meet a fidalguia’ she informed me, ‘you don’tkiss her twice as you would do with other women. You kiss her just once’. Myeyes opened up wide, confused and perplexed. ‘But mana,’ I responded ‘how will I know if she is a fidalguia?’ She just smiled at menonplussed, ‘Don’t worry, you will!’ The conversation turned then, to this andthat and other matters.

Given the multiple, and finegradations of elite Portuguese society, the issue of what exactly is a fidalguia is still one of the mysteriesthat I am struggling to decipher. However, it should suffice us for now to knowthat a fidalguia is a lady of theupper strata. In the interim however, Ihad still not figured out how I was to locate a fidalguia from a crowd of mudbloods, and how was I to respond tosuch a lady when greeting her.

The opportunity arrived at aparty one evening when introduced to a venerable older lady who had obviouslyheard of me before our meeting. ‘Jason!’ she tinkled, wafting over to me, ‘I’veheard so much about you!’ It should have been the bouquet of aromas that waftedbefore her, and the baubles around her neck that should have given it away, butthe little wheels still did not click into place. The tinkle, the wafting andthe scented breeze the gusted before her had me primed for a double kiss in theair. It was only when I was locked into cheek-grazing embrace, when I tried todisengage after the first formal peck and move to the other cheek that Irealized I was still being firmly held on to! The nice old lady was not lettinggo of me! A few seconds later, she let go and with her right hand that held myown right palm steered me away from her. I had apparently met, greeted and embraced my first fidalguia, and as it turned out, received one more lesson in mycontinuing education in the customs and manners of the Portuguese gentry.

It turns out that it is not sodifficult to figure out which woman one kisses once, and which woman twice. Itis apparently not the baubles, or fancy perfume that one must watch out for,since as everyone laments, the ‘real’ old families in Portugal are now quiteimpoverished. What one has to be alertto in this greeting ritual is the body language of the woman that you bendforward to greet. While with most women one moves forward for the perfunctorykiss on the first cheek before moving on rapidly to the other; these ‘ladies’hold onto that single kiss a few moments longer than would be necessary in thecase of the regular double kiss. The pressure that they apply on your arm asyou bend in for the kiss also seems that much more firmer, than in the case ofthe regular touch-and-go. In the poor language of one unused to such elaborateritual, I would surmise that given that they are denied the opportunity to gofor the double-kiss, the time they take to effect the single kiss is as long asthat taken by more ‘regular’ people. The key to the ritual it appears is inbeing aware of the oh-so-subtle messages that are being communicated in thecourse of the otherwise quotidian and banal gesture.

Thus armed, onward then, to future adventures!

(A version of this post first appeared on the O Heraldo 22 Jan 2012)

The Sweeper: Hazare, brooms and the culture of corruption

2012-01-11T20:27:00.000-08:00

There was a rather shocking newsreport in The Hindu a couple of daysago. The report indicated that the sad story of the widows of Vrindavan oftendoes not end with their death. On the contrary it continues beyond, since thereare no provisions, at least in two of the Government sponsored institutions, forthe last rites of these destitute women. The result of this gap is that theircorpses are carried away by sweepers, cut into pieces, and then disposed of injute bags.

What was also shocking howeverwas the tone of the first of paragraphs of this report, that, after reportingon the fact, thought fit to mention, that “This, too, is done only after theinmates give money to the sweeper!” In making this statement, the report addedone more figure to the list of villains of the piece. There was, the familiesof these women, who abandoned or forced these women to destitute existence; theproprietors of the homes they live in; the organizations set up to care forthese women; and finally, the sweepers who dispose of the bodies. And yet,because they are the final link of this chain of shame, the sweepers appear asthe greatest villains of all. The sweepers are villainous here, since they seemto lack the basic humanity of disposing of the body without asking for what,this sentence suggests, is essentially a bribe.

The question that we need to askhowever is why is it that the sweeper is being effectively asked to bear theburden of humanity that has been shrugged off by the rest of society? Why wasno thought given to the fact that in addition to take on a responsibility thatis not a part of the services they offer as part of their contract of employment,by taking on the responsibility to discard the corpse the humanity of thesweeper is in effect compromised by the fact of their having to cut up a humancorpse like it were that of an animal? Catering to the dead is often seen as amark of respect to the dead. However, it can also be thought of as catering tothe sentiments of the living. By treating the dead as if they were still alive,we renew in the living the sense of value to life and the human body. By havingto dispose of the bodies of the widows in this manner, it is not just thewidows, but the sweepers as well who are effectively being dehumanized.

The reason these questions werenot asked by the reporter who penned the story, is perhaps because of the spacethe wielder of the broom holds in our society. The position of the sweeper isnot an open category job opportunity. It falls within the reserved category. Itis reserved often for those that are deemed untouchable, or nearly untouchable.This fact was strikingly demonstrated in the course of the protests byupper-caste participants against the Mandal Commission’s recommendations, aswell as general protests against reservation. The message they sought totransmit, was that thanks to this policy of reservations, they would be unableto gain respectable jobs as engineers and doctors, and have to take up theshameful jobs of being sweepers. The broom then, was a mark of shame, while atthe same time indicating that there exists no need for us to necessarilyrespect, or treat as humans, those who generally wield the broom.

There have been other uses of thebroom however, where there is an attempt to use the symbol of the broom as apositive element. Very often though, these uses have not detracted from thegenerally negative symbolic value of the broom. On the contrary, they rely onthe negative connotation that the broom generally holds in our society. Anexample of this was the use of the broom in a recent art installation by RajBhandare, a Goan artist, in favour of Hazare’s movement against corruption.Titled ‘Anna Logue’ the installation referenced the ‘shit’ that the country wasin, and incorporated into the work, a number of elements necessary for us toresolve the problem. One of these elements was the broom, incorporated as an ‘an appeal to one and all that we need to take it up upon us to Cleansethe System.’ In this arrangement, the broom gains importance primarily becauseit is ‘us’ respectable folk, who are taking it up. It is clear from theinstallation’s phrasing of the broom element, that the citizens do not normallytake up the broom, that the taking up of the broom is an extra-ordinarycircumstance, and it is for the general benefit of society that we must nowdebase ourselves to clean up the shit that we may have contributed to. In sum,the power of our action lies because of the negative value that is normallyassociated with the broom and the everyday, or ordinary, wielder of the broom.

The wielder of the broom then isoften not understood to be human. The place of the wielder of the broom is todo their job, and their job is not regarded as the list of duties set outwithin a contract of employment. No, their job is to serve, without question.If this servant asks for reimbursement for extra services rendered, that is tosay, demand their right, the response of the rest of the system is to sit backin shock. This demand is seen as the demand for a bribe, it is seen ascorruption.

Since the past few weeks, itappears as if the Hazare saga has come, or will eventually come to an end.However, regardless of the presence of Hazare, the unquestioning attitude as towhat comprises corruption continues. At the height of the Hazare mania thatovertook the country, asking these questions was tantamount to justifyingcorruption. Perhaps it would now be a more convenient time to interrogateourselves on what is our understanding of corruption, and if our notions ofcorruption, like those of the reporter for TheHindu, are not twined with a morality that stems from our own limitedupper-strata of society locations.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 12 Jan 2012)

Letters from Portugal: The politically-correct Portuguese

2012-01-09T01:38:00.000-08:00

You know how a number of us Goanslike to say ‘Hanv Portugues’ (I amPortuguese) right? Now get this; while there are some Portuguese who willindeed be flattered by this and cavalierly acknowledge that indeed being Goanmakes you Portuguese, or at the very least, quasi-Portuguese; there are also agood number, especially the politically correct Portuguese, who will visiblywince when they are faced with this exuberant assertion by Goans who do nothold Portuguese nationality.

This statement is uncomfortablefor the politically-correct Portuguese because it reminds them of thenow-embarrassing claims of the Salazar regime, when the Estado Novo claimedthat it did not have colonies, but only overseas territories, and all personstherein were in fact Portuguese. Those statements made Portugal aninternational pariah, out of step with a world that was marching forward into anew ‘post’ colonial order; and to make this claim of a Portuguese identity istoday seen as quaint at best.

What these Portuguese don’trealize however, is that when being embarrassed by these affirmations of analso-Luso identity (because most of these Goans are not casting away theirsub-continental identity), they facilitate a certain kind of racism. EtienneBalibar, a renowned scholar of citizenship studies, calls this form of aresponse ‘differential racism’. The kind of racism that most of us are familiarwith is a biological racism, one that assumes that genetic differences, thatmanifest as colour and facial features for example, can be the basis fordifferences among human beings. Differential racism on the other hand marksdifferences not between races, but sees cultural differences as insurmountable.

Sterling examples are provided bythe politically-correct Portuguese. They don’t want you to say that you arePortuguese. They want you to say that you are Indian. In their mind this Indianhas definite cultural features distinctly not present among the Portuguese. Forexample the Indians have a caste system, which the Portuguese categorically donot have. There is the usual orientalist imagery of how the Indians take theirreligion much more seriously than the European. Then there are the observationsof how Goan Catholicism is imbued with local syncretism. Inherent in theseassertions of difference is the assumption of Catholicism as European, and theexistence of a kind of Catholicism that is pure, unblemished by local traditions.The unspoken affirmation is that Portuguese Catholicism is of this sort. Whatis being set up through these sorts of affirmations is not only that to bePortuguese one must be exactly like them, but also that these distinctions are,at the end of the day, insurmountable. Eventually it boils down to a biologicalracism, once a brown person, always a brown person.

The tragedy is that while the Estado Novo used the rhetoric of onePortuguese identity mischievously, it did in fact, and continues to; possessinteresting possibilities to deal with racism. This rhetoric built on the longer(if restricted) history of the Portuguese Empire that recognized multiplenon-continental groups as citizens of the Empire. This made it made it possiblefor racial discrimination to be actively challenged, either then, or now. Whatcontemporary politically-correct Portuguese seem to not to realize is that itis possible for us to exorcise the baleful influence of the Estado Novo and reuse our common historyto a much more interesting end, by affirming not difference, but thecommonality of persons across borders. Engaging in this project wouldeventually be much more politically correct, than unwittingly raising walls ofradical difference.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 8 Jan 2012)

Letters from Portugal: Portuguese neo-colonialism?

2012-01-09T01:27:00.000-08:00

Some weeks ago, the UniversidadeLusofona in Lisbon, under the aegis of the Association of Scientists of theLusophone space, organized a series of conferences around the theme ‘AConstrução da Lusofonia na Era Pós-Colonial’ (Theconstruction of Lusofonia in the Post-colonial era). One of the round-table discussions, to which Iwas invited to speak, was on the theme of ‘Lusofonia in Goa: Today, and in thefuture’.

At this roundtable I argued that Goa,entirely for internal reasons of socio-political equity, ought to become a moreLusophone (that is Portuguese speaking) space. However, prior to this, it wasimportant that we decenter metropolitan Portugal from this Lusophone project, orelse this project could turn out to have very serious neo-colonialimplications. The argument pointed out that we ought not to forget thatLusofonia existed in the context of the prior establishment of both theCommonwealth and Francophonie. Both of these two concepts and institutionsattempted to be post-colonial associations of a former empire, and yet both ofthese projects contained a tendency to continue the hegemony of themetropolitan center of these two empires. As long as we could decentermetropolitan Portugal and not associate Portuguese exclusively with Portugal,and create a forum for equal interaction among the pluri-statal members of thislinguistic group, Lusofonia was a great idea.

The shit hit the fan subsequentto the presentation of this argument. One of the panelists abandoned his ownnotes to passionately respond to my suggestions, arguing that Portugal did nothave the power, nor the will, to be a neo-colonial power. ‘Look at us now’ heargued, pointing to the financial mess that the country was in. Another memberof the audience affirmed emphatically that in fact the neo-colonialimplications of Lusofonia simply did not exist, since the concept had beenactively discussed, and it was agreed that the language was not the marker ofimperial ambitions, but merely a symbol that seemed to connect the formerempire together.

The force of these argumentsshould not have surprised, since there is a strong tendency among some metropolitanPortuguese, even academics, to reject their complicity in anything colonial orneo-colonial. This affirmation ispossible since they make the simplistic assumption that their opposition to theEstado Novo and its rhetoric make them eminently post-colonial. What theseindividuals forget however, is that because of Portugal’s unique position inthe global hierarchy, its forms of possible neo-colonialism will be differentfrom that of other stronger European countries. Thus there is no pointindicating that Portugal has no economic or military capacity or desire toengage in colonial takeovers today. This fact is painfully obvious. What isoffensively colonial however is the contemporary equivalence that theseparticular Portuguese seek with other former colonial powers. This attempt atequivalence translates into the imitation of the Commonwealth and Francophonie,in their rejection of post-colonial actions because ‘the British are not askedto do this’, or in the equally horrific suggestions of their current interestonly in business (economic diplomacy) and not cultural relations.

Colonialism is not only in thepast, it exists in the contemporary when we attempt to create structures ofinequality, rather than equality. The facile rejection of the existence ofthese possibilities leads us up the road of possible neo-colonialism.

(A version of this post first appeared in the O Heraldo 25 Dec 2011)

Letters from Portugal: The Governor-General and I

2012-01-09T01:16:00.000-08:00

How does one respond in asituation when faced with the statement, ‘Ah, you are from Goa? My grandfatherused to be the Governor of Goa.’ The responses it turns out, can be varied,depending on the situation one encounters this phrase in.

The first of such scenarios waswhen ensconced in the home of a friend, who had spent the day creatingscenarios within his plush home for a commercial. As we reviewed each of these sets,our eyes fell upon an oriental looking bird-cage. ‘This cage,’ the friendannounced ‘was made in Goa.’ I looked incredulously at the object. A woodenbird cage built to look Indo-Saracenic, there was no way it could have beenmade in Goa. ‘But it is’ he insisted ‘it was a baptismal gift to mygrandmother, who was, along with her father and family, in Goa at the time.’‘In Goa?’ I asked all excited; ‘what washer father doing there.’ ‘He was the Governor-General’. This to my mind did notsettle the provenance of the bird-cage, but that bit of our conversation endedthere.

A second such situation occurred atthe birthday party of a colleague’s daughter. At some point in the afternoon Iwas introduced to the child’s grandmother, who flashed me a most wonderfullywarm smile and indicated that she had always wanted to visit Goa, but had asyet not managed to do so. For good measure she also indicated to me, with thesame level of warmth, that she also had a cousin, General Craveiro Lopes, whohad been the Governor of Goa.

Perhaps in both circumstances theconversation stopped short on the Governor thread, but continued on others,since I did not know my Goan history well enough to be able to have anintelligent and cultivated conversation on the Governor in question. This lackof history was however filled in rather interestingly when reading some of theworks of Ravindra Kelekar. In this one particular essay Kelekar wrote; “Peoplein Goa knew this man (Francisco Higino Craveiro Lopes) very well, as his fatherGeneral Craveiro Lopes was the Governor of Goa. He would often create a ruckusin Panaji in those days and many people have been involved in altercations withthis 'white-skinned ruffian'. Rajabab Hedo threw him down on the road during afight. His father got so fed up of his ways that he sent him off to Daman asGovernor. This man was now Head of State.”

Had I known this little tidbit ofinformation, perhaps the conversation with this good lady at the birthday partywould have been somewhat more animated than it had. The fate of thatconversation is not the point however (it concluded sweetly enough) but theresponse when informed that the persons’ relative was once Governor of Goa.While I personally find it hard to bristle with nationalist indignation, thefact that I flounder for words would indicate a somewhat nationalist conundrumlurking deep within. The fact perhaps isthat there is no need for this nationalist drama. As is often the case whenGoa-Portuguese stories are narrated, the sentiment involved when indicatingthat one’s relative from the past was Governor, is one of deep, almostfamilial, bonding. The attempt is tocull out a personal memory to share with you, and to draw you into that memory,to make you family. In any case, all toooften, as the story of Higino Craveiro Lopes, and the even more famous story ofBruto da Costa’s famous fisticuffs with the Governor illustrate, relations werealso fairly unconventional. It would not hurt though, if the average Goan knewa little more about our own history and did not have to flounder for words oremotions.

(A version of this post first appeared in the O Heraldo dated 11 Dec 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Traffic Rules in Lisbon

2012-01-09T00:17:00.000-08:00

In ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’, one ofthose colour-rich and visually stunning films that Hollywood keeps churning outabout the south, Frances, the American protagonist of the film, fazed by theseeming absence of any traffic rules inItaly, asks her Italian lover Marcello ‘Do traffic lights mean anything aroundhere?’ ‘Yeah, sure.’ Marcello answers cavalierly; ‘Green Light - avanti!avanti!, yellow light - decoration.’ ‘And what about red light?’ asks Frances,given that Marcello has just cut one. ‘Just a suggestion’ Marcello shrugs.

The scene is based on one ofthose myths that govern our understanding of the world. The myth suggests to us that real developmentinvolves our serious commitment to certain rules. A system of traffic lights is one of thosesystems of rules. Thus we are told about the glories of Germany, where you canblindly cross the road the moment the light has turned green for a pedestrian,and if there is a zebra crossing, you don’t really need to look left or right,you just plunge in, and the traffic will just come screeching to a stop. InGermany, and in other parts of the developed North, it is, among other things,simply great to be a pedestrian.

In the south on the other hand,this woefully indisciplined part of the world, traffic rules are apparentlyseemingly absent. Might is right, and the person with the larger vehicle, withgreater presence of mind wins, the pedestrian be damned. In any case in most of the world trafficlights directed toward the pedestrian are something that exists only in storybooks about the fabled cities of the North.

In Portugal’s capital, traffic isostensibly supposed to operate according to ‘European values’; that is to sayaccording to the rules one generally recognizes as proper. The situation on theground however is not quite ‘European’ as one would expect. Personal experiencehas indicated that one does not cross the road even after the lamp has turnedgreen for the pedestrian. One waits a couple of seconds longer until one issure that there is a line of traffic atthe pedestrian crossing holding the rest of the traffic back. To attempt otherwiseis to risk being mowed down by those vehicles that were going ‘avanti, avanti’trying to catch the last of the yellow light. Then there are those championswho steer their chariots at a standard 60 km/h, around bends even, while theyare intensely discuss the latest business deals or share the latest gossip on oneof their many cell-phones.

The Portuguese often callthemselves a people of gentle manner (um povo dos brandos costumes), and indeedone could get away with thinking this of the Portuguese in the course of dailyinteraction. Like in other parts of the world however, the universe of the roadunleashes a different sort of a beast within the Portuguese. In this universe,the vehicle with the largest power is the beast of the jungle. If you aren’tmoving fast enough they will viciously overtake you and thus swear at you asthey drive past. Fortunately, given that this exchange takes place between twohermetically sealed capsules travelling at incredible speeds, unless onedevelops a skill at lip-reading, one does not know just what expletive theyhave thrown your way. Discussing thisstrange transformation with a bunch of other expatriates, the conclusion wecame to was that perhaps given the anonymity that speed provides, the road wasthe one place where the normally protocol and relationship bound Portugueseperson could throw off the burdens of tradition and simply vent otherwise pentup frustrations.

The flip side of this entire‘failing’ however, is that you can also play rules by the same game. Thus, youdon’t have to fear a German-style grandmother, scolding you when you skipacross the road, instead of waiting for the pedestrian lamp to turn green. Youjust shrug, think ‘avanti avanti’ and skip across the road! Viva a differencia!

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 27 Nov 2011)

Debating the Goa Lit Fest: Size and the architecture of happiness

2012-01-03T18:34:00.000-08:00

Some days ago, starting with the voice of one Mr. Avinash Pednekar, there was a string of complaints in the Navhind Times over the organization of the II Goa Arts and Literary Festival.These complaints suggested that the Festival had been a failure because thesessions had been poorly attended, because sessions failed to start on time,because many of the big names who had promised to come simply failed to showup, and finally, these complaints alleged that the principal organizers of theFestival, Ms. Sahai of the International Centre and Mr. Vivek Menezes, wereboth arrogant and rude. This column will suggest that such opinions while beingvalid opinions of the complainants are merely one way in which the factsexperienced by these complainants can be understood, and set forward anotherperspective on these same facts.

The first complaint was over thatof size, this complaint emerging because the Goa Art & Lit Fest wascompared to the huge crowds that throng the Jaipur Lit Fest. This comparisonmay have been effected not only because of the similarity in the names andconcepts of the festivals, but also because the organizers of the Goa Lit Fest,perhaps expecting Jaipur Lit Fest like audiences, had erected a huge marqueethat dwarfed the audience that did assemble for events held in that space. Thequestion that we need to ask however, and this question is being posed to theorganizers of the Lit Fest as well, is whether the Jaipur Lit Fest mustnecessarily be a positive reference point for the Goa Lit Fest. The Jaipur LitFest, that is said to have begun in 2006 as a ‘civil society’ initiative has inaddition to allowing space for audiences to encounter authors, today grown intoa media-house and corporate extravaganza that raises hordes of ethical issuesand attracted trenchant criticism. Complaints abound of how the size of theevent has prevented intimate encounters between author and reader, or indeedamong readers, and how a literary event has descended into just anothercarnival.

Given that Goa is often presentedas the location of carnival, we should not be surprised if the carnival becomesthe goal of our cultural events. Yet, there is more that Goa is capable ofproducing. One of Goa’s most eminentofferings is that of scale; it offers an option for the small and intimate.Perhaps nowhere was this benefit of scale demonstrated as in the film festivalsthat used to be organized by the Moving Images Film Club in the International Centre Goa and the Kala Academy. Almost every screening would be followed bythe most stimulating of discussions, made possible essentially because of theintimate nature of the gatherings; a fact commented upon by one of the nationalorganizers of the Tricontinental Film Festival, highlighting this occurrence assomething unique to Goa. When held in the more confined spaces of theInternational Centre’s permanent halls, the sessions of the II Goa Lit Festshared in this magic of intimate and sparkling conversations. Indeed, it wasprecisely because the event turned out to be so small, that new bonds wereforged between authors, and between authors and those who did attend, somethingthat is not often possible in larger events, when much is lost in the crowd.Indeed, one of the more prominent authors who participated in the Goa Lit Festindicated that it was precisely the scale of the event that encouraged them toprivilege Goa over Jaipur. It was when events took place in the big marqueethat one was left with a sense of a small audience marooned in a sea of emptychairs, unable to communicate with the discussants thanks to the technicalfailings often associated with sound systems, and the distance between audienceand the discussants on the stage. It was these effects of the scale of thismarquee that also stripped these gatherings of any sense of intimacy, andperhaps left persons with the feeling that the event was under-attended, and lackingin intellectual stimulation.

If there is a lesson that theorganizers of the Lit Fest must take seriously, then it is one of architecture.Lose the stage, and engineer more intimate settings for the sessions; sessionsthat allow the chemistry between the discussants to be communicated to theaudience, for the audience to get a sense of proximity to the discussants beinghighlighted at the sessions, and safeguard the participative tone of the eventthus far. Not only does size matter, but how you use it makes all thedifference.

When dealing with the charge ofthe arrogance of the organizers one needs to invoke a different understandingof architecture. A personal evaluation of Goan ‘civil society’ suggests that itis in fact largely lacking (as is perhaps the case with civil societies acrossIndia) the institutional density that one theoretically associates with avibrant civil society. What one has in place are restricted personal andfamilial networks that even when allowing for the organization of interestingevents, carry with them the self-limiting nature of these networks. Thus oncethe personality involved with the event disappears, thanks to the lack of aninstitutional investment that can provide continuity, the event disappears aswell. In such circumstances, the processof initiating, and carrying forward an event is often the result of the dreamand exertions of one individual. In such a context then, there is often nodifference between an attack on the individual and an attack on the eventitself, the two being synonymous. In the context where the social structureactively prevents the creation of a civil society, and privileges thedevelopment of personality cults and the reinforcing of the power of closedsocial groups, even if this dreaming individual seeks otherwise, they are oftenbereft of the opportunities to create a more inclusive organizationalstructure, and unable to create distance between themselves and the event. Removingone is akin to destroying the other. It is in this context that we shouldperhaps see the alleged arrogance of the organizers of the Goa Lit Fest. Thisarrogance should be seen not necessarily as personal attributes, but as stemmingfrom a larger flaw in our social architecture that actively prevents thewell-meaning from transcending the limitations that social structure imposes onus. As this column has often argued, the individual is not always theindependent and conscious entity that we are encouraged to imagine, but asoften merely an unconscious tool of larger social processes.

In light of this argument,perhaps the organizers of the Lit Fest, whom we have to thank for theirexertions in initiating the Lit Fest, regardless of the shortcomings and ourcritiques of its organization, could actively think of expanding theinstitutional framework within which the Lit Fest is held. Such an expansionwould allow the Lit Fest to be the investment not only of the individuals whoconceptualized this event for Goa and realized it for two years running, but ofa wider civil society that would invest making the event a recurring and moregenuinely participative one.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 4 Jan 2012)

The Portuguese language and the future of Goan Liberation

2011-12-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

A popular rhetorical cliché used on the anniversaries ofIndian independence, inquires if indeed, we Indians are really free. Thiscliché urges us to consider independence not as a single moment in time, but asa process towards realizing a utopian society free of all social evils andproblems. It would not be out of place therefore, to ask a similar question ofGoan liberation, and stress that liberation cannot mean a single moment intime, but must necessarily be seen as a process, of our deepening commitment tothe democratic project.

The introduction of Indian democracy to Goa has been aninteresting process. Unfortunately however, it has also meant the abandonment,or erasure of the Portuguese language in Goa. It should be stressed however,that the learning of Portuguese by the contemporary Goan, is not unconnectedwith the larger project of greater democratization of Goan society. On the contrary,the fulfillment of the democratic project is critically tied to more Goanslearning and using the Portuguese language.

This stress on the Portuguese language is not to give thislanguage a rightful place in Goan history, nor to legitimize the traits ofthose Goans who have a marked ‘Portuguese’ aspect in their lifestyle. Such anargument borders on recognizing Portuguese for its value as Portuguese, and doesnot hold much value from a cultural-nationalist point of view. An argument thatwould (and should) hold value from a nationalist position, is one that is tiedto the manner in which Portuguese is linked to the arrangement of power incontemporary Goan society.

To wholly understand the significance of this argument, it isessential that we underline a well-rehearsed argument; colonialism in any partof the world, and this holds true for Goa as well, was not merely the result ofunilateral foreign domination. On the contrary, colonialism persisted thanks tothe participation of local elites in the colonial project. Thus, as English ensured access to power inthe colonial British-Indian administration, and education in English models ofeducation ensured participation in the power forms of the British Empire, sotoo in Goa, the adoption of Portuguese was critical to gaining power not merelyin the administrative and political sphere, but also in the social. Rightingthis balance of power is critical to the democratic project.

In colonial times the Portuguese language was so intimatelyassociated with elite groups, both Hindu as well as Catholic, that theknowledge of Portuguese was, and continues to be, effectively a caste marker ofthe dominant groups in Goan society. Thus for example, at least among Catholiccircles, despite the predominance that English has come to take as a marker ofsocial mobility and status, to come from a ‘Portuguese speaking background’,continues to indicate one’s (longer) privileged location within the hierarchiesof Goan Catholic society. Furthermore,it is not uncommon to have it pointed out, that Portuguese was not a lingua franca within Goa but one largelyused by the elites. In making this seemingly innocent factual assertionhowever, one is simultaneously also subtly marking the boundaries of Portugueseheritage within Goan society. Thus for example, as a result of this logic, itis overwhelmingly the lifestyles and material culture of the landed elite thathave been focused on as representations of Indo-Portuguese architecture, whilethose of the more humble are largely ignored. These demarcations ensure aprivileged focus on the lifestyles and material culture of just this smallelite segment of Goan Catholic society, casting the rest into a kind ofcultural barbarity. Take for example the manner in which the vibrant Tiatr tradition, primarily because itwas not, and continues to not be, the entertainment of the Goan elites, isconstantly shrugged off as ‘lacking standard’ despite the fact of its stellarrole as a medium of social analysis and entertainment. To encourage a broaderlearning of Portuguese would effectively challenge this link between socialstatus and the language. If more Goans become ‘Portuguese speaking’, it wouldmake nonsense of the ‘Portuguese speaking background’ marker that we currentlyuse, effectively frustrating, albeit partially, the manner in which socialdifference is articulated today.

More critically, and moving beyond the possibly restrictedframes of the Goan Catholic, knowledge of Portuguese was critical to themaintenance of control over the State administration as well as Statedocumentation of land rights. Not a few family, and caste group, fortunes weremade by virtue of this restricted access to the language in colonial Goa. Eventhough English has now replaced Portuguese as a State language; as thecontinuous stream of persons perusing land records in the State archives inPanjim would indicate, Portuguese continues to be critical to being able toassert, and mask, claims to land. Today, when subaltern groups in contemporaryGoa face even an greater threat of access to land rights, it would be a strategic error to allow control of the interpretationof Portuguese language documents and laws, to be based in the hands of just thefew, largely ‘upper’ caste, groups that have resumed learning the Portugueselanguage.

The popular history of the Portuguese period in Goa haslargely been restricted to the gory tales of the initial conquest of the islandof Goa, of the Inquisition, and the dramatization of the anti-colonial episodesin the territory’s history. To a large extent, this nationalist historydissuades Hindus from subaltern castes from studying the language. This has ensuredthat it is solely dominant-caste narratives that are incorporated into thehistories of the territory, preventing alternative and liberatory narratives toemerge from a re-reading of the texts and narratives of the period ofPortuguese sovereignty over the territory. It is little known for example, that theknowledge of Portuguese is critical to the bahujanchallenge to Hindu upper-caste groups’ monopolistic control of the Goan temples.This monopolistic control of the temples was forged in particular through theselatter groups’ knowledge of Portuguese.

Finally, is the argument that rests on the recognition that theemergence of equality is facilitated when there is parity in representationalpower. While a number of Portuguese scholars work on Goan history and society,it is extremely difficult to find Goan scholars who work on explainingPortuguese society, and its history unrelated to Goa. When we are able toeffectively build up this band of scholars, who can represent the workings ofthe Portuguese to Goa, India, and the world; and engage in Portugal’s press andacademy, with their representations of Goa; then we would lay the definitive foundationsfor greater equality between the two spaces. To do this however, requires thatthe Goan learn Portuguese.

For these reasons therefore, the learning of Portuguese bythe contemporary Goan, is an essential component of our democratic project thatthe action of the Indian Union in December 1961 sought to forward.

(Published in the commemorative section of the O Heraldo 19 Dec 2011)

Naraka Shoora: Turning Traditions on their head

2011-11-23T01:26:00.001-08:00

Some weeks ago, sometime around the eve of Diwali, a friend of mineposed a question that would have made proud the masters who crafted the Agamasand Dharmashastras. ‘At what time is it’, he asked, ‘that the Narakasura, whomwe consign to flames on the eve of Diwali, becomes a Narakasura? Is it when thehead-mask is put on? Or when the lights are put on? Or is it when the musicstarts? Or the moment the frame is made? Is there a specific moment?’Continuing in this Agamic tradition, a friend of his opined that the realmoment should actually start, when the effigy of the Narkasur is burnt down andthe Diwali lamps are lit up. At the same time however, this respondent lamentedthat nowadays, we concentrate more upon creating Narkasur (the symbol of evil)than that quintessential mark of the Goan Diwali, the Akashdivo.

Kancha Ilaiah

Whenlamenting this inversion of the ‘traditional’ rules of the Diwali celebrationshowever, this contemporary Agamist may have grabbed the wrong end of the stick.Take the example of the public Ganesh festival, which has come a long way fromthe time of its invention by Lokmanya Tilak, and is today marked by loudfilm-music and often by drunken young men dancing to these popular tracks.While the poor Lokmanya must be turning in his grave, the contemporaryintellectual Kancha Ilaiah has suggested that these trends, rather than beinglamented should be seen as the Dalitisation of the Ganesh festival. Ilaiah’sargument would be that while Tilak’s public festival was intended toconsolidate the population along nationalist, brahmanical, and thus elitistlines, the trend otherwise so lamented, should be seen as a populist correctionof this trend.

In other parts of the country,the Dalitisation, or de-brahmanisation, of popular Hindu festivals hasproceeded apace along rather different patterns. This trend has been led by Dalit studentorganisations who have argued that the myths surrounding Hindu gods and goddessand their festivals are in fact symbolic representations of the history of'upper' castes’ domination over the indigenous population of the country – SC,ST and OBCs. To correct this history,they therefore re-interpret these events from a Bahujan perspective. Thus forexample, the members of the All IndiaBackward Students Forum (AIBSF) in the JNU campus in Delhi suggestedthat Dussehra was in fact a celebration of the killing of the Sudra kingMahishasa by the upper-caste woman Durga. Similarly on the campus of the Osmania University, on the eve of Diwali,some students cast Naraka Chathurdashi as “Narakasura Vardhanti,” the deathanniversary of Naraka. They reinterpreted the event as commemoration of thekilling of the Dalit hero Naraka by the brahmanical figure Krishna, who killed Narakato suppress the revolt by Dalits against upper castes. Arguing that the Asura was appended to a nameto demonise the character, Narakasura was now called “Naraka Shura”. In thisreworking of the name, Naraka remains the name of entity, while the Asura is castaway to make Naraka a Shur-Vir, orbrave warrior.

The event at the JNU campus notsurprisingly, did not go down well. Upper-caste students taking offense to thisinversion and demonization of brahmanical deities assaulted the students of theAIBSF. This sort of confrontational violence has not been universal however,and the modern history of Kerala and the Onam festival is perhaps aninteresting example.

Mahabali returns to Kerala

Most people today, both withinKerala and without, see the festival of Onam as the moment when the mythicalking Mahabali returns to his former realm, thanks to a final boon by theVishnu’s Vaman avatar, to check on the well-being of his subjects. It is towelcome him and reassure him that all continues to be well, that Onam iscelebrated with pomp and style. Writing on the historical evolution of thisfestival however, J. Devika argues that ‘Onam used to be, in many parts ofKerala, … more a celebration of Vishnu, rather than Maveli — Mahabali — anddomestic rituals associated with Onam celebrated not Mahabali but Vamanamurty.’She points out that a different interpretation of Onam was forged ‘in thedecades in which the movement for uniting Malayalam-speaking regions intoKerala gathered force, one in which the left was certainly a hegemonicpresence. Brahmanical mythology according to which Kerala was founded byParasurama the warrior sage was insistently attacked by left-leaning andanti-caste intellectuals …who launched a scathing attack against the setting upof a depiction of Parasurama outside the venue of the Aikya Kerala Conferencein the 1940s.’ As in the case of Goa, Puranic legends cast Parashurama as themythical creator of Kerala, and clearly, the Aikya Kerala movement, set up toconsolidate the Kerala state was seeking to draw on this origin myth to createa popular history for the nascent Keralasub-nation. As a result of this attack, Onam was converted from a festivalfocused on the Vaman avatar, to a celebration of the benevolent asura kingMahabali, an idea that was spread in school text books, and through them intopopular imagination.

Mahatma Jotiba Phule

This overturning of the Mahabali-Vaman avatar relationship however, has a much longer tradition than that involvedin the consolidation of Malayalam speaking territories into the State ofKerala. This tradition can be said to date back to the efforts of the 19^thcentury philosopher and social reformer MahatmaJotiba Phule. In a recent book, The World of Ideas in Modern Marathi: Phule,Vinoba, Savarkar, G. P. Deshpande points out that Phule contrastedBaliraja, the shudratishudra king, with Vamana, the brahmanical avatara, tomake a point about the nature of power relations between caste groups in the sub-continent. Deshpande argues that the extent to whichPhule returned to this myth in his work would allow us to see Phule as possiblyconstructing all recorded history as the history of the Vamana-Balirajastruggle. Not surprisingly, Phule is an important figure in the politicalpantheon of Dalit political groups.

The exploring of the socialrelations and social history encoded within the myths that form the basis ofHindu festivals may not be as simple a task as a merely intellectual discussionhowever. The attempt of the AIBSF on the JNU campus ended up with upper-castestudents assaulting the members of the AIBSF. Given the sensitivity with whichwe in India take our religious figures, one can see that suggesting that it isnot the Asura, but the Vishnu avatar who is the bad guy, may fall nothing shortof asking for the cataclysmic to break down on us. The Dalit activist on theother hand, would argue that the un-deifying of the Vishnu avatar is central toundoing the brahmanical violence, perpetuated on Dalit communities on a dailybasis, and in allowing Dalit communities to construct a history that explainsthe conditions that they find themselves in.

The options are admittedly noteasy, and we don’t have to necessarily take a call now. We need to merelyrecognize that this social process is on, and watch for what happens. TheAgamas were/are scriptures that lay out the ritual guidelines for theappropriate construction of an image that will subsequently be infused with thespirit of the deity. Given the attempts that are on to re-evaluate popularmyths and interrogate belief-systems, it appears that the almost Agamicquestions that were referred at the start of this column, are not entirely outof place?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 25 Nov 2011)

The Tejpal Factor: Trigger finger of the colonial gun

2011-11-16T03:41:00.001-08:00

You already know that therecently concluded Thinkfest, organized by Tehelka, was partly in the news for the wrong reasons. In addition to being hosted by alleged violators of thecoastal zone regulations, and being backed by mining interests, serious chargeshad also been brought against the editor of Tehelka, Mr. Tarun Tejpal. One ofthese charges was brought by an anti-mining activist, Mr. Hartmann de Souza,who alleged that Tejpal had deliberately silenced a critical story on the illegalities involved in Goa’s mining industry. Subsequently, Tejpal got intotrouble for making a suggestion that when people come to Goa, in this caseguests at the Thinkfest, high on their priority was engaging in sexual andother sensorial excesses.

Tejpal responded to Mr. de Souzain a profoundly insulting riposte in the Hindustan Times, attempting to denythe charges of silencing the mining story; and denied the charges regarding hisstatement at the Thinkfest. In his rebuttal, de Souza piled one fact uponanother to demonstrate the hollowness of Tejpal’s defence. One came away fromreading de Souza’s response to acknowledge that there was indeed somethingsticky about Tejpal, Goa and the mining issue. What this systematic destructionof Tejpal’s fig leaf left untouched however, was the colonial thinking thatTejpal had demonstrated in his response to de Souza, and which seems to havemanifested itself in his alleged statement at the Thinkfest.

Tejpal’s response to de Souzacommenced with the title ‘Albert Pintoko gussa kyon aata hai’ (What makes Albert Pinto angry?). For those not inthe know, the title refers to the 1981 film by Saeed Mirza featuring thesocio-political dilemmas that face a young working-class Catholic man in midstof the socio-economic turmoil of Bombay in the 1970’s and 1980s. Interestingly,while the film itself offers a critical and sympathetic look at a subalternsocial group that in addition to being a religious minority was furthermarginalized economically and politically, Tejpal’s title does the opposite. Ifthere is a link to Bollywood in Tejpal’s title, then it is to the ‘AnthonyGonsalvez’ from the film ‘Amar, Akbar, Anthony’ (AAA). If Mirza’s film paints arealistic likeness of a community, AAA paints the Indian west-coast Catholicinto a caricature. This caricature is not unfamiliar to us, Bollywood repeatedly casts, dismissively, the Goan-East-Indian communities as jolly (read alcohol-charged) fellows, ready for thesinging and dancing. One cannot really expect them to mount a serious argument,and they are at best given to spontaneous bursts of emotion; like childrenreally. This reading of Tejpal’s title is borne out by the manner in whichhe structures his response, where he rebuts every allegation, only by mockingde Souza’s alleged inability to follow an argument, or his alleged collapse intohysterical anger. The underlying message of Tejpal’s response is unmistakable;you can’t take this de Souza fellow seriously, discussing with him being an experience akin to arguing with achild (or a drunk). This was a colonial tactic too. The white-man assumed acolonial burden of educating the childlike noble savages into civilization, andthe techniques of democratic governance.

Tejpal then takes up anothertechnique used by the white man in his colonial drive. One of thejustifications for colonialism was the inability of the colonized native toeffectively harness the resources of the locations they lived in. The colonizerwas effectively doing them a favour by effectively exploiting the localresources for development. Tejpal informs us in his response to Mr. de Souzathat “the house we bought was an old ruin in an inner village”. In his rejoinderto this riposte, de Souza informs us that there were also words like “I mean,look at Moira man, it’s a dying Goan village”. Tejpal would perhaps prefer ifwe did not rely on de Souza’s version of the conversation between the two ofthem, but it does not change the way in which we read Tejpal and his statement.The point of Tejpal’s argument is clear, he is doing Goa and Goans a favour bybuying an ‘old ruin’ that Goans themselves (shame on them) do not value, and heis going to breathe life into it. Could the colonial logics be any clearer? Thecolonial master values (the delicate Goan architecture) what the local savage(the Goan so blindly destroying his own culture) does not.

This logic of saving has been apart of the rhetoric of a good number of those who come into Goa buying Goanproperty, and oftentime home-bred Goans themselves. To make this argument is to fail to see the complex mix of reasons, the socio-economic and political reasons,why Goan homes are being pulled down. To blame the Goan is all too easy, butthen this easy response is part of the colonial technique of simplifyingmatters so that the more complex argument brought on by the colonized seem likemisplaced anger, and blind stupidity. We should not forget the histories of other colonized places, where impoverished persons of the local communities (be they the First Nations of America, or the adivasis of Central India, the aborigines of Australia) were first impoverished, and then made to sell to the colonizer what they would not have contemplated selling before. This process of impoverishment, and forced selling of livelihood and history, is not uncommon even today in large parts of India, not least in Central India.

Tejpal does not see himself aspart of a colonial machinery. After all how could he, given that he seeshimself as the good guy fighting against the evil forces of corporate greed.But perhaps Tejpal has not followed his own logic carefully. In his response heindicated that he pleaded with de Souza to make space for ‘complexity, in anintricately intertwined world.’ If we acknowledge this intricate intertwiningthat Tejpal suggests, then we must also acknowledge that while we fight thegood fight elsewhere, we are also implicated in the evil conquests elsewhere.

The problem with the left-leaningIndian liberal is that they do not realize that they are as Indian as theIndians they fight on other fronts. Despite their battles, they share manytraits of an Indian-ness, and they too are engaged in an Indian nationalproject, though they differ on the tiny details of this project’s agenda. Andso it is, when de Souza protests against the kind of colonial enterprise thatTejpal is associating with in the Goan context, Tejpals suggests that ‘Isuspect, for him if it isn’t Goa it doesn’t count.’ What is this if not thekind of charge of anti-nationalism that gets leveled against all those whoprotest against the excesses of the Indian Union’s colonial project, whether itis in the mountains of Kashmir, the jungles of Jharkhand, or the banks of theBrahmaputra? Tejpal leveled this charge against de Souza three times, ignoringthe personal history of a man, committed to another kind of Indian-ness.

The Indian left-liberal may opposeHindu fundamentalism, but this is largely because they don’t like this‘return-to-the-Vedas’ kind of Brahmanism that the RSS pushes. On other fronts,they will push their own particular brand of Brahmanism, a form that PanditNehru was particularly fond of. One could call this, ‘playing the white man’.On the one hand Kashmir is important because it stresses our Aryan roots, onthe other hand Goa is important because as long as they continue to keep upthis ‘piece-of-Europe-in-India’ story, they can continue to pretend they arewhite people. Let us not forget the alacrity with which the former play-spacesof the white masters were taken over by the post-colonial Indian babu; fromLutyen’s Delhi, to the Himalayan and other hill-stations, Pondicherrry, andGoa.

In light of the colonially loadedsub-text of Tejpal’s response to de Souza, one should not be surprised if Tejpaldid indeed make those vile remarks in the course of the Think Fest. But wewould do ourselves an injustice if we restricted our gaze to Tejpal alone. Thelarger issue is that there are so many Tejpal’s out there, busy pushing acontemporary colonial agenda. These Tejpals exist both within the ranks of the 'insider' as they do within the 'outsider'. The issue is, what do we do about them?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 16 Nov 2011)

Letters from Portugal: No dia 24, não vou trabalhar

2011-11-16T03:17:00.001-08:00

Reports tell us that the protestin Lisbon on 15 October, as part of the Global Day of Protest was one of thelargest demonstrations in the world on that day. This is in fact quitesurprising for a country that, since the upheaval around the 25 of April 1974,has not been marked by grand demonstrations. But then today the Portuguese have much to be afraid for; theconsumerist paradise that was constructed in the years following their entryinto the European Union seems to be falling apart with every passing day. Not aday passes when we are not informed that there are to be more cuts on socialspending, that taxes have increased, and the Christmas bonus that is normallyhanded out will be culled.

Eavesdropping on a conversation brought home therealization, that in a country marked by low salaries, the Christmas bonus,which amounts to the salary of a whole extra month, is very often the key tobalancing basic household expenditures. Minus this bonus a good many homes willfall into very serious economic crises. Add to this, the general privatizationof the economy and the sale of public assets. But, as if to add insult toinjury are the suggestions that emanate from the Prime Ministerial Office thatin the city of Lisbon, there are plans to curtail the hours of the metro systemso that it stops even before midnight. This suggestion was responded to by onePortuguese person, as sending the message to the people that the role that theState had decided to play, was to only to ensure that the population could getto work. Beyond this limited objective, where the citizens are now seen as theroute through which the State will pay off a debt, the State under the newleadership seems committed to abdicating its responsibilities.

It is for these reasons that thePortuguese landed up, from the leftist radicals, members of Catholic religiousorders, and members of the comfortably placed Portuguese middle-class, to maketheir displeasure obvious. It was a heady experience, this sense of revolution;this boy getting up on one of the stone lions that sits guard before theAssembleia da República andburning a newspaper carrying the statement of the Prime Minister, the stand-offbetween the police and the people, and the general assembly of the people thatfollowed. This general assembly saw divergent groups make their position, fromthe black boy who pointed out that it wasn’t, or it could not be just a ‘white’thing, but the rights of the blacks in Portugal needed to be counted as well; tothe person who pointed out that underneath the uniform they wore, thepolice-persons were their brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts. They may standas a force between us and the Assembleia, but they would suffer the say cuts asthose on the other side of that line. And then there were those leftistradicals (one has to love them for the sense of symbolic drama they bring toany demonstration), who urged an occupation of the Assembleia.

In the course of this publicassembly emerged a voice demanding a ‘Greve Geral’, a general strike of thepopulation of Portugal, attempting a complete paralysis of the system,indicating how widely unpopular the budgetary cuts and other fiscalinterventions were. This move was, as is to be expected, widely popular at the publicassembly, and has been growing in strength, with various unions pledging theirsupport to this general strike, and public discourse and discussion around the benefits of the strike growing. How effective this strike, scheduled for the 24day of this month, will be in paralyzing the country, and in forcing some sortof rethink of the position this country finds itself in, remains to be seen.

It was under these circumstancesthat a little Facebook movement, called ‘Trabalhar’, popped up. The strap-lineto this title read ‘No dia 24, eu vou trabalhar’ (on the 24^th I willgo to work). This ‘movement’ suggests that “Portugal is in an emergency, asituation brought about by the previous government. A general strike would workonly to further harm the economy and send a negative signal to the outside world.On the 24 November, I will go to work, just as I do on other days”.

What is amusing about this little‘movement’ is that like the comment on the decision to curtail the workinghours of the Lisbon Metro, it has latched onto work. It seems to suggest thatall that is at issue here, is about getting to work, as if hard work is lackingin the country, and it is hard work that will resolve the issues of thiscountry. Nothing could be further from the truth. If there is a truth aboutPortugal’s current crisis, it is that as was famously pointed out by Alessio Rastani in that famous interview with the BBC, it is notgovernments that rule the world, but rogue financial institutions that rule theworld through their speculative actions. To make the strike on the 24^thabout working or not working then, is to deliberately obfuscate a significantpoint.

A good look at Portugal wouldcure us of the fantasy that the trivializing of larger issues to petty partypolitics is the unique curse of our country. Here a situation, where thegovernance is effectively in foreign hands, is being further compromised, notthrough a strike that could call for a general reckoning, but by making theissue of party politics, and viewing the whole situation from the narrowperspective of the country’s financially secure groups. Furthermore, what thegeneral strike would prove is also that life is not about work alone. On thecontrary, we work, only because we want to live. It is a shame that we arebeing made to apologize when we assert this right to not live by bread alone.

(A version of this post was first published in O Heraldo 13 Nov 2011)

Newspapers and democracy: On stings, advertorials and ethics

2011-11-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

Despite all the good that theybring, in terms of revelations of the dirty underbelly of our society,governmental operation or otherwise, there is always this nagging feeling thatall is not quite right with the route of the ‘sting operation’. Our legalsystem, like most today, is based on the centrality of the conscious subject.Thus for example, one cannot compel an individual to give evidence against oneself.Despite the unpopularity of this idea among various segments of people, to dootherwise would result in fairly authoritarian systems, which would absolutelyundermine the freedom and dignity of the individual.

Faithful readers of the GomantakTimes will realize that reference is being made here to the sting operation conducted by the journalist Mayabhushan Nagvekar against the ‘paid news’services that the O Heraldo seems to offer. The point of this column is not tocondemn Nagvekar for his operation, nor to hastily condemn the O Heraldo beforethe whole episode has been investigated and run its course. The aim of thiscolumn is to explore the suggestions made by the editor of the O Heraldo in hisresponse, to Nagvekar’s charge.

The editor's statement to the allegations by Nagvekar, published on the website of MXMIndia, suggested that ‘Herald is the only newspaper which used thetag “advertorial” on top of their news pages so that the difference betweeneditorial and advertorial is clearly established.’ This suggestion seeks todraw a line between the practices effected by O Heraldo and other newspapers.The editor is suggesting here, that in doing so, O Heraldo, is in fact the moreethical of the pack. If this is true, this is a fair statement to make.However, the question we should be asking is whether it is ethical in the firstplace to allow “advertorials” in a newspaper, whether indicated as such, orsimply placed there for the unsuspecting to swallow, hook, line and sinker.

It appears that we are notsurprised today when a newspaper is seen as a commercial institution, geared towardgenerating a profit for its owners. We must not forget however, that thenewspaper has come into this position of being able to generate profitprimarily because it served larger ends. This larger end was the creation ofthe informed public sphere, or civil society, the basis of the modern bourgeoisdemocracy. The very notion of the publicsphere is based on numerous ideas of honour. The idea that ‘the public’ is of value, is educated, thus worthy ofhonour demonstrated in the form of presenting one’s idea passionately, withoutguile or artifice. This presentation of an opinion also relied on the idea ofthe honour of the writer, the journalist, who staked his honour on thisguileless presentation. Finally, is the idea of civil society, where unlike inthe ancien regime where decisionswere made without reference to the people, reached through privatearrangements, governance would be effected through the results of opendiscussion.

The newspaper served thus as amouth-piece for ideological groups, each group proclaiming its position,creating through this process of publication, and reading, and subsequentresponse, the public sphere, a democratic space that could be relied on by theGovernment to carry on its task of responsible and responsive governance.Profit comes late into this equation, initially as a means to sustain aninitiative, and convert a good idea, into an institution. The newspaper solditself initially on the idea that what was being presented was an idea,unburdened by guile, personal or corporate profit. Indeed, the respect, thealmost unparalleled access that the journalist receives is based on thishistory, this expectation that the journalist is representing one’s honourableopinion, one based on convictions, not on other extraneous circumstances.

One would be hard pressed tosuggest that the ‘advertorial’ matches up to this hallowed history. Under theset of circumstances that create the advertorial, the journalist is not someonewho presents her impassioned opinion, or a balanced review of a position. Onthe contrary, the journalist is now a hired hand. You pay money to thejournalist, and the journalist is commissioned like some portraiture artist topaint a flattering likeness of the situation or person being presented to the readingpublic.

There is another possibilityhowever that does not violate the political traditions of the newspaper as aninstitution. This is when the advertorial is not crafted by a journalist whoworks at the newspaper, but is merely a public relations agent. The job of thisagent is precisely to be this hired hand – though one hopes that such agentsalso have ethical considerations that animate them. In such a case, theadvertorial is just another form of the kinds of advertisements that weencounter on the birthday of a politician, of national events when we areforce-fed ‘news’ of the greatness of the politician whose anniversary is beingcelebrated, or of the government in power. To be fair, this tradition, with thedubious exception where the government places ads to lavish praise on theelectoral party in power, is a valid exercise of the public space createdthrough the newspaper. The purpose of the newspaper is to present a point ofview, and if the fan-base of a political leader seek to demonstrate why theylove him, this is a part of the newspaper’s political tradition. We need to remember however, that where the elected representative is treated as a king, relations between the representative and the electorate are not the ideal relationship one imagines where representative is responsible to the electorate, or to a wider public, but one between subject and King.

Where the advertorial stepsoutside of the political tradition is when it takes up editorial space proper.When money alone determines what becomes news and what not. In the cynical worldof late capitalism this position may not be shocking, but as idealistdemocrats, we reserve our right to be shocked by this practice. We reserve thisright to be shocked because the point of a democracy is that whether rich orpoor, everyone has the equal right to speak and to be heard. In a democracy,the poor especially have a right to have access to institutional frameworksthat will speak truth to power. When money begins to start determining whatmakes it to the editorial page and what not, then democracy is in big, bigtrouble. When money determines whether a citizen is able to prove her point, ornot, then democracy is in even deeper trouble.

Given the age of the O Heraldo, and the rich political history ofGoa that it represents, we owe to it the opportunity of believing it when itsEditor suggests that they were striving to be honest to the politicaltraditions of the newspaper when they indicate whether an item in the newspaperis ‘advertorial’ or ‘editorial’. However, may we also suggest to the Herald,that perhaps this distinction that they employ is riddled with problems, and itbehooves them to move beyond this practice that has so unfortunately taken rootin our democracy?

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 2 Nov 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Mobile Connections

2011-11-02T05:56:00.000-07:00

Sometime before the Portuguese economic crisis could get compounded to the even greater mess it is now in; when Portugal was seeking financial aid from the European Union and a right-wing Finnish political party threatened to block this possibility, a highly entertaining and enlightening video made its appearance. This video, which premiered at the Estoril Conferences, soon made its way to the internet, where it continues to educate the world about the Portuguese, their achievements and their idiosyncracies. Did you know, for example, that the Portuguese have more mobile phones that inhabitants?

It took a while to make sense of this bit of information. How could this be possible? Unlike the irrepressible human, mobile phones don’t just jump off the shelf and procreate. How then to explain this multiplication? The first logical step was to recognize that unlike in the ‘old days’ when a mobile phone was expensive, today even younger persons have the option to gain a mobile phone. But acknowledging this possibility does not indicate how the number of mobile phones outstrips the inhabitants (not just the Portuguese nationals) in the country. The easy answer it turned out was that almost every Portuguese has at least two mobile phones. Some even have three.

The easy question having been answered, the next question was why would any person want more than one phone? What earthly reason could motivate a person to collect phones in this manner? Was there some unique social need that the mobile phone was enabling? For example, as a conversation with a social activist in Goa pointed out, the mobile phone does meet a variety of social needs in Goa. In circumstances where physical privacy is hard to procure, and where romantic intimacy outside of marriage exists but is socially unacceptable, the mobile phone manages to provide the space that is not otherwise unavailable. If such is the case in Goa then, is it possible that the mobile phone is being put to similar use in Portugal? Could it be that there is one phone for use with the family, and another phone, whose number is handed out to paramours and the like, the existence of whom is unknown to the family?

Sadly it turns out, such flights of fancy cannot be sustained, given that the answer was once more or less straight forward. It turns out that there are around three major mobile phone service providers in Portugal; Optimus, TMN, Vodafone (listed in alphabetical order). Each of these service providers, in a bid to gain a large a share of the market as possible, offer schemes where for a little extra cash, one can speak for an unlimited amount to phones within the same service network. It turns out therefore, that when one has a large social network, and one wishes to be in touch with them all the time and not crimp on the amount of time spent on the phone, having more than one phone and enrolling in these loyalty schemes allows one to talk as much as possible.

There are other questions that emerge from this revelation. These are questions about what this kind of arrangement indicates about the Portuguese economy as well as society. One of the features of Portuguese society is the tight relations that exist not just among family, but among friend circles as well. Could the owning of multiple cell phones be another strategy through which Portuguese society innovatively harnesses technology and the market to maintain these kinds of solidarity networks? These however, are questions for another day.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 30 Oct 2011)

Preaching to the Choir: Tourism, Sexuality and the Church

2011-10-27T02:34:00.000-07:00

There is good reason for the representatives and leaders of the Archdiocese of Goa to be terrified when they are reported to be on the same side as the Hindu Right on any issue. Regardless of whether they have a valid point or not, the Hindu Right seeks not to encourage a discussion, but to impose its fiat, and quell discussion. The Catholic Church in India, like any of the other minorities cannot afford to lend its shoulder, willingly or unwillingly, to such a power, no matter what the provocation, for eventually, this power that they support, will grow to consume them.

The reference is obviously to the debacle surrounding the cancellation of the ‘knowledge session’ on LGBT tourism at the Goa International Travel Mart. Most news reports on this episode suggested that Hindu rightwing groups, and the Catholic Church were in solidarity on this issue. When spokesperson for the Bharat Swabhiman trust Kamlesh Bandekar indicated that they would “lobby hard with…like-minded people against such a trend” one wonders if he had the Catholic Church in mind.

If one is not to join forces with the likes of the Hindu Right, then the option for democratically inclined individuals and groups is not to oppose outright, but to engage in critique. Critique then, is what this column will attempt, not only the Government’s plan, but of the response of the Archdiocese, through its social justice organ the Centre for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP).

The statement of the CSJP was deeply disturbing because it seems to have drawn from a well of homophobia, of the kind that has led to violent hate acts against persons of different sexuality. In suggesting in its statement that, “The organisers have stayed short of including paedophiles in their list, since child sex is also a preference of a few” the CSJP is making a number of critical mistakes. Sexual acts between members of the same sex are based on consent between two adults. Paedophilia is markedly not based on this consent. Furthermore, relations between homosexual persons are not based on sex alone. It is also, and primarily the desire of persons of the same sex to emotionally relate to each other. Finally, transgendered persons are markedly not about sex, but about gender change. The CSJP seems to have not realised that sexuality is not about sex alone.

In phrasing its statement the way it has, the CSJP appears to have drawn on the kind of phobic stereotypes that see people of differing sexuality as sex-crazed, immoral seducers and rapists. This is not just unfortunate, but profoundly irresponsible, because it is these sorts of positions that encourage society to the violence against these groups. Furthermore, this hate-act stands in violent contrast to the position of the universal Catholic Church. No matter what our differences with the position of the Church, one has to admit that it has actively sought to not engage in, or condone, homophobic violence. In its critical document, ‘Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons’; the emphasis is, as you will see, ‘care’. The statement of the CSJP is thus not only guilty in light of secular principles, but also in light of the larger principle established by the Church.

This column is not a defence of the plans of the Dept. of Tourism. It is merely the desire to see in operation a more humane and critical approach to the situation. Indeed from within the Christian oeuvre, the reported statement of Fr. Francisco Caldeira, "We cannot alienate these people. No one can prevent them from coming here, but why does the government need to be oriented towards them," is much more acceptable, and can form the basis of reasonable critique of the Department’s plans.

The basis of the social teaching of the church rests, among other fundamental principles, on a recognition of the dignity of the individual. From the reports available, it is not clear what exactly the Tourism department had planned. Some suggest that what was being attempted was merely a sensitization to LGBT issues, which judging from the statement of the CSJP would have been highly welcome. However, the explanations offered in the wake of the hullabaloo reveal another, not surprising dimension of the tourism industry. The statements of Rika Jean-Francois, Thomas Bomkes, who represented international industry, and those of State tourism director Swapnil Naik indicate that what motivates the agenda is not only a desire to humanely respond to the needs of LGBT persons, but to also exploit their difference commercially. This would follow the trend in large parts of the world where LGBT right are recognized, where what was originally a movement for the recognition to be able to love (in the sense of an emotional relation) without prejudice, has largely been commercially colonized to allow persons to have sex. This arrangement is perverse given that not only is the individual exploited by the system itself, but under the influence of this system, individuals tend to see others merely as providers of sexual pleasure. As with most forms of consumerist exploitation, that allow us to feel like we are exercising a choice, after the initial buzz of hedonist indulgence, we are left with the same craving for affection that we started out with.

The dilemma of contemporary times however, is that the two come in a package. For all its problems, the tourism industry has also been the vehicle for great amounts of liberation. Despite initial opposition, by the Church and segments of Goa’s elite, tourism was the critical tool that allowed for a widespread destruction of the feudal system in Goa, offering otherwise impoverished tenants the economic options to materially improve their lives. It allowed women and children to escape patriarchal abuse, even as they continue to uphold the standard model of the family. If we have not been able to prevent this material explosion from sliding into the desert of the soul that tourism in Goa now represents, then it is because we have failed our mission. It is a failing of the Church, of the Department of Tourism, and of our society at large, that it has not been able to use this material wealth to allow for a concomitant explosion of the intellectual and sentimental (both being forms of the spiritual) options of those who have been materially liberated.

There are two images of the Church that I hold particularly dear, the first of the Church as confessor, a spiritual and moral guide; the second, that of the Church as pilgrim. The pilgrim stands as a symbol of one who is cognizant of not holding the entire truth, and simultaneously vulnerable, bereft of power, and yet committed to the journey. We may be well-served by these images when we contemplate the response of the Church to situations that demand a response. As a pilgrim Church, we are not in the position to dictate or command. More so in the context of the rise of an authoritarian power like the Hindu Right. We cannot comprehend the manner in which an act that on the surface appears abominable may bring liberation. As such, the job of the pilgrim confessor is to accompany us, whispering insistently at all times the options before us, actively constructing alternative paths for us to follow. In addition to being unacceptably homophobic, the CSJP in its statement seems to have held out the Goan social structure as based on an unblemished moral and value system. Something it is not, and never ever was. We would benefit more perhaps, if rather than flinging diktats, it accompanied Goan society; insistently, even to our annoyance, being our moral compass, while simultaneously leaving us, as does its image of God the Father, free choice.

(A version was first published in the Gomantak Times 26 Oct 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Sabores do racismo

2011-10-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

Writing in The Guardian some time ago, and dealing with the issue of racism in Portugal, Joana Gorjão Henriques, a Portuguese journalist wrote that ‘Even though Portugal has racial profiling, race crime and the daily subordination of black people by whites, most Portuguese would deny that their country has significant "racial problems" – that's what they have in America, France or the UK. Such attitudes are a hangover from the dictatorship years and the “luso-tropicalism” ideology created by the Brazilian Gilberto Freyre in the 1950s, which spread the idea that the Portuguese were better colonisers – and that ongoing British or French soul-searching over race was a result of “bad colonizing”.

This is the curious feature of Portugal, in that as much as they aver that things have changed since the bad days of the Estado Novo, and things have changed, some things still remain; perhaps not the same but they linger. But this is another matter, and perhaps we should stick to discussing racism.

The problem perhaps lies in the fact that when we (or ‘the Portuguese’) think about racism, we think of dramatic occurrences, ‘significant racial problems’. In doing so, we seem to excuse the small, hidden acts of racism that we effect on a daily basis, that lay the basis for the more significant acts to emerge. If we acknowledged these small acts, we would realize that racism inheres not in the dramatic acts, but in these small quotidian actions. Take for example the simple act in which we brush away the ‘coloured’ peddler of wares, or jump back, even if ever so imperceptibly, when a person of colour approaches us.

Bairro Alto, one of Lisbon’s more popular night-spots has a number of street-vendors who seem to have racially divided their occupations. If ‘the Africans’ sell you beads and trinkets, the South Asians sell you roses and toys that flash with light, and the Portuguese-Gypsies politely offer you ‘drugs’ of various sorts.

It is with this background that the reader should imagine me setting off, rather dandily, on one of my first evenings in Lisbon to a dinner party. Being ever so well-brought up, I had in hand a designer bouquet for the hostess. Stopping enroute, at the Jardim Principe Real, not too far from Bairro Alto, I approached (what I presumed to be) a lady to ask for directions. The response left me bewildered for what I received was a rather rude brush-off as she rushed away saying ‘No, no, no’. Scratching my head in bewilderment, it too me some time to realize that the bouquet in my head (and probably the colour of my face) gave the good lady cause to assume I was trying to sell her my bouquet! Or take the example when another lady, seemed somewhat nervous – she actually jumped back - when I approached her (admittedly in the less secure Intendente neighbourhood) for directions to my destination.

Two swallows admittedly do not make a summer, and this is not to argue therefore that ‘the Portuguese’ are racist. It merely illustrates some of the possible flavours of racism. Indeed, one should inquire into my own South-Asian racism, when my response to such racism is to point indignantly to my class location, given that our class locations allow us so often to operate as white. One could also inquire, whether like most South Asians from a certain background, I am also not reading race whenever my ego is bruised by someone whose respect I merely take for granted. And yet, each of these inquiries should not prevent the partner in these encounters to inquire if they too sniff the odour of racism in their actions.

To repeat a point and elaborate somewhat, racism should be understood as inhering not merely in the dramatic and violent acts that attract our attention, but also in the quotidian acts that draw from gut instinct, preconceptions, and unconscious reactions. It would be impossible to deny that any of us is not racist, given that the contemporary world order is still recovering from its colonial past, a past that was actively based on racial stereotypes. If we can recognize that in this game of racism, it is not just about aggressors and the violated, but also about all of us participating in a market where we use racist ideas as capital to build on in whatever form, then perhaps we can get away from these ridiculous suggestions that we are not racist and begin to examine what exactly are the ingredients that contribute to the peculiar flavour of our individual racism.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 16 Oct 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Little fascists in training

2011-10-07T02:31:00.000-07:00

Last week this column discussed the peculiar traditions that mark the beginning of the academic term in the university and associated institutions in Lisbon, when students dress up in an antiquated dress (traje) and engage in ragging (praxe) the new students (caloiros).

Perhaps it is the wistfulness that comes with age, but there is something remarkably heart-warming about seeing young men and women, dress up and attempt to be adults. Traje it appears is also about self-importance, when these young people can shed their regular sneakers and clothes, and dress in capes, suits, and trot around in formal shoes. This self-importance however also comes at the cost of engaging in a sometimes disrespectful and humiliating manner with the caloiro. But all of this pales in comparison with the somewhat distressing features of the institutional format in which all of this praxe is carried out; elements that make it look, at least superficially, scarily fascist in appearance.

Fascism in its European version had an obsession with spectacle. Thus there is a concert between uniforms, a massing of people (or bodies), and the choreographing of ritual performances for this proto-mob to follow. Added to all of this, was the fascination with the medieval, and more particularly Roman imagery, thus salutes, banners and flags, oh yes, lots of flags.

Fast forward to an institute in Lisbon, that is the basis for the observations of this column, and you have a disturbingly similar correspondence to these elements of populism and fascism. The traje of the senior students is only part of the uniformed element of the praxe spectacle. The senior students in their black robes in fact operate as ‘officers’ to the recruits to the little armies of caloiros that they amass from their department. Each department enforces its own little ‘uniform’ onto their caloiros, of articulating a clever theme for the group. In addition to persecuting their individual brands of praxe, the senior students of the departments, also march the caloiros from time to time, to a courtyard in the institution, where caloiros and senior students from all the departments gather. Each department carries its own little Roman-standard-like banner, and one beholds the different groups, marked by their colours, yet united in the noisy ritual they perform together. It is an infernal din that they create together, each department yelling its chant, trying to outdo the other departments, giving the impression of a revolution or war at hand.

The most disturbing element of this entire performance however is the ‘Fuhrer balcony’ that gets incorporated into the process. The ‘Fuhrer balcony’ is the name given to the balconies that either got built on to buildings, or were used by the Fuhrer to address the adulating masses of the Nazi Reich. In any case, there is something profoundly hierarchical about a group of persons being addressed by a select elite located on an elevated platform, whether a stage or a balcony. In the case of praxe in this particular institution, in almost every setting they have chosen, a balcony has manifested itself. From this balcony, the directions for the entire performance are called out via a microphone, by a group of senior students in traje. Some of these are actively engaged in the process, others, lounge about ever so casually, marking their superiority by an apparently disinterested manner; the militarist manner of the whole drama terrifyingly obvious.

As pointed out in the last column, praxe, and the rituals that go with it, are subject of some debate in Portugal, many disapproving of it for its apparently rightist tendencies. From the manifestations in this particular Lisbon institute, these critics may have knocked a nail smack on the head!

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 2 October 2011)

Letters from Portugal: Lisboa in Ragtime

2011-10-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

The month of September, that marks the beginning of the school year in Portugal, brings with it a costume change to the capital. It is as if the denizens of Rowling’s wizarding world have shed their inhibitions and have decided to walk openly among the mud-bloods; as if it were Lord Voldemort who had won the great battle and not Harry Potter. The reason for the costume change however is more prosaic, though given the associations with a kind of torture that this costume change accompanies, the Voldemort reference may not be entirely misplaced.

The costume change is effected by senior students in graduate courses, dressing in antiquated styles. The dress or traje includes trousers, waist-coat and a long jacket for me, and stockings, skirt, waist-coat and jacket for women, all of this in black, except for their shirt that is white. Above all of this, these students wrap a cape, once again black, that is either worn on one’s shoulders (and this is what really makes them look wizardly) or folded smartly over their forearm or shoulder.

The purpose of this dressing up is not linked to any curricular requirements. It is not a uniform that one must necessarily wear to attend a lecture. The purpose of this dress seems largely to enable one to mark oneself off from the caloiros, students who have recently joined the university, those we South Asia would call ‘freshers’. The point of this costume change then is extra-curricular, to facilitate what the Portuguese call Praxe and what South Asians would call ‘ragging’.

The change of dress may not be necessary to participate in praxe, but it does provide the senior students with a spectacular advantage, as dressed in their antiquated garb they line the freshers up and subject them to ridiculous, and sometimes unwelcome, tasks. As is ragging in South Asia, similarly in Portugal, praxe is the subject of some debate, many holding that the practice is quite undesirable, given the excesses that it can sometimes lead to. One of my first encounters with praxe, was graffiti on the walls of a university building that eloquently screamed, ‘Praxe Não!’ Others however, hold the usual defense for the practice, it allows for fresh entrants into the university system, a forge new bonds, not only with their fellow oppressed juniors, but also with the seniors who enjoy the brief opportunity to humiliate them. In addition to this, a part of the praxe tradition seems to be the allocations of a padrinho or god-parent, who walks the caloiro through the intricacies of life in university in the first couple of weeks. It is pointed out that very often, these students are persons who have only recently come into Lisbon from the rural areas from across the country, and this is a fine way to counter the anonymity they may experience. Indeed, all too often one sees the complete abandon with which some students participate in being praxe-d (?).

There are moments when one can has to marvel at the ingenuity of the senior students who devise the routines for the juniors. There was this one memorable routine whose theme seemed to be ‘Under the Sea’. Some of the caloiros were provided with flippers and scuba-diving gear, others made to hold up little fish motifs and wait by the traffic lights. As long as the pedestrian light was green, these students were made to ‘swim’ back and forth across either bank of the road, providing much mirth to the persons in vehicles awaiting their own green light.

Such acts of transgression of boundaries, from outside of the university or institute campus into the city, at traffic lights, metro stations, side-walks in the city present a stimuli that can be variously received. On the one hand it can be most annoying to have one’s travelling meditations interrupted by quite literally a horde of students, whistling, chanting, being screamed at, jumping all in unison inside the metro carriage. On the other hand however, there is something uniquely liberatory about using, and being able to use, the city as a stage on which to act out one’s ridiculous dramas. One imagines that this sort of spilling over goes that much further to also making the praxe these students engage in that much safer, than when hidden away in the dark corners of an institutional campus.

(A version of this post was first published in the O Heraldo 18 Sept 2011)

A Goan Identity: Between a rock and a hard place

2011-09-14T06:31:00.000-07:00

Read any tract that deals with the Goan identity, especially one that has to grapple with the Portuguese and Catholic elements in this identity and you will run up into a protest. Practically every author will take pains to point out that while the Goan is culturally influenced by the Portuguese, there was practically none of the famous Portuguese miscegenation in Goa. This is to say that the Goan remains by blood and genetics, a 100% ‘Indian’.

This statement could be seen as the necessary rhetoric by a minority group threatened by the Indian action that forcibly integrated Goa into the Indian Union. Indeed, such a statement today does a play a role in affirming the ‘Indian-ness’ of the Goan, by suggesting that unlike some kinds of Indian Muslims for example, these Goans do not come from ‘outside’, nor are they the descendants of ‘invaders’.

To stop at this explanation however, would ignore the much longer and complex history of this representation of what constitutes the Goan gene pool, for the fact is that these sorts of statements were being made much before the Indian Union ever came into existence. A good number of scholars love to point to the famous statement by Francisco Luis Gomes when he was an MP representing Goa in the Portuguese Parliament, where he claimed that he belonged to the land that crafted the famous Mahabhrarata. This statement is often given as an example of his nascent ‘Indian’ nationalism. This affirmation may unfortunately be somewhat misleading however since Luis Gomes was making this argument in an entirely different context, that the Goan people (and by this he meant the native elites) came from an ancient civilization, and being so civilized, did not particularly need a benevolent hand from Lisbon to run the territory, they could do so quite well themselves. When reading this argument today, we should not forget that this argument was made in a context where the ‘native elites’ (the Brahmins and the Chardos) were locked in a caste battle, not only with each other, but also against the local ‘Portuguese’ i.e. the Luso-descendents, who proudly claimed a Portuguese lineage. The history and presence of this group in Goa is largely erased, and when recalled they are remembered only as simpletons, or as cruel persons. Both these memories, it should be recognized, as memories ascribed by groups who were their opponents in a bitter fight for power over control of the territory.

Thus the peculiarly Goan affirmation of one’s pure blood and cultural mixture had a definite political context even in colonial times. It indicated that one was a member, and legitimate descendant of an ancient culture, while at the same time claiming the civilizing benefits of ‘Western’ culture. For the native elite at the time, it was a win-win argument.

This argument was far from the truth however, since there were marriages (and products outside of marriage as well) both among the native elites, as well as the non-elite classes. All these groups had relationships with people from metropolitan Portugal, from Africa, from China, and the claim to pure blood is largely a fiction that exists only because it serves a political purpose. Seen from a secular perspective however, this argument privileges caste superiority. It affirms a brahmanical model for the country and hence is an argument that as secularists we would do well to abandon. Indeed, it is possible for us to take this myth of sanguinary purity seriously, because we actually take the caste myth seriously in the first place, assuming that caste was in fact always a stable and rigid social formation, whose rules were always followed. A politically correct Goan identity therefore would not harp on blood purity, but amiably acknowledge the possibility of sanguinary admixture. How does it matter after all whether we are bearers of Lusitanian or Central Asian blood?

But life is never that simple is it? While living in Portugal, one is often met with delighted responses from metropolitan Portuguese who assume the Portuguese family-name that many Goans carry as a mark of Portuguese antecedents. There are a good number of metropolitan (or continental) Portuguese who are in love with the idea of their forefathers having traveled the world, leaving both a genetic and cultural presence there. While gratifying at an immediate level, these responses are simultaneously somewhat offensive. These responses are offensive because the embrace that it comes with is not based on the acceptance of difference, but because of a rejection of difference. Thus the embrace is warmer and longer if one is assumed to be the descendant of the traveling Portuguese of yore. A more sympathetic reading of Francisco Luis Gomes would admit that perhaps the good man and his compatriots were similarly fighting for a recognition of difference and the ability to self-govern, and unfortunately got dragged into the affirmation of caste for reasons that can be understood, but definitely not perpetuated today.

The politically correct Goan is faced with a pretty pickle as a result of this situation. When based in the subcontinent, political correctness demands that we affirm the possibilities of miscegenation. Not just with the Portuguese from the continent, but the Portuguese from Africa and other parts of the Portuguese empire, as well as with other groups across the world. When in continental Portugal however, one is faced with the need to refuse continental antecedents, primarily because one wishes to ensure that recognition of cultural brotherhood is based on the acceptance of cultural and sanguinary diversity. Also, we aren’t really in this game of rejecting a ‘pure’ South Asian lineage merely to wind up affirming some kind of cultural superiority of Western Europe. We are ‘Portuguese’ not because we have Lusitanian blood, or speak the Portuguese language, but also because we lived under the umbrella of Portuguese sovereignty, bound by bonds of politics and law, and now after all of this has passed, by an affective relationship that ties us to spaces beyond metropolitan Portugal, but places scattered around the world.

A contemporary and politically correct Goan identity, is one that is caught between a rock and a hard place. It would be appropriate to suggest that the construction of this Goan identity is akin to having one’s feet in two boats at the same time and having to jump from one boat to the other, constantly at the risk of falling into the perilous waters below. The point however is that in facing this admittedly tricky situation, we may in fact be working towards a situation in the future, when we ensure that both the Goan and other social groups, do not have to jump between boats or straddle worlds uncomfortably, but sit comfortable in one comfortable bark. The power of a Goan identity that is inclusive of the complex history of the territory is as yet unrealized, for it holds within it the power to alter the way we take for granted phrases that we today take for granted. Such exclusive phrases such as 'European'. To achieve this larger humanitarian end, our current discomfort would be well worth it.

(A version of this post was first published in the Gomantak Times 14 Sept 2011)

Letters from Lisbon: Of Gates and Cyclical Time

2011-09-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

Lisbon used to be an Arab city once. At any rate it was ruled by Arabic speakers. Some time in the tenth century, the Portuguese King supported by Frankish crusaders began their attack on the Arab kingdoms in the region and captured the city from the Arabs after a successful siege of the city in 1147.

Given the importance that Lisbon would assume for Portugal, a number of legends grew around the capture of the city. One of these legends surrounds the figure of Martim Moniz. A Frankish noble, Moniz is said to thrust himself into the gates of the castle as they were being shut by the defending Arabs. As per the legend, Moniz was either jammed by the doors or cut down in the course of his valiant attempt. His attempt however, resulted in the gate eventually being overwhelmed, allowing the Crusaders entry into the castle and eventual victory.

Moniz was immortalized by naming one of the gates of the castle after him and later by the naming of a square, Praça Martim Moniz in the city below. Today the Praça Martim Moniz is an interesting space, giving its name to the neighbourhood around it. Architecturally, it is a huge, horrifically ugly modernist nightmare. The square in its current formation is the result of the Estado Novo’s attempts to modernise the city. In the process of that modernization attempt, large portions of the Mouraria (the old Moorish quarter) had been destroyed. Today we would mourn the destruction of that loss, given that it is the Arabic feel of the old city, its narrow lanes, the buildings clinging tightly, together that draws the tourist sighs, and more importantly their Euros. But perhaps the damage to the Mouraria had already been too far gone, and the only option was to push forward with the modernist experiment. The ugliness of some of the buildings that skirt the Praça must be seen to be believed. These monstrosities could only have come from hell!

Almost ironically though, if Martim Moniz jammed the gates of the castle to drive out the Arabs and fashion the city as a decidedly Christian space, his memory seems to be playing the same role all over again. The neighbourhoods around Praça Martim Moniz, today play host to large portions of the lower income migrants to Portugal. These migrants come from the Punjab (both Pakistani and Indian), Bangladesh, Brazil, Angola and Moçambique, and almost amusingly, from the same Muslim North Africa whose people Moniz originally fought against. Around the Praça one finds Chinese stores selling fashion for the thrifty, South-Asian stores that allow you to breathe in the scents of home, and restaurants (both legal and illegal) offering Africa and Chinese food. Descend into the two commercial centres that stand on the square and you could sometimes imagine yourself in an oriental bazaar and encourage the idea that the Arabs never left Al-Isbuna. Some of the more secure Lisboetas celebrate Martim Moniz as their own centre of multiculturalism.

The red and green republican flag of Portugal flutters over the castle Moniz’s sacrifice won. There are times when in the Praça Martim Moniz, playing on the Islamic confession of the migrants, I joke with friends; ‘You see that flag fluttering up there on the hill? Someday, inshallah, that flag will be all green. And ‘we’ shall have returned’.